A/N Hello again! I had a request for a timeline for this story. So where we're up to at the beginning of this chapter is about a week into December (say the 7th), and it's the fifth week that Eric has spent at Sookie's (counting from when he first turned up on her doorstep on a Monday evening). So I hope that helps!
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
EPOV
The drive into the city was a lot quieter with just me in the car. It hadn't been quiet when I left Sookie arguing with Amelia over a pair of shorts, while Felicia took the opportunity to make a lunge towards the Barbies. I walked out the door to the sound of Amelia interrogating Sookie about where I was going, I guess she thought that maybe work was a one-off thing.
Unsurprisingly I had managed to beat Andre to the office, when I got there his desk was empty and his laptop switched off. I set up my laptop and then had a go at booting up the PC on the desk I was using. Fuck, that took forever. How on earth did Sookie ever get any work done?
Eventually Andre showed up, looking like he had a stick up his ass as usual. He pointedly ignored me while switching on his laptop. We were doing such a great job of pretending the other didn't exist, that I was almost shocked when Andre actually spoke to me. Apparently I'd been given access to the bank's systems, which meant I could finally get a good look at what Andre had actually been trying to do. If anything. He still seemed to spend a fuck-load of his time placing bets and keeping up with various scores on the internet. How he managed to hold down a job I didn't know.
It was soon pretty apparent that Andre had completely fucked up what he was trying to achieve, at least as far as what Sophie-Anne had told me Peter wanted. Fuck, I was basically going to have to start again. This meant I needed some new data. Which, of course, meant I was stuck asking the dumb-ass next to me.
"Andre" I said, turning towards him.
"Yes" he said, continuing to stare at his screen.
"I need some more extracts; if I give you the details can you get them for me? Today?"
Andre sighed and muttered something under his breath. "Yeah, but I'll have to do it later on. I have a meeting in a few minutes." With that he grabbed some papers and stood up and walked off.
Fan-fucking-tastic I thought. Where was Sookie when you needed her?
SPOV
Amelia seemed convinced that Eric was hiding something from her, as she wouldn't stop asking where he was going. Even after I told her for the fiftieth time he was going to work. I swear she didn't believe me, but I'm not sure what she thought was really happening. Whatever it was, I was pretty sure she thought it was my fault.
I finally deposited her at pre-school where she immediately ran off to help one of the teachers in the little vegetable garden they were all growing, Felicia and I quite quickly forgotten.
When I got home I was at a bit of a loss. "Do you want to go to Pak N Save?" I asked Felicia.
"Bubbubbubbubbaa" was the only reply I got to that statement. I even missed Eric telling me it was a dumb idea and we should just order on the internet.
Before we went though I had an idea. I pulled out my mum's old cookbook, the one where she'd written down all the recipes she thought were really good, and I found the one I wanted. Gran's Prizewinning Christmas Cake. And it was, she had won a prize for it, sometime long before I was born. And this year, I thought, I'd have a go at making it. Although it did look kind of complicated, and required a lot of fruit. Much of which would need to be soaked.
Still, I added the ingredients to my shopping list and headed back out with Felicia in tow.
EPOV
Andre eventually re-appeared, by which time I'd made as comprehensive a list as I could, of what it was I actually needed. I hoped that if I wrote it down even Andre couldn't fuck it up too much.
He didn't appreciate the gesture however and stared at the piece of paper I handed him as if it was going to self-destruct any second. I fought back the urge to tell him to just do some work for fuck's sake.
I was sitting there trying to ignore the sighing and shuffling coming from Andre's desk, when Sophie-Anne appeared. "How's everything going here?" she asked.
Andre didn't say anything so I just said "Fine, so far. I don't think anything is going to be that difficult." I turned to look at Andre, daring him to disagree. None of it was that difficult and yet he'd managed to fuck it up completely.
"Good, well let me know if you need anything" Sophie-Anne said, in a way which suggested she didn't really want me to. She looked over at Andre and hesitated for a few seconds, then walked off.
When I looked back at Andre he was just glaring after her. He must be a complete fucking retard, surely if you're going to remain an incompetent moron you should keep your head down? The way he was going he was going to get himself fucking fired.
Shit, I hoped if they did get rid of him they wouldn't try to keep me around for longer.
SPOV
I spent the day getting groceries, and doing housework and trying to interest Felicia in a conversation. It was probably a bad move on my part; after all, I remember doing the same thing with Amelia and look where that had got me. Now she wouldn't shut up.
Sure enough when Felicia and I went to pick her up she started asking where Eric was. "Still at work" I replied.
"Really? So when will he be home?"
"Don't know, later on I guess."
"Why don't you know?"
"Because I don't."
Eric arrived home just in time for dinner, which made me happy. Not in the least because I wasn't sure I could sit there at the table with Amelia while she asked another round of questions about where Eric was and when he was coming home.
