It's Bella's first day at work!
Will Edward be able to keep his distance?
.
Thanks to:
Di, my editor,
Paige, Aileen, Rachel, and Renee, my prereaders.
Stupid Little Game
Chapter 3
My pink and black tux blazer with its matching slim crop pants might be too much for my first day at work, but I didn't care. Sunglasses on, big black purse on my shoulder, I felt fun, invincible, and bulletproof.
I got this, I told myself.
Alice loved it. Her eyes actually flew open wide, and she smiled from ear-to-ear. "You look fine, girl," she said and nodded.
She was the best supervisor I could have hoped for, and not only because she swore as much as I did. Wearing a blue and green floral print blouse tucked into black leather pants, she was short and spritely in killer heels, but her personality was huge.
At first, I'd been worried about dealing with someone who went by two first names. I'd always thought people who did that were either from the hills or pretentious, but she was warm and down-to-earth.
"Oh, shit, don't call me Mary Alice," she told me after I'd done just that. "That name is only for our chi-chi clients who want to feel as if they're dealing with like-minded souls."
"Should my business cards read Isabella Marie Swan, then?"
Alice tapped a finger against her chin. "I think you'll be a huge hit as Bella Swan, honestly. Beautiful swan!" She laughed, then cut herself abruptly short to aim a worried look my way, as if she'd somehow insulted me.
"It's fine, I'm used to it," I said with a shrug, mentally shaking my head again at my sentimental mother.
The name had been used to taunt me when I was younger, but since I'd bloomed, it was more of a friendly joke. I tolerated it, because it stemmed from a name Mom had given me, and I craved anything and everything that reminded me of her.
"Oh, thank God," Alice said with a sigh. "If I'd have offended you on your first day and it affected the way we worked together, Edward would have my damn head on a plate."
Hearing his name made my heart leap and fill with dread. I just wanted to forget he worked here. Hopefully, since the common area was sprawling with rows of numerous cubicles, it would be easy to avoid him.
Six glass-fronted offices lined a wall, one of which was Edward Cullen's. The rest belonged to the other five Division Heads, although none were in yet.
"Colin Smith, our Cofounder and Head of Marketing, works out first thing every morning, then rolls in bursting with energy around nine," Alice explained. "And Stuart Devaney, our other Cofounder and head of Advertising, drops his boys off at school. Both of them are big family men."
Alice walked me around and introduced me to the coworkers I would be working closest with on a daily basis. I forgot everyone's names except for Seth, who was brown-haired with a baby face and a ready smile; and Tanya, who stood almost a head taller than I was, greeting me with a limp handshake and ice in her eyes.
"Just ignore her," Alice whispered dryly as we moved on. "She doesn't like competition."
I looked at her in confusion. "Competition for what?"
"Male attention."
I huffed out a laugh, then bit my tongue. Was I coming to work for The Bold and the Beautiful?
Alice took plenty of time to show me the ropes concerning the three client accounts I was handling, arranging one-on-one interviews with each client's key contact for later in the week. I was pleasantly surprised at how much she knew about each of them, and said so.
"I've been covering this desk for close to a month, training with Stephenie on her way out. But now that you're here, I'm relieved I get to pass the torch."
My biggest client, and the main one I'd be focusing on, was a luxurious, artisan made-to-order furnishings business. They sold things like wallcovering panels, hand-forged iron end tables with chinoiserie decorated tops, and wood-carved entertainment chests.
"Shin-wahzer-ree?" I repeated with an arched brow.
"It's a fancy way of painting," Alice said. "Just look at their website."
She pulled it up, and on the home page, I saw what looked like a long, dark gray piece of wall art with thin, intricate gold patterns.
"That's a sculpted, painted wallcovering panel," she said, while pointing at it like the Wheel of Fortune's Vanna White. "Do you want to know what the difference is between wallpaper and wallcovering? About four hundred dollars a yard. Luxe sells these to the trade—interior designers—whose clients have more money to spend than God. Certainly, more than I'll ever see in my lifetime."
Luxe wanted one email blast sent out per week, Alice further explained, which meant I would be handling everything from concept to delivery—basically, trying to produce ideas for campaigns they hadn't yet done. It was a lofty task, one that I grew more and more excited over as she continued.
"You'll need to study their past bank of campaigns, and get up to speed quickly. If you can come up with a compelling first idea, it'll be a great way to introduce you to them. I'm sorry, but you're being thrown into the deep end. Consider this your first test."
"I'm up for it," I told her. "This is what I do, after all."
Alice nodded and smiled, then with a pat against my back, left me to get started.
My workstation was an L-shaped, all white, matte-lacquered desk, large enough to accommodate two chairs. The walls around the desk were covered in tan cloth, and contrasted nicely against the white. When I sat in my seat, I couldn't see over the top of my cubicle, which gave me a sense of privacy and quiet.
Alice's cubicle was beside mine. We could see each other if one of us stood or if we scooted our chairs back and leaned around the wall.
Over the next few hours, I discovered that none of Luxe's previous campaigns focused on diversity or inclusion, even though some of their designers were LGBTQIA. One of their French artwork painter-sculptors was a transsexual woman who specialized in synesthesia, which I understood was listening to music and seeing colors or shapes in the mind.
And just like that, I'd found the subject of what I hoped was their next campaign. As I was keying in my notes on it, my internal radar awoke, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Turning my head, I saw Edward Cullen standing behind me, and I lost my breath. Steel gray suit, steel gray tie, steel gray colored eyes under heavy, dark eyebrows.
It was weird how his eyes changed color. Weirder, still, that I even noticed.
But what the hell was he doing there?
"It's a promising start," he murmured, eyes on my computer screen, although I sensed he'd been looking at me only a second ago.
