A/N: Thank you all for your reviews and support! I hfope you all enjoy this chapter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 3: First Day

Monday came around much too quickly.

Since Ana's flight had come in on a Friday, she only had the weekend to prepare for her first day back. It was a busy couple of days, filled with running errands all over the city and also cleaning her apartment, which had been mostly vacant for the past two months apart from Joanie or Jose grabbing her mail. She also went out and bought some new work clothes since she had dropped down a dress size while staying in Georgia – caring for her sick mother and planning her funeral really took a toll on a girl's appetite. She really didn't mind her more slender figure, however, as today she picked out a nice-looking black pencil skirt, black closed toe pumps, and purple silk short-sleeve blouse.

Ana now stood on the front steps of the Kavanaugh Media building, looking up at the large glass and steel structure practically looming over her. She had walked up these steps thousands of times before, so she wasn't sure why she was hesitating this morning.

Actually, she did know.

All weekend, she had been dreading interacting with Christian again: just the thought of sharing an office space with him for the rest of the year filled her with anxiety. She tried to think optimistically, like maybe she would warm up to him after working alongside him for a while. But somehow she doubted it.

Best not to delay the inevitable.

Taking a deep breath, Ana began to walk up the wide stone steps toward the front doors of the Kavanaugh Media building along with the dozens of other people around her walking to work this morning.

After making her way across the expansive atrium and going up the elevator to the top floor, Ana was feeling pretty good. She even vaguely hoped that she would get to her office first this morning. However, after she passed through the foyer, greeted Nadia, and walked down the hallway toward her office, her hope disappeared the moment she walked around the corner and saw Christian through the glass wall of her office.

Dammit all to hell.

Ana's office was a nice, open-concept space with her desk against the back wall, a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking New York City right behind her. Now, a second desk was there, adjacent to her own, where Christian currently sat. He looked like a typical corporate businessman in a charcoal gray suit and tie, leaning back in his chair while talking on a BlueTooth and gazing at something on his computer screen, a look of concentration on his face. Ana watched him for a second or two, girding herself for spending an entire 8-hour work day in his presence.

After taking another deep breath, Ana walked forward and pushed through the door of her office.

"…don't see why there isn't enough in the budget for a press release," Christian was saying into the phone as Ana walked in, and he ignored her completely as she headed over to her desk. "A change in ownership is pretty newsworthy, I would think. Isn't that something we could facilitate?"

He pressed a couple keys on his keyboard, and Ana dropped her purse on her desk while slipping off her coat, moving over to the coat rack behind her desk.

"…If you could have a draft written up by the end of the day, I'd really appreciate it," Christian said, and Ana practically rolled her eyes at the fake charm oozing out of his voice. "Okay, thank you so much, Bev. You're a real lifesaver."

He said goodbye before finally hanging up the phone. "Good morning, Miss Steele," he said, slipping his BlueTooth out of his ear and tossing it onto his desk. "How are you this fine day?"

Ugh, why did his greeting have to sound so obnoxious? "I'm great," she said, her tone audibly sarcastic. "And how are you, Mr. Bigshot? Getting press releases written up for my clients this Monday morning?"

"Actually, this one's my client," Chrstian said, sounding way too happy with himself as he smirked at her, leaning back in his chair. "It's a resin sourcing business, Foster Polymers. They're a pretty big account I took on about a month ago, and they recently transferred ownership."

"Riveting," Ana said baldly. "As much as I would love to listen to you brag about your god-like marketing skills, I have a lot of work to get to today."

"Ouch. Someone's grumpy today," Christian teased, getting to his feet. "Would you like some coffee? It might cheer you up a bit."

Ana watched as he walked over to the small table in the opposite corner of the office, and her eyes went wide with horror: the area where she had previously kept her tin of tea bags and her electric kettle now contained a sleek matte black Keurig coffee machine, a box of sugar packets, and coffee cups.

He replaced my tea station with a coffee machine?!

"Are you serious?" Ana couldn't help but blurt out, moving around her desk and practically running over to the table. "What is this? What did you do with my tea kettle and tea bags?"