I was standing in the kitchen and he came over and put his arms around me and just stood there for a while.
"Good day was it?" I asked.
"Yeah, alright I guess." He sighed into my hair.
"OK, well if you let me go I can feed you." He held on for a few more seconds though before stepping back.
Once we sat down to dinner Amelia checked with Eric that he had indeed been to work today, all day, right up until the time he came home, and then finally dropped the subject. Eric was at least starting to perk up a bit; I guess food will do that to you. And the weather was nice, so we could sit with the door open and enjoy the warm breeze. I was definitely a summer person. Well, right up until it gets humid in February and then I find it all a bit sticky and annoying really.
Eric trooped off to do bathtime again. He was really worth his weight in gold at times like that. I'd hated having to get two kids ready for bed and then spend the rest of the evening by myself. Now I not only had help with the kids I had company for me. It was hard to believe in a way how far I'd come in a few weeks.
There was an awful lot of splashing and laughing coming from the bathroom when I went to find out what was happening. I wasn't sure quite what was going on, but it appeared the ducks might have been staging a mutiny and trying to get out of the bath. Whatever Amelia and Eric were playing it was entertaining Felicia who was giggling and splashing with abandon. I just decided I wasn't going to look at the water all over the bathroom I'd cleaned earlier. I could clean it again tomorrow.
When I finally had Eric all to myself I checked with him again that his day had been OK.
"Yeah, it's fine. Andre's a liability, he's liable to fuck himself over if he's not careful, but otherwise it's the same old shit really."
We were lying on the bed and Eric rolled over to face me at that point, and he started to kiss my chest, working his way down to the edge of my tank top. "It would be better if you were there" he murmured.
"What, just so I could do the work for you rather than Andre?" I asked.
"Mmmm, you have a much better work ethic". Eric pushed one of the straps of my tank top down and then pulled my bra cup down as well so he could get access to my nipple.
"I'm not sure I'd be able to work under you without being distracted these days" I said, arching my back as Eric worked my nipple with his mouth.
"Yeah, but they're nice distractions" Eric said trying to pull the other side of my tank top down, but finding that the straps wouldn't give that much. I sat up so I could pull it off instead.
"So would I distract you?" I asked, lying back down on the bed having rid myself of the top half of my clothing.
Eric went back to work on my breasts, while rubbing his erection against my leg. "You always did" he said.
"I did?"
He looked up at me. "Of course you did. From the first moment I saw your ass twitching under the desk I was done for. Now that I'm actually sitting at that desk, it's an image that gets me through a lot of really boring hours waiting for Andre to get his shit together."
"So what you're saying then, is that you don't so much want me to work under you, as to work under your desk?" I asked, looking down at Eric's head. He looked up at me and grinned.
"Now there's an idea. Care to interview for that position?"
EPOV
Wednesday morning I arrived before Andre despite the fact I was running a bit later because Amelia had had a small tantrum about me leaving. It didn't seem to matter that she was going to pre-school, the fact I was leaving before her annoyed her no end. In the finish Sookie had attempted to distract her while telling me to just leave and let her deal with it.
I put my coffee cup down and turned on the PC, listening to it whirr and clunk to life. I turned to look out the window in the meantime. The view from this side of the office wasn't nearly as good as the one I'd had in the meeting room; mostly I could see the carpark next door and a lot of other office buildings. But there was a bit of the harbour on view and I watched a couple of boats for a few minutes.
When I was finally logged in I went to open the files I'd been using the previous day. Except that they weren't there. All that was left was the version Andre had created, the one I'd started with before making any modifications. For a minute I couldn't figure out what the fuck had happened, and then it suddenly became clear. Andre, the fucker had still been here when I'd left. Now that I was storing what I was doing on a shared drive in the bank's own network, he'd had access to it all, and he'd been in and deleted every fucking thing I'd done the previous day.
I finished my coffee and threw the empty cup in the bin in frustration. Fuck. What a fucking waste of my time this was turning out to be.
As I was sitting there fuming Andre appeared. He saw the look on my face and stopped, before obviously deciding to brazen it out and sitting down at his desk.
"Morning Andre" I said.
"Morning" he mumbled back, busying himself with switching his laptop on.
"So I went to bring up the work I'd done yesterday, and guess what, it seems to have disappeared overnight. You wouldn't know how that would have happened, would you?"
Andre shrugged. "Maybe you didn't save anything" he said.
"Yeah, I'm really fucking sure I did. I'm also pretty fucking sure that you're the douchebag that would have deleted it all last night."
Andre looked at me. "Don't blame me for your incompetence, Eric"
"Seriously, Andre? You're calling me incompetent? When they had to spend God knows what to bring me back in here to do this shit because you can't tear yourself away from the internet for five minutes to actually do your fucking job!" I was getting louder and we were starting to get a few stares from the other people in the office.
