Bossy Neighbor

by Erika Lynn

  Dante passed by my desk only once, telling me he needed to see a guy about a thing. I nodded numbly, giving him as professional a smile as I could muster.

  “What’s with you today?” Jeanine asked once when I spilled my coffee all over the counter in the staff kitchen. After a string of excuses that felt flimsy even to my ears, I hustled back to the safety of my desk.

  Finally, as the close of business drew near, I exited out of all the windows on my computer and collected my things just as Joel sauntered up to my desk so that he was half sitting on my desk.

  His face assuming that smarmy smile of his.

  I instantly wanted to bat it off his face.

  Somehow, I found restraint. “What can I help you with Joel?” I asked, making sure I kept packing up my things and praying he got the hint that I needed to get going.

  He started toying with the blades of the little fan I kept at my desk, as I pulled my purse strap over my shoulder. “Well, I came over here because I wanted to see if you could cover the community meeting on the mall site. It’s tomorrow afternoon.”

  My muscles relaxed slightly. I guess I assumed Joel was going to ask me out again.

  “What time is it?”

  He gave me details then added more. “You did a great job reporting back at the last meeting. I think it makes sense to have you be the one that consistently goes, takes notes and be the formal liaison to report to the team here,” he explained to me.

  Removing my purse from my shoulder, I pulled out my notepad. “What kinds of things do you want to know about?”

  My previous report had been comprehensive, but there might be things Joel and the others needed to know or prioritize.

  Joel walked me through it and I nodded as I took down my notes. It was straightforward enough, but I didn’t want to miss anything. It felt important to get the assignment right. To further prove myself.

  “Thanks, Joel. I appreciate it,” I told him, genuinely shocked to realize that I meant it.

  He gave me a closed-mouth smile, then knocked twice on my desk. “Have a good night Kate,” he said in departure.

  I spent a few extra minutes logging back into my computer to put the meeting on my calendar. Then I texted Quinn to see if she could meet up for lunch before the meeting.

  ***

  “Finally,” Quinn complained as I sat down at the little French café near the community meeting site.

  I rolled my eyes at her before looking at my watch. “It’s only two minutes past noon.”

  She shook her head dramatically. “You are slipping Miss Organization. What’s the world coming to if I’m the one that’s on time and you are the one that is late?” She lifted her shoulders in question. “I mean that seriously. You are the one I’m supposed to be able to depend on.”

  Holding out a hand, I asked for the menu in front of her. It looked like there was only one per table. “Can I see that please, then we can order?”

  She gave me a saucy wink and handed over the menu. I stuck my tongue out at her in return.

  “Hmmm what looks good?” I perused the menu as my stomach grumbled.

  “Something tells me you aren’t going to be picky,” Quinn said with a hearty laugh.

  I patted my belly. “I’ll feed you soon, I promise.”

  When the waitress stopped by our table, we placed our orders and Quinn dove right into her Spanish-style inquisition.

  “You look like you’ve has sex,” she said eyebrows wiggling.

  I sucked in a quick breath and immediately looked around to make sure nobody overheard. Then I swatted at my best friend like she was a fly. “What have I told you? You can’t say shit like that in public.” I looked around the café again for good measure.

  I waited until we had our food to tell her that we slept together in his office. It had taken everything in me not to tell her right after it happened, but I thought the news would be better received in person.

  And I didn’t trust myself not to accidentally text the wrong person.

  Quinn proceeded to choke on her burger as I dropped that bomb on her.

  “Do you need me to perform the Heimlich maneuver?” I asked. I didn’t know it, but I’m sure I could figure it out.

  With a few more coughs Quinn managed to get herself under control. Wiping the tears streaming from her eyes she said, “You sure know how to bury the lead.” Then she threw a French fry at me. I caught it mid-air and put it in my mouth, suddenly wishing I ordered something other than a cobb salad.

  Then she kicked me under the table. This girl was going to leave me with bruises. And I already had a few of those from my frantic fuck with Dante.

  I bit my bottom lip at the memory, adjusting in my seat as I became more aware of the after effects of being with Dante. It was that good kind of sore. The kind that comes from working out new muscles you didn’t know existed and wanting to go back to the gym for more.

  Slack jawed, Quinn just sat across from me shaking her head slowly back and forth. I’m not even sure she realized she was doing it. “I can’t believe you had sex at work, Kate. That’s epic. That’s something I would do. I’m impressed.” She couldn’t seem to get over it, her head shaking intermittently throughout our lunch.

  When I needed to get going to the community meeting, we hugged in parting. “You take care of yourself, Kate,” she said in a tone that told me she was serious. She gave me an extra squeeze. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She winked again and she left to go to work and I left for the community center.

  I walked in the direction of the meeting, wanting to stop by one of my favorite coffee shops along the way. The street was busy as workers took their lunch and tourists window shopped in the high-end boutique stores.

  As I pulled open the door to Metro Coffee Works, I stopped dead in my tracks. At a table inside sat Joel and Jeanine, both of them leaning in towards each other, gazing into one another’s eyes.