With one push, I could have run the back of my chair into his body and made him step away. But I was in an open plan office with countless other employees, all of whom could probably see Edward standing there from their own cubicles. He was the boss on the loose; I was sure people were tracking his whereabouts.
"A promising start," I ground out, glaring at my computer screen. I didn't want to look at him, didn't want to witness his in-my-face, striking beauty. Or his soft eyes, because I could tell from the tone of his voice, they were soft.
"That's right," he said, inconveniently moving around to the side of me so he could see something other than the back of my head. "You've been here, what? Four hours? It's a great start. I think you're onto something."
I glanced up at him briefly, and his gaze was indeed gentle and searching, sending lightning through my veins. I lowered my eyes to the safer, clean lines of his crisp white shirt, shot through with thin gray lines. When he moved to the chair next to me, I started to panic.
Please don't sit, please don't sit.
Maybe sensing my dread, he remained standing and simply rested his hand on the back of it.
"How are you liking it here so far?"
His tone was warm and friendly, still unlike anything I was used to hearing from him in the past, which made my heart twist. God, he was tying me up in knots.
"Until a minute ago, it was great," I snapped, then immediately felt childish and idiotic.
Why was he here?
Go away, Edward Cullen. You promised I wouldn't have to deal with you!
"I'm glad you accepted the offer," he said, ignoring my outburst. "I knew you'd be a great addition to the team."
From the corner of my eye, I could see him standing there looking down at me, his hand resting casually on the back of the other chair.
He was obviously waiting for something from me.
A fist to the dick?
"Thank you," I said, again throwing a brief look his way.
His eyes were still overwhelming and laser-focused on me. Jaw a bit tense. Hair chaotic as usual.
Beautiful, of course.
Asshole.
"Well, I'll let you get back to it," he said and backed off.
Finally.
We were supposed to act like polite strangers, but I didn't feel like being polite. With a small groan, I slumped over my keyboard. Then, my bottom lip clenched between my teeth, I swiveled in my chair and glared after him. As I'd asked, he hadn't looked at me apologetically, but he'd been . . . too damn nice. It threw me off balance because I didn't know how to act around him if I wasn't being defensive or feeling hurt. My feelings weren't just going to go away, no matter how he treated me now.
Was he being a clueless idiot, thinking everything was cool between us now simply because I'd accepted his job offer? I mean, surely not. He couldn't be that stupid. He didn't seem that stupid.
As I turned back to my computer, I noticed the red-haired woman in the cubicle across from my desk almost glaring at me before she looked away. Tanya. Wearing an emerald green blouse, she was standing up, looking angry and nonplussed after Edward.
"Everything all right?"
She seemed to do a double take at my voice.
"Everything's fine," she said rather dismissively before she turned away.
Okay, then.
. . .
The next few weeks passed quickly as I immersed myself in my new job and familiarized myself with my clients.
Luxe loved my idea of focusing on diversity and inclusion, so each week's ad showcased that—either a piece of work focusing on that culture, or an artist was highlighted. They were so impressed with my ideas they asked for my assistance with brand management in their print and digital materials, and also with their in-house marketing needs for business cards, headshots, and employee spotlights. Combined with doing work for my other clients as well, I began to thrive under the pressure.
Through Alice, I learned that Edward was pleased with the work I was doing. He'd even asked her to see if I was interested in attending the weekly meeting to collaborate and idea-bounce, but I politely declined. From what I understood, only each department's Senior Account Managers attended those meetings, and I was determined to be just like any other employee clicking away at her keyboard.
"If you keep producing this level of work for our clients, you'll be promoted to Senior Account Manager in no time," Alice told me.
It was a double-edged sword. A promotion would be great but would probably entail working closer with Edward.
Nearly every day, he found a convenient reason to walk past my cubicle. Either he needed to talk to Alice or Tanya, or he was just passing by. There were several rows he could have chosen to walk down, but it seemed as if he deliberately chose the one behind me.
My hair stood on end each time. My blood raced and flooded my face and neck with heat. It confused and angered me. Why was I so aware of him? It didn't make sense. It wasn't normal. He might have been a reformed bully, but I still hated him.
Maybe hate was too strong of a word. Maybe . . . I just didn't trust him.
No. When he stood silently behind me, deliberately taunting me with his presence—after he'd said in the interview I wouldn't have to deal with him—I pretty much hated him. The pit in my stomach always mushroomed into discomfort at his nearness. I kept expecting him to do an about-face like he used to do, kept expecting him to yank the rug out from underneath my feet, revealing the dickhead I remembered.
I was aware of the saying about there being a thin line between love and hate, but my line was thicker and flirted between hate and dislike, with an extra helping of distrust.
There was absolutely no love there. Especially since I had the distinct impression he was trying to soften me up, that he was trying to make me like or accept him.
I played Devil's Advocate—would I still feel the same level of discomfort and anger if he'd been an ugly man?
Yes, because he was still taking too much of an interest in me, when I just wanted to be invisible to him.
In fact, I resented that he happened to be gorgeous, because good-looking people knew they could get away with almost anything. And obviously, he was trying because he didn't care about keeping his promise to me.
Yeah, he was going to drive me crazy.
I imagined him tied to a chair interrogation-style, emotionally beaten, trying to hide his pain and fear, as I stood over him and laughed mercilessly.
He'd soon find out I wasn't the same girl he once knew. I was a badass wearing Wildfang, whose tagline was, Wear you, not someone else, and I rolled over for no one. Least of all for someone who'd hurt me so badly in the past. I'd endured him in high school, learned how to cope with Mom's death, and had the balls to take a job where he worked. I wasn't letting my past dictate my future.
I was a survivor.
Maybe a little broken still, but who wasn't?
