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Chapter Eight: Mistakes
It was very easy to cover up grief with anger. For, Ginny, it was like a blessing. After crying in Hermione's lap for two days straight – and calling in sick – she draped anger and nonchalance around her like a cloak.
It was her security blanket.
On the third day of working, she slid past Draco's office and tried not to stare at the outer office – Jessica-the-slutty-transvestite's old office – being transformed into a lounge. The glass-topped desk was gone replaced with a new metallic refrigerator, a counter, and a bookshelf. Ginny ground her teeth when she saw her favorite books – the one's she had told Draco she loved – sitting on the topmost shelf. A comfortable green sofa was against the far wall, and several puffy black chairs were scattered around the coffee table. Even a window had been added overlooking the streets of London. Ginny looked closer at the drapes and saw that they were drapes from her shop.
Ginny passed by the office – lounge – quickly and threw her coat on the back of her chair and booted up the computer. They had a month and several days to go before completion, and Ginny immediately signed into the network, checked the progress, filled in several holes and began to work.
Sometime in the middle of it all, she wished very hard for a thick metal door so she didn't have to hear Draco's footsteps walking from his office, to Jake's past her own – and she refused to even turn or acknowledge him – and to the other lounge across the room. Ginny's hurt kept bubbling under the surface of her thin layer of anger, and she shoved it back, even when she felt like weeping. She had come to the resolution that he was not worth her tears. Straightening her shoulders, she typed furiously, messaging her temporary colleagues on work, and plans to make the first steps to the final process of development.
Before lunch, Ginny was reaching to her fourth of hot chocolate when the footsteps started coming closer and they stopped outside her door.
She could not stop the tears that sprung to her eyes but she gritted her teeth and tried not to crush the hot chocolate in her hands and chuck it at face. Or better yet, into his pants, and into the ballpark.
Blinking very rapidly, she sipped the now-bitter drink and began to type slowly, aware that her hands had begun to shake.
"Ginny."
Something lifted from her shoulders.
"Jake." She turned and smiled warmly, hoping he did not see her eyes glistening.
"How are you doing?" He had a very kind face and she found herself relaxing.
"Fine, great actually, we're ahead of schedule," Ginny said quickly. "You can except us to be done sometime in the next four weeks."
Jake nodded, and a strange look passed over his face and Ginny's intuition flickered. Draco had sent Jake.
Ginny narrowed her eyes and Jake laughed. "I didn't have to say word did I?"
"You did. You can tell him I'll email him reports."
"He's really sorry, Ginny."
"Yeah, right." Ginny turned back, and hoped he didn't see the tear that had overflowed. Stupid men.
"Look, it wasn't- "
"I have work to do," Ginny snapped, thanking all the Gods that her voice hadn't cracked. She didn't turn around, and resumed typing slowly, the only sign that he had left were the footsteps leading away from her office.
Ginny wiped the tears away furiously and resumed typing. Smarmy bastard, didn't even have the guts to come in her office and tell her himself what a pig he was.
"Stupid git," Ginny muttered, and stabbed the backspace key.
Her fingers stampeded over the keys until she heard a blip, and she looked up to see a window hovering over what she was typing. It was brief and clear and declared a boardroom meeting in five minutes. She glanced to the top right corner of the bad and saw that there was less than forty five minutes to check out time and she would do what she had perfected: she would throw on her vinyl coal – a long black coat that made her look sophisticated, and no less beautiful to Draco – and stride past Draco's office while he was still walking through the outer office. She would stride past, her long legs scissoring perfectly while her chin jutted out defiantly, daring him to speak to her – because if he did she was sure to chew him out, spit him out and repeat the process until the hurt was disguised with satisfaction. No doubt the timing was perfect, he would always see her and she wouldn't even glance his way.
She stood up, and stretched her arms, rolling the tension and ache from her shoulders and back that came from sitting in the same position for over five hours.
Picking up a pencil and jabbing it behind her ear, she strode past the lounge and walked down the hallway to the outer hallway of the building and slid into the elevator that promptly took her to the floor below where she didn't miss a beat an was already seven strides from the elevator before the doors finished hissing open. The black silk skirt swirled around her thighs and the black pumps with the rhinestone studded ankle straps made her legs look endless. The forest green, low cut blouse shivered against her skin coolly. She strode into the reception area of the boardroom and smiled at the pretty, but slightly chubby receptionist in black pinstriped dress pants and graphic tee.
The receptionist, Maria, shook the mane of shiny black hair from her eyes and smiled at Ginny.
"They're all there, Miss Weasley, you can go in if you like." Ginny smiled and nodded to the girl who pressed the button to allow the lock to the room to open. As she did, the intercom beeped and a voice rang out of the black telephone.
"You may take your break, Maria."
"Thank you, sir." Maria replied and waved Ginny into the room. Ginny opened the door and immediately turned to close it. She spent a few seconds staring at the door, bracing herself. She could not chew Draco out in a room full of Executives – and her bosses.
She plastered a cold, professional smile and turned. The smile froze in place and her hands dropped to her sides.
The room was completely empty.
Her gaze snapped to the chair on the far end of the room and locked into a pair of stormy gray eyes.
"You bastard." She hissed. She whirled around and yanked on the door, and when she found it locked, she let out a stream of words that made Draco's eyebrows raise.
"Your mother didn't teach you to speak like that, I hope." He said easily, and instantly regretted it.
She froze, her hand still locked around the crystal doorknob and her eyes blazed with such hurt and anger that Draco was rendered speechless.
"Ginny -," he began but was cut off by an honest to god growl that rippled from her throat.
