Max
I stared at the blank screen and I tried to hold onto my temper. I really did try. But the bastard system had lost my presentation. I’d opened up my computer, and the file just simply wasn’t on my desktop. Hours of my life had been spent on that thing and now I’d spent another bloody half hour trying to find it.
Maybe if I hadn’t already been in a foul mood I would have been able to remain calm. But last night Teddy had come home late again after ignoring my texts and phone calls. The only explanation I seemed to be entitled to, when he finally did arrive home, was a short grunt and an eye roll. It was like I was running a sub-standard hotel, which Ted was less than impressed with, but did deign to stay in at night. I couldn’t even complain that Ted’s grades were slipping: the bloody kid had an IQ through the roof, and sailed through all the exams, completing coursework in front of the telly that would take other students hours of concentration. They only things he struggled with were the computer science assignments, and unfortunately I wasn’t very much help there.
I knew I wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t think I deserved the distain Ted threw my way on a daily basis now.
And then there was Mia. I’d barely seen her since her near-collapse with hypothermia. I couldn’t sleep remembering how cold her hands had been. All I wanted to know was if she was okay, but she dodged me at every turn and barely gave me more than one word answers. It was beginning to piss me off.
“Where is she?” I growled as I flung open Verity’s door and stalked into her office.
“Well, good morning to you too, Max,” V said, sending an apologetic smile across to the junior architect sitting opposite her, looking like a scared rabbit. I put my hands on my hips and scowled down at V.
“I told you we didn’t need that bleeding system upgrade,” I said, my voice rising with my anger. “Now I’ve got owt for all the work I’ve done in the last two days. It’s disappeared into the ether.”
“I’ll just …” the junior was standing next to his chair now and had started sidling out of the room. “See you later Verity, Mr Hardcastle.”
I sent the guy a dirty look, which had him moving faster towards the door.
“Max, please, please stop acting like a total wanker with the support staff. You do realise where we get these people from don’t you? They’re not complete fuckwits I’ve dragged in off the streets. Most of them graduated with firsts from some of the most prestigious architecture schools in the country. A lot of them were prizewinners. There’s a whole sea of talent out there and all you can do is scowl at them. You terrify them when you should be inspiring them. Young architects don’t come here to work with me you know – it’s your work they’ve seen, you they look up to and want to emulate.”
“That’s bullshit,” I grumbled. “And I am nice, goddamn it.”
Verity raised her eyebrows at that blatant lie and I rolled my eyes.
“This is beside the point. I want to know where this bloody technical genius you’ve forced into my company is so she can explain to me where the fuck my presentation has disappeared to. She avoids me like the plague.”
“She doesn’t avoid you. I think she’s just wary since you overreacted the other day to – ”
“I did not overreact!” I thundered at Verity who just crossed her arms over her chest and raised one eyebrow in response.
“Keep your voice down, you overgrown gorilla.” Her calm tone spiked my anger even higher. “Firstly it’s our company, not your company. I know you’re the creative wonder, but you would not have any clients for whom to build your amazing structures if it wasn’t for me and you know it.”
I deflated and looked at my shoes.
“Sorry, V,” I mumbled.
She sighed. “Now, what is the problem?’
“The problem is that an unnecessary upgrade was done to the system by an unnecessary and redundant member of staff that you employed, and who I can’t find because she’s hiding from me … in an office made up entirely of glass! I mean, how is that even possible?”
A throat cleared from the door of Verity’s office, and I spun around to see Mia standing at the threshold. For a moment I felt a little sick. I hadn’t wanted her to actually overhear me calling her redundant and unnecessary but I pushed that aside as my annoyance bubbled to the surface.
“Finally,” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. She took a rapid step back, which only served to irritate me more. “Stop edging away from me every time I even look at you.” The familiar wide-eyed, fearful expression on her face melted into one that looked a whole lot like anger. Her cheeks flooded with more colour than I’d ever seen in them before, and her fists bunched at her sides.
“M-m-maybe …” she stopped for a moment and shook her head as if irritated by her stutter. “Maybe,” she continued in a stronger tone, one I had never heard from her before, “if you treated me with some respect. Maybe if you didn’t sh-sh-shout and throw your weight around like a … a massive toddler. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to try to avoid you, and maybe then I could have explained how easy it is to find files in the new system I’ve set up. Which, by the way, has already increased productivity and wifi speed by thirty percent.” By the end of her little speech she was breathing so fast her nostrils were flaring, and her hands had clenched into such tight fists that her knuckles were white. “Follow me,” she snapped and stalked out of Verity’s office and across to mine.
