Chapter 15 Keep The Change
Noah’s POV
Even by my own standards, I’m in a terrible mood on Monday morning. I had the weekend from hell. There was a leak in my apartment and I spent the entire two day break hunting down a plumber. My kitchen is ruined. Like utterly destroyed.
Eden is waiting for the elevator when I get there. She has a coffee in her hand and it smells divine. I would kill for a cup right about now.
“Miss Winters,” I say a little bit sharper than I intend.
“Mr Grisham,” she replies after a slight jump.
“Have you drunk any of that?” I eye her drink.
“Er… Not yet.”
“Great,” I say, taking it from her.
She glowers at me as I take a gulp.
“That was mine!” she complains.
“Yup,” I agree, nodding my head.
She’s clearly not impressed and I can’t really say I blame her. If she were to steal my coffee first thing in the morning, I might fire her. Or worse.
Eden reaches to try and take the drink back, clearly unimpressed.
“You can’t just steal my drink,” she says sassily.
“I already have,” I retort, holding it out of her reach.
When the elevator arrives, I stick my foot out keeping it there at the same time as reaching into my jacket pocket for my wallet. I pull out a twenty and pass it to her.
“Go get yourself another one,” I tell her. “I won’t mark you tardy.”
I swear I hear her mumble a curse under her breath but I don’t quite catch it. She goes to speak but I don’t wait for her to say whatever it is. I climb onto the lift and take another sip of her coffee, my eyes on her as the doors close.
At the last moment, I call out, "keep the change."
Leaving my office door open, I wait for her to come back but she doesn’t return for a full thirty minutes. The department is slowly beginning to fill up with staff when she finally makes it back to her desk with a new drink. I consider stealing that one too, just for the fun of it. She’s quite entertaining when she’s annoyed.
“Oi Winters!” I call out.
I’m not really sure why I’ve left the door open or why I’m shouting to her when I could just pick up my phone like I usually do. Eden isn’t impressed, so much so that she actually doesn’t respond. She doesn’t even glance my way.
“Winters!” I try again but still nothing.
She’s reading something and I have no idea what could possibly have her attention so fixated. It’s infuriating.
“Oi WINTERS!” I bark angrily this time and she looks my way blinking in confusion.
Scrambling to her feet, she enters my office hesitantly.
“Did you call me, sir?” she asks politely.
“Send out an email to the team. I want them all in the conference room in ten minutes.”
“Yes sir.”
That’s it. That’s all she says and then she’s leaving my office and returning to her desk. I gather several files, preparing myself for the meeting. After a few moments, I leave my office and stand in front of Eden’s but she doesn’t seem to notice me. She’s not very observant.
She’s pretty though. Her black hair is down today. That’s a first. She usually wears it in a high ponytail. Her cheeks have a slight pink hue to them and her eyes are vivid. They’re a deep green. It’s hard to believe that I’m only now noticing them. They surely don’t go unnoticed often.
I clear my throat and she finally looks up.
“Oh, sir, is there something you need?”
“Time for the meeting,” I tell her. “You’ll need to take the minutes.”
“Yes sir,” she replies.
I really hate all this polite sir crap. No one else around here bothers. I find it infuriating. Striding away in the direction of the conference room, I call back, “hurry up, Winters.”
Once more, she doesn’t look up.
Does she not even know her own name? Daft fool.
As I enter the conference room, everyone goes silent, their chatter coming to an abrupt end.
“Were you talking about me?” I joke, knowing full well that they’re not. They just know I’ll be cross if they waste my time.
They laugh nervously and I can’t help but wonder if I’m wrong and they were talking about me. Either way, I don’t really care. They’d only be calling me a lunatic or something.
“Right,” I say as I take my seat at the head of the table. “Each of you have three minutes to pitch our next bestselling product.”
They groan in unison. It’s ridiculous really. They should have seen this coming. We’ve only been working on smaller projects for the last few weeks. Mostly because Lewis Artie, and his assistant Holly, have been snooping around too much.
“Three minutes?” Stacey grumbles like it’s the first time I’ve set a time limit.
Eden Winters clearly feels sympathy for her; glaring at me, she pats the other girl on the back.
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