"Don't! Don't you talk to me to, you two timing scumbag!" Ginny growled, shocked by the tightness in her throat and the need to curl up and sob hysterically. "I trusted you! I let you take me to my bed and- and as soon as my back is turned you go and fuck her? You're a despicable snake Draco Malfoy." She shouted, appalled when her voice broke on his name.
"You don't understand." Draco said quietly.
"I don't understand? Don't understand what? That you've been fooling around with that – that – Ugh! While I've been -," Ginny stopped when the tears began to stream down her cheeks. Her chin dropped and she stared at her shoes – her favorite pair of black pumps – and her hands shook with rage. Draco walked forward until he was just three feet from her instead of across the room. The teardrops made dark circles on her blouse and he felt the need to stroke the tears away.
"Ginny… I thought it was you." He whispered and failed to steel himself against her tortured expression that nearly tore him to shreds. "Ginny, please." He pleaded and took a step forward, and stopped when she cringed away from him, her head shaking wildly and the tears fell harder.
"Don't," she sobbed and wiped the tears away and refused to look at him. Her shaking fingers trembled against her face.
When her hands dropped, Draco caught them and when she tried to yank them back, his grip tightened and she shuddered.
"Ginny please, I would never hurt you." Draco whispered and pulled her to him, resisting the urge to yank him to her when her knees bent and she resisted, her head shaking. Her face turned away from him as if he was something she didn't want to see, and her lips trembled as she cried. She let out a stream of words that made no sense but Draco knew she didn't want to believe him.
"Ginny, she's been after me for years, I swear I didn't know it was her, I thought it was you." He explained and pulled. She hiccupped and finally turned to look at him.
"Y-y- you never l-lo-look when someone s-starts man-man handling y-you?" She stuttered out, and his lips twitched. Hope bloomed across his cloudy sky. She made a joke.
"I thought you were manhandling me." He said, and she stopped trying to pull away.
"Don't joke with me." She whispered, her gaze turned from him.
"You started it," he reminded her and when she didn't say anything he pulled and relief washed over him when she let him. Except she wouldn't look at him, her gaze was safely averted from him.
"Ginny." He let of her wrist, and didn't stop her when she slapped it onto her chest. She didn't resist when his fingers slid under her chin and lifted. "Look at me." Her gaze fluttered to his, and she was shocked at the tenderness she found there. In his usually cold gray eyes, there was something that made her tremble.
"I'd never hurt you, please believe me." He whispered, and leaned his forehead on hers.
It was the please that got to her and she found the will to nod and close her eyes. She forgave him, and something loosened inside her and she sagged into his arms and this time he let go when her arms slid around his neck and she leaned her head on his chest.
"Let's go home." He said.
"Where's home?" She asked, though his chest muffled her voice.
"Your place?" He asked and she pulled back to study his face.
"My place?"
"I like it." And when she smiled, her red splotchy cheeks and red eyes made her seem more beautiful. They walked together from the room and Ginny did not see the wink passed from Maria to Draco. They didn't let go of each other's hands once.
Ginny sighed against his sweet kisses and trembled under his hands. She was complete putty in his arms. He sighed into her neck and relished the feel of her in his arms.
Around two AM Ginny's head rested on chest and listened to his heart slow.
"Am I forgiven?" Draco asked and Ginny laughed.
"Just a little bit," she grinned up at him and then her eyes narrowed. "But, if this ever happens again, I'll do some unspeakable thing." Ginny bit his bottom lip.
"Don't worry, madam, I'm completely yours." He laughed.
"You bet your ass you are." She said and yawned. Her eyes closed and her hand rested on his hard stomach. She was lost to sleep and soon after, so was he.
xxx
Draco woke up to find red hair in his mouth and her arm on his forehead. He groaned at the early morning light and pulled the cover from her and slid it on him. Her response was to tug it back and Draco gave up. He nimbly picked up her arm and put it by her side and rubbed his eyes. He sighed and slid of her bed and staggered to the door. He went into the bathroom and walked out five minutes later, rubbing his hair. He paused at the door to what she had called the storage room.
There was no lock on the door and it wouldn't hurt to take a peek. The door turned easy and he pushed open the door. His gaze landed on the bulletin board on the far wall, decorated with Firestarter clippings. Then it roamed over the computers stacked on the wall to his left, to a black hoodie draped over the back of a orange chair and lastly to the main computer.
The screensaver froze him cold.
Firestarter
Find the heat of the CORE
"Fuck." Draco whispered. It couldn't be.
Draco took a slow step forward on knees that seemed to have gone strangely weak. His toes bumped into a black binder on the floor and he looked down the see Ginny's hasty scrawl over the pages. His heart stopped when he saw the portal, his username and password written underneath Fudge's email account.
It was she. Ginny was the Firestarter. Ginny had wrecked his company. Ginny reduced his life's work to rubble. His fists clenched.
"Draco?"
Her sleepy voice made him freeze. He heard her feet padding across her bedroom floor and heard the squeak of her footsteps in the hall and heard them stop abruptly. He heard the intake of breath and the three footsteps and her shadow was on front of him.
"Draco?" Her voice wasn't sleepy now, it was alert – and it was fear-filled.
He turned, and the expression on his face made her center grow cold.
"Storage, Ginny?" He snarled.
Ginny wasn't aware that she had begun to tremble. She stood in the doorway of her room, the Pit.
"Draco." She said and stopped. Her hand reached out for the doorjamb and her lips trembled.
"What." He snarled.
"It was a mistake." She whispered and heard something shatter inside her.