Tara rubbed her eyes, hiding a yawn. She’d stayed late at work every night this week, plus she’d worked all weekend to get these damn spreadsheets finished.
She’d needed to get back into Tim’s good graces. He’d had a fit when she was late last week, and had actually given her a verbal warning. She’d been horrified. She’d panicked a little. She couldn’t lose this job.
“I’m going home now,” Tim said as he walked past her desk. He glanced down at her coldly. “I trust that we won’t have a repeat of the other morning.”
“No, sir.”
How long was he going to milk this? She’d worked for him for over a year and she’d been late once. She’d more than made up the time.
Damn, she’d love to tell him where he could stick his job. She’d worked long hours this last week, but he still looked at her with contempt.
“Good.” He handed her a pen drive. “Here are some files I’ve been working on. I need these tidied up and formatted. Why don’t you take it home and work on it.”
He walked out the door without another word. How the hell did his wife put up with him? Tara had met his wife, Gemma. She was a lovely woman. Sweet, quiet and totally undeserving of an asshole like Tim.
Sighing, Tara slipped the pen drive into her pocket so she wouldn’t lose it. She really wished he wouldn’t use pen drives, they were so easy to misplace. But Tim stubbornly insisted on using them.
“Hey, Tara, what are you still doing here?”
Tara glanced up to see Eloise standing in the doorway. Eloise was the personal assistant to Tim’s business partner, Ryan. She’d only worked here a few months. She was nice enough, but a bit quiet.
“I could ask the same of you,” Tara said with a smile.
Eloise attempted a smile back, but she looked nervous.
“I thought I’d stay back and finish some work. I just saw Tim leave and thought I’d head home.”
Tara often wondered if Eloise had a crush on Tim. She kept track of his whereabouts better than Tara did. She’d noticed Eloise watching him closely a few times. The other girl had to know that he was happily married.
“I’ll be here a few more hours yet.”
“Anything I can help with?” Eloise asked.
“Not unless you have a mad desire for formatting. Tim just gave me a pen drive full of work to do at home.” He was so generous.
“Including the Henderson bid?” Eloise asked.
Tara looked up at her. “Could be, I haven’t looked. Why?”
Eloise was acting odd. Odder than usual.
“Oh, no reason.” She laughed, but it sounded fake. Tara had grown good at reading body signals and Eloise seemed nervous and out of sorts. “I just heard Tim and Ryan talking about the Henderson bid earlier and it sounded interesting.”
The Henderson bid was a big one. If they won this it would mean work for the next three years.
“I could do that formatting for you if you wanted,” Eloise offered.
Tara had a really uncomfortable feeling about handing over the pen drive to the other woman.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll get it done. Thanks though.”
Eloise’s face tightened up. “Sure. No problem.”
Eloise left and Tara returned to the spreadsheet, working for another two hours to get it finished. By the time she was done, she was so tired she was practically seeing double.
She grabbed her work phone and put it in her bag. She pulled out her personal phone. She’d put it on silent and hadn’t had time to check it.
Ten missed calls from Alex. Crap. This last week they’d only managed to spend two nights together at his place. They hadn’t even gotten around to signing a contract—all of their time together had been spent in bed. The sex was amazing. He was sexy, dominating and hot. Very, very hot. Tara knew she was going to find it hard when this ended.