  “Excuse me,” sounded a voice from behind. Someone wanting to go inside to get coffee, just as I had planned to do.

  “Sorry,” I apologized in a daze, backing out of the coffee shop, suddenly not feeling the need to get my caffeine fix.

  Shock didn’t begin to describe my reaction. I guess I always thought of Jeanine as much older than me, but in reality, she only had a few years on me at most. In fact, she was probably close to Joel’s age.

  Still weird, I thought to myself.

  I pushed aside thoughts of the two of them as I finished making my way to the community meeting site.

  ***

  People flowed out into the hallway as the meeting space filled up.

  Lucky to get a seat, I got comfortable, settling in for a long public comment period that tended to come with lots of outraged civically engaged locals. I pulled out my notebook and checked my emails as I waited for the meeting to begin.

  Dante seemed distracted at our morning briefing and didn’t say anything when I told him I was going to attend the community meeting. He simply grunted in what I assumed was an affirmation that what I was doing was okay.

  It was enough to give a girl a complex, but then I realized he must be worried about his father. I had dropped off a few files on his desk with some updated cost projections for the mall project as a call came in from Mr. Inferno’s nurse providing an update on his condition.

  Quietly, I exited his office as Dante swung his chair around, away from the door so that it faced the big floor to ceiling window.

  No wonder he seemed out of it. I’d have to ask him about it but we weren’t exactly there in our relationship.

  I wasn’t sure what type of relationship we were having at all.

  It’s like we would bang and then he’d go back to being the brooding boss-man and I’d go back to being his assistant.

  But now I needed to focus on being a stellar employee. I took pages of notes as the community meeting kicked off. Announcements took place first before diving into public comment.

  When that started,
I pulled out a protein bar from my purse, knowing I needed the extra little boost of energy to see me through the rest of the afternoon.

  Just then someone new stepped up to the podium, a piece of paper in his hand. “I have here a report that Inferno Construction did on all the people they are displacing with this project,” the man said. Sitting up, I squinted across the room to get a better look at him. He wore jeans and a beige tunic top with several necklaces.

  He began to share information from the document in his hand. My breath stilled as I realized what he was looking at. It was one of the pages that I had just given to Dante to update his mall project folder.

  How the hell did this man get ahold of Inferno Construction’s proprietary information?

  Every project had costs, that much I knew. Costs came in many forms, monetary, environmental and human to name a few. But without the rest of the document, this human impact report made Inferno Construction look like the big bad, building something big that would displace the local population.

  But they didn’t have the whole story.

  Not having the whole story could make for a PR nightmare.

  I texted Dante immediately letting him know that the meeting went sideways, then made my way to the back of the room. I wanted to leave as soon as the man at the microphone finished with his spiel.

  When he did, the room clapped for him, giving them his full support for outing Inferno Construction’s private information.

  I wondered how the man had gotten hold of such private information during the entire trip back to the office.

  When my Lyft driver pulled up to the curb in front of Inferno Construction, I practically jumped out of the car, promising to give him a good review.

  Stumbling out of the elevator, all I could think about was telling Dante that someone leaked confidential information.

  When I arrived at his office door, I hesitated for just a second. My hand stalled in the air ready to knock.

  With a deep breath, I let my knuckles hit the wood. “Come in,” Dante called from the other side of the door.

  I smoothed my hair down before pulling the straightened locks behind my ears, then proceeded to go inside.

  Peering up at me from behind his desk, a small smile appeared on Dante’s face. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he said in that low growl of his. He gave a little nod as he looked at the edge of his desk, exactly where he fucked me thoroughly the other day.

  Heat rushed to my cheeks, but I tried to quell the mix of embarrassment and arousal and remember what had me rushing over in the first place.

  My expression must have been cause for concern because Dante’s smile vanished. He stood up, rounding his desk before guiding me to the sleek black couch. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I guess he didn’t get my text.

  But now I had his full attention. His brow furrowed, his hands on my arms. His nearness took me aback. His golden skin, the gorgeous smell of his after shave. Temporarily mesmerized, he had to give me a little shake to get me to speak.

  I grimaced. “I have something to tell you,” I started. “It’s about the community meeting I just attended.”

  He looked at me expectantly. “A man spoke during the public comment portion and he was sharing confidential information with the whole room.”

  Dante’s body tensed. “What kind of confidential information did he have?”

  As I explained everything to him the room’s temperature seemed to drop.

  I rubbed my hands together for warmth under his icy glare.

  “And how did he get his hands on that report?”

  I could only shrug. “I’m sorry, I have no idea.”

  DANTE

  I saw red.

  I hated feeling this out of control.

  Someone dared to leak information from my office. My father hadn’t even been gone a week before someone decided to do something as destructive as this.

  It felt like full on warfare.

  I had been distracted by my father’s treatments.

  Someone was taking advantage of that.

  Kate still sat across from me on the couch, looking more than a little concerned.