Now Andre was looking pissed. He turned to me. "You think you're so shit hot, don't you Eric? You think the whole world is going to fall at your fucking feet. You thought you could have them both. Well you know what, you're no better than the rest of us you complete fucking wanker. It won't be long before Sophie-Anne realises that you're nothing more than a pretty face and then she'll have no choice but to hand the entire project back to me and you'll be back on a plane to the States to explain to your bosses exactly how you fucked this all up."
I was beyond angry now, but it was pointless arguing with Andre any longer. I couldn't work with him, he was a fucking loose cannon. I went in search of Sophie-Anne.
I found her coming out of one the larger meeting rooms, along with Peter. "Sophie-Anne, can I have a word?" I asked.
"Umm, well, I really have to…"
"I need to speak to you now, or else this whole project is going down the drain really fucking fast and I'm pretty sure Peter isn't going to be pleased with that."
"Fine. We can talk in here." She gestured to one of the smaller meeting rooms and we went in and shut the door.
"So, Eric. Care to elaborate on what the problem is?"
I snorted. "More like who. Fucking Andre is deliberately sabotaging me. So far he's deleted an entire day's work, and he's done everything else to block me that he can. I can't work like this. If you don't sort it then I'm done. I'll tell Victor that you didn't have the resources available to me and he can take it up with Peter."
Sophie-Anne looked at me, looked down at her hands and then promptly burst into tears. Oh fuck. That was not the reaction I expected at all.
"Um, don't cry…" I said, looking at the door and wondering if I could just assume she was stressed and leave her to it.
"Sorry, it's just, I've done something really stupid and now it's caused this and I don't know how to fix it…" she trailed off into sobs. I just sat and waited. I wasn't comforting her, she wasn't my problem.
Eventually she gathered herself a bit and pulled a tissue out of her pocket, dabbed her eyes and blew her nose. She stared out the window. "When I was first over from Australia, I made a huge mistake. I slept with Andre."
"Oh". Yeah, this was more information that I wanted and I was trying not to get a picture in my head.
"I just wanted to forget the whole thing, obviously. But Andre decided he wanted more. And kept pestering me. So I told him, I told him I wasn't interested because I was seeing you."
I burst out laughing and Sophie-Anne just stared at me. Well, I could appreciate the irony that she was using me to get rid of Andre while I was using Sookie to get rid of her. I'd made the better choice though.
"Thanks for your support, Eric" she snarled, and I stopped.
"Sorry, it's just, well…sorry." I wasn't going to tell her I'd lied.
She continued on. "So he backed off for a while, but then we had the drinks and he saw you with Sookie and I guess put two and two together. And after that he was worse than ever." She started to cry again. "And now he's blackmailing me!"
"How?"
"He said there are…photos. Of me. On his phone. And if I fire him he'll show Peter." She sobbed for a bit, and I looked out the window. Eventually she collected herself. She seemed to have moved on to anger. "I have worked so hard for this career. I have given up everything. I could have had children and a family, but no, I wanted to be CFO, and I won't have that little shit Andre take it all away from me."
I brightened a bit at this. She was obviously going to fire him anyway and that would be all our problems solved. "So, what are you going to do?" I asked.
Sophie-Anne looked at me. "You" she said "are going to get hold of his phone and delete those pictures."
"No. No, I'm not. Look this is between you and him and I'm not fucking getting involved in any of this shit. I just want to do the work and finish up. End of fucking story."
Sophie-Anne softened, and looked like she might cry again. Fuck. "Eric, please?" she asked, putting a hand on my arm. "I don't have anyone else I can ask without it getting back to Peter. I don't want him to think I'm incompetent. Once the pictures are gone, then I can start the process of getting rid of Andre for being shit at his job. But until then I'm stuck with him."
I sighed. "But how do you know there aren't any other copies? He could have downloaded them from his phone by now?"
"I don't really" she said. "But given his general lack of ability in most areas, I would be surprised if he had." She looked at me, eyes brimming with tears again. Fuck, I thought, fuck, fuck, fuck. Why couldn't this be fucking simple?
"Fine, OK." I said, pulling my arm back. "If I can get hold of his phone without any hassle then I will, but I'm not stealing it. In the meantime you tell him to cut out the shit he's doing to me."
Sophie-Anne brightened considerably. "Excellent, Eric" she said, sounding as though she was back to her old self. "I knew you'd come through. I look forward to working with you." She looked at her watch. "And if that's all you want to talk about, then I have another meeting to go to." With that she stood up and left the room.
I felt slightly like I'd been played. I ran a hand through my hair and walked back to my desk, ready to start my new career as Sophie-Anne's secret agent.
Thanks for reading!