Under a falling star, p.7
Under a Falling Star, page 7
The door opened again, and another one of their colleagues stuck his head into the outer office. “Wow, did you see Ms. Saunders? Looks like one of the poor souls working for her finally snapped and tried to bash her head in.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. Dee. Danielle Saunders. That was why someone working in mid-level management could afford a BMW and a nice little Victorian in Irvington and why Dee had been able to order Vanessa to get her briefcase before heading to the ER. She wasn’t just a senior manager; she was the company’s COO. The blood rushed from Austen’s face, and she swayed.
Sally stepped closer as if ready to catch her should she fall. “Hey! What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
No. Not a ghost. Just a pathological liar. Austen stumbled to her chair and sank onto it. Her thoughts were racing. Scenes from the hours she’d spent with Dee flashed through her mind. Had Dee secretly laughed at her when she’d talked about Mr. Saunders’s sister and called her Attila? Had it all been just a game to her?
“Ms. Brooks?” Mr. Saunders called from the doorway of his office. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Austen looked up. Oh, no. He’s Dee’s brother. He saw us arrive together, in Dee’s car, with me wearing yesterday’s clothes. And now he wanted to see her in his office—probably not to have her take a letter. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she got up and moved to his office.
He held the door open for her and ushered her inside. “Have a seat.”
The soft carpet that she had admired just yesterday now felt like quicksand, pulling her into a deathly trap, as she crossed toward the visitor’s chair and sank onto it. It was still warm from Dee’s body heat.
Dee. She tightly closed her eyes, then opened them again as Mr. Saunders rounded his desk and sat behind it.
He regarded her across the desk. His eyes were the same color as his sister’s, she realized. He really looked like a male version of Dee.
Her heart clutched as she looked at him.
After several seconds of silence, he cleared his throat.
Austen held her breath and braced herself for what he would say. Did he think she was trying to start an affair with his sister to sleep her way up the career ladder?
“Did you have a chance to get caught up on the correspondence I sent you?” he asked.
Austen slumped against the back of the seat and let the breath she’d been holding escape. He didn’t know. Well, there was nothing to know. Not much, anyway. It had been just a kiss, even if it had felt like the beginning of much more. “Yes, I did.”
“I need a one-page summary of every marketing campaign we’ve done in the last quarter. Do you think you can do that by the end of the day?”
A part of Austen’s confidence returned. This was familiar territory. “Of course, Mr. Saunders. I’ll get started right away.” Glad to escape his office, she jumped up and rushed back to her desk. She would just focus on the job and keep up the professional facade until she could fall apart in her apartment tonight.
* * *
Dee had hidden away in her office all morning, not taking any calls. Not that it had helped with her productivity. She’d spent most of the time watching the cursor flash on her blank computer screen.
When lunchtime came, her stomach started to growl, reminding her that she’d skipped breakfast. She reached over and opened a paper bag containing a blueberry muffin. Austen had lovingly picked it out for her, insisting she have breakfast too. It smelled mouthwatering, but eating it would have felt as if she were taking advantage of a friendliness she didn’t deserve. She closed the bag and leaned back.
Did Austen know who Dee was by now? Probably. Considering the look Sally had given her as Dee was leaving Austen’s office, she had probably told her the instant Dee left. Had Austen become angry? Worse, had she cried?
The thought made Dee’s heart hurt. She could take anger, but the thought of tears in Austen’s eyes… Oh, come on. You’ve barely known each other for twenty-four hours. It’s not like you broke her heart. Maybe Austen had taken it well. She seemed to be the forgiving type.
Only one way to find out—and staying in her office, hiding, wasn’t it. She usually confronted whatever life threw at her head-on, so she would do the same now. If she hurried, she could still catch Austen in the cafeteria.
She took her vest from the back of her chair and put it on but left the suit jacket behind. From the way Austen’s gaze had lingered on her this morning, she guessed that Austen liked how she looked in the vest.
When she reached the cafeteria, it was bustling with activity. The hum of conversation sounded like a beehive. Dee usually didn’t eat there, preferring to wolf down a sandwich in her office and then to get back to work, so she had no idea who sat with whom. She stood in the aisle between tables and craned her neck, looking for the marketing team and one auburn head in particular.
Someone with a tray slammed into her back.
Growling, Dee whirled. Her sharp reprimand died on her lips, and her breath caught. Austen.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t pay attention to—” Austen looked up from her frantic attempts to balance the orange juice on her tray. The color drained from her face. “Dee!”
Dee smiled at her.
Austen didn’t smile back. “I mean…Ms. Saunders.”
So she knew. And clearly, she wasn’t in the mood for forgiveness.
Before Dee could think of something to say, Austen grabbed her tray more securely and shouldered past her.
“Austen!”
Austen stopped, every part of her body stiff with tension. Slowly, she turned back around and glared at Dee. “Don’t call me that.” Her voice was low, but it still cut like steel.
“Aus—” Dee bit her lip. “Please. Let’s talk. Give me a chance to explain.”
“I’m afraid I have to get back to work, Ms. Saunders. Your brother needs a one-page summary of all marketing campaigns in the last quarter, so I have to hurry if I want to get any lunch.”