"Nothing," Christian said innocently, but then he nodded toward the hallway. "I think maybe someone went and put it in the employee kitchen after you left."

Ana's heart pounded in her throat as she turned her fuming eyes up to him. "Those were mine. They don't belong in the employee kitchen, and you had no right to move them!"

"I told you I didn't, Steele," Christian said, giving her a patronizing look that caused her face to burn with rage. "I brought in my Keurig from home because I prefer coffee, and it has as much a right to be here as your dumb tea kettle."

Ana let out a huff of frustration, and without another word she marched past him out the door of her office toward the kitchen, determined to find what was rightfully hers. She could feel Christian's eyes on her as she stalked away, and his obvious amusement at her anger only fueled her to move faster.

That asshole is already ruining my first day back.

Even though it was possible Christian wasn't the one who moved her tea things, somehow she doubted it. The fact that he had essentially taken over her office for the past month or so pissed her off too: even though she had been gone for two months, her office was still her space. He had no right to mess with her things.

Ana arrived at the employee kitchen, which was thankfully empty. She rifled through some of the cabinets until she found her tea kettle and tin of tea bags shoved near the back of one of the top shelves. Gritting her teeth, Ana pushed up on her tiptoes, reaching up while stretching her hands out. She was just barely able to grasp her tea kettle and pull it toward her.

"C'mon," Ana muttered, straining as she nudged the tea kettle closer. "Almost… there…"

THUNK!

Just as she managed to get a good grasp on her tea kettle, she accidentally knocked over the tea tin. Dozens of Earl Grey tea bag packets flew out of it, all landing on the ground around her feet and hitting her in the face and hair as they went.

Ana pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to shout out in frustration as she brought her tea kettle down. "Great," she muttered petulantly to herself. Of course, this was how her morning was going to start out.

"…Ana? There you are."

Max appeared at the doorway of the kitchen, but he stopped and raised his eyebrows at the teabags scattered around the floor. "Whoa. Everything okay?"

Ana felt her cheeks burn in embarrassment. Of course, her boss had to walk in on the moment she was making a fool of herself. "Yeah, sorry. I was just grabbing my tea kettle and I accidentally knocked over the teabags."

"Oh no. Well, here, let me help you," Max offered, moving over and kneeling down to help Ana pick up all the teabags. "I'm sorry about your tea kettle being stored away like that. I had maintenance clean up your office space before Christian moved in, and they must've moved your tea things into the kitchen."

Oh. So Christian was telling the truth when he said he hadn't moved her tea. Well, that was one small point in his favor, she supposed. "That's okay. You mentioned you were looking for me?"

"Oh yeah. Lorraine down in HR has some paperwork for both of us to sign," Max said as they finished picking up the teabags and putting them back into the tin. "It's just to confirm to payroll your leave of absence is officially over and you've come back to work."

"Oh, right," Ana said, nodding. "That makes sense. Let me just make my cup of tea and I'll meet you there."

"Sounds good," Max smiled.

He finished helping Ana pick up the teabags before taking his leave, and Ana set everything on the counter, preparing to make herself a cup. Upon opening her tea kettle, however, she couldn't help but notice a visible layer of dust along the rim and the inside. She grimaced, realizing she was going to have to clean the kettle before making her tea.

"This day just keeps getting better and better…" she muttered petulantly to herself, heading over to the sink.

~/~

After Ana had cleaned her tea kettle and made herself a quick cup of tea, she made her way to HR to meet up with Max and Lorraine, their HR director. Lorraine was a rather prim and proper older lady whom Ana didn't speak to very much, but she was undeniably good at her job. She led Ana and Max into her office, the stack of paperwork they needed to sign already sitting there.

Lorraine told them what the forms were for before they signed: one was to confirm Ana's leave of absence for the past two months, then another to confirm she was officially back at work now, and the rest were for payroll.

"Do you have any questions?" Lorraine finally asked after about ten minutes of Ana and Max signing forms.

Yes, can I formally lodge a complaint against the coffee-swilling jackass currently invading my office space? Ana was sorely tempted to ask. She held her tongue in front of Max, however.

"Nope. I'm all good," Ana said, smiling at her sweetly.