  When I stopped myself long enough to realize she was just acting as messenger, I covered her hands with my own. “It’s going to be fine. I’ll fix this,” I assured her. Then I got up and got to work.

  The first thing I did was call Joel and Darrell.

  Kate must have left the room because the next time I looked up she was nowhere to be found.

  When the men took a seat in my office a few minutes later I laid into them. “What the fuck happened at the community meeting on the mall site?” When neither of them seemed to know what the hell I was talking about, I held up a finger in a silent command telling them to wait.

  I paged Kate.

  A few seconds later she entered through the door looking apprehensive. “Take a seat and tell them what you just told me.”

  Elbows on the desk in front of me, I steepled my hands, waiting as Kate relayed to my top managers what she just told me. I observed them closely, wanting to find any indication that they knew about the leak.

  When she finished, I spread my hands. “Well, what the hell happened?”

  Joel and Darrell shared a glance.

  Darrell spoke first. “I don’t know what happened, but I can look into it.”

  Unhappy with the response I turned to Joel. “What about you?”

  Joel lifted his hands in frustration. “I have no idea how that report got out.”

  I took a long, slow inhale. When I released my breath, I was surprised I didn’t see steam billowing from my nostrils.

  I clapped my hands together. “Right. Well, we need to do some damage control.” I pointed to Kate. “I want to see the head of PR immediately,” I ordered. With a small nod she left the room in a rush.

  “Darrell, we need to make sure nobody on your team shared this with people they weren’t supposed to.” I hated to even think for a fraction of a second that Darrell had done this, but as CFO he was the numbers guy and a huge part of the report centered around cost. A leak from him or his shop would make the most sense.

  “Maybe they hacked us.” Joel half-smiled, attempting a joke. He stood up and patted me on the shoulder. “We will figure this out. This information doesn’t look great without context, but if that’s what we need to provide, then we do it,” Joel said assuredly.

  Darrell nodded. “This information won’t stop us moving forward with the project. We’ll be fine.”

  I wanted to share his optimism but my mind was focused on other things. Namely, finding the culprit and firing his ass.

  Part of me prayed it was Joel, just to get him out of Inferno Construction. His smug attitude grated my nerves.

  When they both eventually left my office, I placed a call into IT to see if they could trace the document, see who had it last.

  After reassurances from the head of PR that all would be well, I had a chance to be alone in my office and think.

  I poured myself two fingers worth of whiskey, sipping on my tumbler as I digested the events of the day.

  Day turned into night and I spent the time barricaded in my office. At some point Kate checked on me. I simply grunted a good night and poured myself another drink.

  When I realized I was just sitting there alone in the dark, I snapped out of it, just as my stomach started to grumble.

  In search of food, I entered the kitchen and opened the fridge door. Snacks that belonged to my employees filled the space. Post-it notes with names hastily written on them making it clear what belonged to whom.

  Spotting a container belonging to Kate, I pulled out what appeared to be leftover stir fry.

  “I’ll take her lunch to make up for it,” I promised to no one as I unlatched the top of the glass container and inserted it into the microwave.

  Three minutes later I had a piping hot meal that smelled divine. My stomach growled once more as I made my way bac
k to my office.

  Shuffling papers alerted me that I was no longer alone.

  A figure rifled through the papers on my desk. My body pulsed in anger.

  “I’m calling the police,” I yelled, dropping my food as I approached the intruder, the clatter from the plate, causing the figure to jump.

  With only a small lamp on, shadows cast the room in almost complete darkness. I couldn’t make out the person’s features, but did watch as the small figure froze, their hands automatically going up in the air.

  “It’s just me,” Kate said, a little out of breath. She began walking toward me as I reached for the light switch next to the door.

  The tension in my body subsided slightly, but I was still on guard.

  We both winced, as the harsh fluorescent lights turned on, drowning the space in a sea of yellow light.

  “What the hell are you doing here? I moved forward, taking in her appearance. She wore all black, leggings that molded to her every curve and a black tank top that lay flush against her slightly pinkish skin.

  Lowering her hands, she said, “I was out for a jog when I realized that I should check to see if the copy of report the man had was one I placed in your project folder a couple days ago.”

  Suspicion coursed through me. Eyes narrowed, I looked at the folder she was referring to.

  “See, it’s there,” she pointed to the offending copy of the report. My eyebrow lifted as my stomach dropped.

  “Just because it’s in there doesn’t mean it wasn’t copied and handed over to the demonstrators.”

  Kate’s face contorted. “Wait, what?”

  KATE

  I held my hand up in front of me as I processed what Dante had just said to me.

  He thinks I’m the fucking leak.

  A humorless laugh escaped my lips.

  “Are you serious?” My hands found their way to my hips and I looked Dante dead in the eye. This has to be a cruel joke.

  The man I had slept with, who fucked me on this desk, was now accusing me of messing with his company.

  Me? The person who has been nothing but a loyal servant to Inferno Construction for several years.