Dee flinched at being called Ms. Saunders in such a cool, formal tone. Gone was the warmth and affection she’d seen sparkling in those gorgeous sapphire eyes yesterday. “Give me one minute. You can eat while I talk.”
“You should have told me yesterday. Now there’s nothing left to talk about.” Austen pushed past her. Her colleagues from marketing waved at her to join them, so she walked over and sat at their table. Instead of digging into her food or engaging in conversation, she stared at her pasta without eating.
Great. Just great. Now Austen wouldn’t even listen to what she had to say. Well, what was one more employee who hated her, right? She was used to uncomfortable silence and hostile glances whenever she entered a room. Somehow, though, this felt different.
Sighing, she turned and headed back to her office.
* * *
Toby’s excited screams reached Austen before she even entered her one-bedroom apartment. He was hanging upside down from his cage, close to the door, waiting for her to let him out.
She dropped her wet umbrella, kicked off her shoes, and padded into the living room.
The red light on her answering machine flashed. Probably a call from her best friend, Dawn, wanting to know how her first day at the new job had gone and where she’d been last night.
Austen didn’t walk over to check or call her back. She didn’t know how to explain what had happened in the span of less than forty-eight hours. At least Toby didn’t require any explanations. She went over to his cage and opened the door, glad to see him after the day she’d had.
Using his strong beak, he climbed out of the cage and walked up her arm toward her shoulder, where he sat and made happy grinding sounds with his beak. “Hellooo.”
“Hello, you.” Austen gently scratched behind his crest feathers. “How was your day?”
“Fuck,” he warbled.
Austen managed a smile. “Yeah, mine was pretty fucked up too.”
Toby fluffed up his feathers and started nibbling on her earring.
“Cut it out. That’s not a bird toy.” Austen turned her head away. With Toby still riding on her shoulder, she walked over to the kitchen to get him a few peanuts.
He squawked when he saw the treat and immediately set out to crack the first shell, dropping crumbs everywhere. Finally, when no more peanuts were forthcoming, he tugged on her earring again and imitated the ping of a microwave.
“No, thanks, Toby. I’m not hungry.” She’d been looking forward to having dinner with Dee tonight, but now everything was different.
She flopped down onto the couch, making Toby flap his wings and relocate to her chest. God, I kissed her. Kissed our COO. She ran her fingers over her lips.
“Yummy, yummy, yummy,” Toby said.
Austen scowled at him. “No, it wasn’t yummy at all.”
Toby let out a wolf whistle.
“Okay, maybe it was.” Admittedly, the kiss hadn’t been bad. Quite the opposite. But she would have never kissed her had she known who Dee was.
Dee had taken that choice from her. Worse, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it had all been just a game to Dee. After three years of working hard to overcome feeling like a naive fool who fell for the smooth lines of a liar, she was right back where she had started.
“Loser,” Toby warbled.
Austen squeezed her eyes shut. Yes, that was exactly how she felt.
Chapter 8
A few days later, Austen sat with Sally and Jack in the cafeteria, halfheartedly listening to their conversation without contributing to it.
“Sushi! Can you believe it?” Jack held up a piece of tuna nigiri and dipped it into wasabi.
Usually, Austen would have been as excited about sushi day at the cafeteria as her colleagues were, but she hadn’t had much of an appetite all week—since finding out about Dee—so she just nibbled on her avocado maki.
At the table next to them, some employees from sales were wolfing down sushi as if there were no tomorrow. “Roy said it was one of the toy designers,” one of the women said in a stage whisper loud enough to be heard in half the cafeteria. “Ms. Saunders didn’t like the design for next year’s Halloween costumes, so she went down to development to scream at him in person. That went on for half an hour without her running out of steam. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he took one of the toy sabers and whacked her in the forehead.” She made a swinging motion with her fork, demonstrating.
Austen put down the piece of sushi and shoved her tray back. She’d had to listen to stupid gossip about the cut on Dee’s forehead all week. Every day, the tales about what had happened were getting more ridiculous, making her suspect that many of the rumors about Attila were outright lies or at least exaggerations. What had Dee done to earn the scorn of every single employee at Kudos Entertainment? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be so bad that she deserved to be treated like that, could it?
Oh, yeah? Remember how she lied to you the entire time? So stop defending her!
“Bullshit,” another guy from sales said. “That’s not how it happened, Maria. I heard she tried to get fresh with a young woman during a job interview, so the lady took a letter opener from the desk and nearly stabbed one of Ms. Saunders’s wandering eyes out.”
Okay, now they had passed ridiculous and were quickly approaching slander. At the moment, Dee wasn’t Austen’s favorite person either, but she instinctively knew that Dee would never touch a woman without her consent. The urge to jump up and set the story straight swept through her, but she forced herself to stay where she was. Dee didn’t deserve to be defended.
Determined to forget her, Austen popped a nigiri into her mouth and chewed vigorously. Her jaw froze mid-chew, and her eyes widened as the sting of wasabi flared along the roof of her mouth and burned her tongue. She grabbed her water and gulped it down, then snatched Jack’s glass from his tray and drank his water too. “Jesus!” She fanned herself. “Who put wasabi on my plate?”