Soon, Ana and Max were ushered out of Lorraine's office and the two of them headed back toward the marketing department. "It really is great to have you back, Ana," Max said to her sincerely as they walked, and Ana looked over at him. "You really are a valuable asset to this team, and although you don't really see it yet, Christian is too. I truly think the two of you would work well together if you really tried."

Ana grimaced uncomfortably. She could tell Max really wanted Ana and Chistian to resolve this animosity between them, and she felt sort of bad she was causing so many problems for him. "We'll see, I guess," she said diplomatically. "I'm sure I'll warm up to Christian more… in seven months or so."

Max let out a chuckle. "That's the spirit," he said with amusement, and Ana smirked back at him.

They arrived at Ana's office, and Max bid her farewell as he headed over to his own office. Ana opened the door, and was immediately met with the pervasive aroma of coffee filling the whole space. She frowned – she'd never been particularly fond of the smell of coffee, and she wasn't looking forward to smelling it all day.

Christian was sitting at his desk, his eyes on Ana as he took a deliberate sip of coffee from his mug. Ana rolled her eyes as she made her way over to her desk.

"Happy you got your coffee now, Mr. Bigshot?" Ana asked glibly, setting her own half-drunk cup of tea on her desk.

"Very happy," Christian smirked at her. "So what took you so long to get your tea? Get lost along the way?"

"Something like that," Ana said shortly, sitting down in her chair and powering up her computer. "Thanks for stinking up my office space with your coffee smell while I was gone."

"You're very welcome," Christian said, raising his mug slightly in a sarcastic toast. "At least I was able to keep this office space from reeking of tea."

"Tea smells a thousand times better than coffee, thank you very much," Ana argued. "But you go enjoy your hot bean water."

"I will. Enjoy your hot leaf juice."

The two of them fell into silence as they got to work, and Ana was soon wrapped up in work emails. Her inbox had been flooded with various updates from the company and her clients, and she threw all her focus into sorting through it all. She decided to go through Kavanaugh Media-specific emails before getting into her client work: the company had apparently upgraded to a new, more user-friendly CMS while Ana was gone, so she now had to figure out this whole new system in addition to catching up on client work.

Ana was in the middle of going through the CMS tutorial when Christian finally spoke up from his desk: "You could be burning a hole through that computer monitor with how hard you're staring at it, Steele. Everything okay over there?"

"It's called concentration, dumbass," Ana said without looking away from her screen. "You should try it sometime."

"Oh is that what that is?" Christian asked amusedly. "You look like you're in pain."

"It's just my natural look when I'm around you," Ana said, giving him a sarcastic smile. Christian gave an almost surprised chuckle.

"Yikes. That's pretty savage," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Must be the lack of caffeine, making you so grouchy."

"Yeah, I bet you wish I was more like you," Ana countered, turning back to her computer screen. "You probably like to shotgun six Redbulls before hitting the gym everyday. Am I in the ballpark?"

"At least one of us hits the gym everyday," Christian said smoothly, bringing his mug up to his lips.

Ana's mouth dropped open in shock at that last comment. He did not just say that!

"You –"

Before Ana could respond to that completely inappropriate comment, Max appeared at their doorway, knocking and poking his head inside.

"Hey, you two. We're about to have our quarterly staff meeting," he said, nodding down the hallway. "It'll be in the big conference room in five minutes."

"Okay. Thanks Max," Christian said, and Max nodded before walking away.

Ana got up from her chair and walked toward the door. Christian stood up from his own chair, and Ana stopped when she was right in front of him. She narrowed her eyes at him in a glare. "I'll have you know that I've lost weight, you misogynistic ass," she growled at him through her teeth.

"An ass that goes to the gym everyday," Christian smirked back at her, an almost triumphant look in his eyes as he stepped closer. He was inches away from her now.

Ana turned away from him, firmly knocking him with her "fat" hip as she stalked out of the office and into the hallway. She could feel his eyes on her as she stormed away toward the conference room, and she idly wondered if it was still too early to file an HR complaint against him on her first day back.

A/N: Thank you all for reading! If you liked this chapter, please review ?

Next chapter, a familiar face comes to work at Kavanaugh Media