*****
Mia
What had come over me? As I marched across the office space I could feel the blood pounding in my head and the adrenaline surging through my body. Had I really shouted at Max? Had I really called him a massive toddler? I was shaking as I sat down at his computer and brought his screen to life.
“Everything is in this folder. The one labelled ‘Max’s stuff”,” I said, slicing Max and Verity, both of whom had followed me over here, a look as they stood in the doorway.
“You’re such a frightful dullard, Max,” Verity snapped as she swatted him on the arm. “Say sorry.”
Max shoved his hands deep into his pockets and scuffed his feet on the floor. Despite his size he looked like a reprimanded schoolboy again.
“Sorry,” he told his shoes. Verity nodded then swept out of the office, elbowing Max in the stomach on her way. I sighed, feeling all the adrenaline drain out of me and along with it my fighting spirit. That muttered apology was the best I could expect. In my experience men rarely apologised, so I should be grateful for what I got.
“I can set it up however you want,” I told him. Even though he was still blocking the exit I found that I didn’t feel any of the usual panic. Max might be grumpy and abrasive, but he was far from violent. He may have lacked charm, however I knew all too well that charm didn’t mean anything. Nate was one of the most charming men you could ever meet, but his capacity for violence and cruelty was off the charts.
Max cleared his throat and scuffed the floor again with his foot before looking up at me, his green eyes alight with something that looked a lot like regret.
“Mia, I really am sorry,” he said, and my mouth very nearly dropped open in shock. “I’ve been a proper dickhead. I have a temper and I’m an impatient son of a bitch but I shouldn’t have gone off the deep end like that.”
I blinked and then forced my mouth to close. Okay then, some men did know how to apologise.
“I, er … that’s okay,” I croaked out, my throat closing over. He nodded and moved to the side so I could slip out of his office. On my way past though he reached out and touched my arm to stop me, but this time it was him that flinched back as if the contact had burned him. He cleared his throat as I paused in the doorway. “Mia, about t’other day. You’ve been avoiding me, so I haven’t had the chance to ask but is there owt … ? I mean are you okay?”
The concern in his voice hit me in the gut, nearly winding me. I was really tempted to tell him that no, I was not okay – I was terrified, miserable and so very, very alone. But why would I trust a man who’d called me an emo freak, redundant and unnecessary, and scowled at me like I was an unwanted annoyance every time he’d caught my eye since I’d started working here?
“I’m fine,” I muttered, and heard him sigh.
“If you’re in owt trouble or anything I could … well we’d need to know about it, right?”
I felt in that moment that he had physically struck me. He’d made me believe he felt some concern. But it wasn’t concern for me that had him apologizing and asking if I was okay. It was concern that one of his employees might embarrass his bloody company. Of course, of course he didn’t give a shit about me. I tucked my hair behind my ears and set my jaw. Humiliation, my now familiar companion, rolled through me as I met his assessing gaze. I was well aware that I looked like a heroin addict – that my cheeks were too hollow and my eyes too haunted to be considered normal.
“I’m not going to harm your business,” I told him. “You don’t have to worry about me being a liability.”
That last bit was a lie. I could well prove to be a liability. But I was not going to reveal any of that.
“That’s not what I–”
Turning sharply on my heel I stalked away from him without hearing the rest of what he had to say. I didn’t breathe again until I had made it back to my desk.
Max
I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair as I watched her go. How had I managed to fuck that up again? Nothing I did was ever right with this woman. I had a perpetual case of Arsehole Syndrome around her. But she was hiding something. I knew it. If I was honest with myself though, if it was any other employee I would simply shrug off the nagging suspicion and get on with my life. But with Mia it was like I needed to know her secrets. Like I was compelled to find out everything about her. To the extent I’d poured over her employee file the other day, double checking her date of birth, as I still wasn’t sure she was as old as she claimed.
I just couldn’t seem to get her wide-set, chocolate eyes out of my head. On the rare occasions I could actually get to sleep, I dreamt of her. Weird dreams where she was cold again but this time I engulfed her in my arms, warming her against my body until her shaking subsided. Why on earth would I dream of her? She was so far from my usual type it was almost laughable. Rebecca had been five-foot eleven, ball-breaking, curvaceous and blonde – not skinny, small, make-up-free (other than badly applied eyeliner) and nervous. I needed to get a grip.
I just couldn’t stand the thought of Mia keeping things from me – not my bloody company, me.
Which was ridiculous.