“You did,” Jack said.
“No way.” Austen hated wasabi. “I never eat that stuff.”
Sally nodded. “You piled it on your plate like it was mashed potatoes.”
Austen stared down at the heap of wasabi on her plate. I’m really losing it.
“What’s going on with you?” Sally leaned over the table. “You seemed a little distracted all week. This spaced-out airhead routine is not how you usually are, is it?”
“No!” Austen rubbed her cheeks, which were still flushed with the aftereffects of the wasabi. God, she had to get herself together before rumors started flying about her too. “No, of course not. It’s just…”
“Is it Ms. Saunders?” Sally asked, her voice low as if she were giving away state secrets. “You and she…are you…having an affair or something?”
So the rumors were already flying. As soon as she left, the guys from sales would probably start talking about how she had slept with Dee to further her career. Great. “No, of course not. I’ve never seen her in my life before I started working here, so I don’t really know her.” Now her cheeks flushed with more than the wasabi. She hated lying, and a lie of omission was still a lie. How was she any better than Dee?
“Better keep it that way,” Sally said before swiping a salmon temaki through a puddle of soy sauce and biting down on it.
Austen nodded and got up. “Excuse me for a second. I need more water.”
* * *
After five days of getting the silent treatment from Austen, Dee was admittedly getting a little desperate. They had passed each other in the hallway or had ridden up to the fifteenth floor in the same elevator a time or two. Dee had even gone to Austen’s office under the pretense of having to talk to her brother. Each time, Austen had been polite and businesslike but brushed off every attempt at a more personal conversation.
Forget about her. It was only one day, one kiss, and there are other fish in the sea.
But the problem was that the other scaly creatures didn’t keep her attention. Austen was gentle, friendly, and warm, but she was no pushover, and Dee secretly loved that she didn’t let her get away with anything. She wanted to find out more about this fascinating woman. Plus she hated unresolved matters. She was the company’s problem solver, yet she couldn’t even get the newest employee to talk to her. Admittedly, it pricked her pride.
She stared at the phone on her desk. Should she try to call her? No. Austen would just hang up on her or politely direct her call to one of her colleagues.
She glanced at the clock on the wall of her office. Almost five o’clock. Time to wrap up work and head home, at least for all the other employees, who had a life beyond work and a special someone to come home to.
Austen would probably leave on time to feed Toby, her uncouth cockatoo. The memory made Dee smile. She grabbed her jacket and hurried to the elevator.
She’d try just one more time to talk to Austen. Maybe now that she’d had some time to cool down and think about it over the weekend, Austen would be more willing to listen. Christmas, the celebration of love and forgiveness, was right around the corner, after all. Or was that Easter? Dee had never been big on organized religion, so how was she supposed to know? It didn’t matter anyway.
She left the building and took up position next to the main entrance.
At five o’clock on the dot, employees started to file through the doors. Most threw Dee startled glances when they found her lurking in front of the building and then hurried past her as if their shoes were on fire.
Christ. What did they think she was doing? Writing down the name of everyone who didn’t work overtime to report him or her to her uncle, their CEO?
After fifteen minutes of waiting and scaring employees, Dee had enough. If she remembered correctly, Austen took the MAX to work, so she wandered over to the stop right across the street and sat on a bench to wait.
She had forgotten her overcoat in her office, and now the light drizzle soaked her suit jacket. Shivering, she crossed her arms over her chest and tried to think warm thoughts. The memory of kissing Austen did the trick.
A MAX train came and went, then another. Commuters crowded onto them, but still there was no sign of Austen. Had she not been at work today? Had something happened, or was she out sick?
The thought of Austen, all alone at home, suffering through some unknown sickness, made Dee frown. Oh, come on. She has to be in her early thirties. So far, she made it through all the colds and stomach flus just fine without you.
Rain dripped down her back.
Two of their toy designers walked past, doing a double take when they saw her huddling on the bench. They kept sneaking glances at her while they waited for the next train.
Dee growled. She was making a fool of herself, and she had sworn she’d never do that over a woman—yet here she was, shivering in her damp jacket, waiting for a woman who might never show up, and if she did, she might club Dee with her umbrella.
Just when Dee wanted to get up and return to work, a figure crossing the street caught her attention.
Austen! She would know that gentle sway of well-rounded hips anywhere. Slowly, she stood and waited for her to come closer. Her heart was pounding faster than it had during her very first presentation in front of the board. She knew the exact moment when Austen spotted her.
Austen paused on the edge of the sidewalk. Her hand with the umbrella dropped down, and she stood there without its protection, not caring—or not noticing—that she was getting wet.
Not sure Austen would come any closer, Dee walked over. “You’re getting wet,” she said softly, pointing at the umbrella that limply dangled from Austen’s hand.
“You look pretty wet yourself,” Austen said.
Dee shrugged and attempted a grin. “Well, what can I say? Good-looking women have that effect on me.”
The moment she’d said it, she knew it was a mistake. What Austen needed—what she deserved—was a sincere apology, not a lame joke.
