by A. E. Neal
LOVE SQUARED
by A.E. NEAL
LOVE SQUARED
BY A.E. NEAL
Copyright 2015 by A.E. Neal
All rights reserved
Cover Design by Sprinkles On Top Studios, Copyright 2015
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.
"But love is blind, and lovers cannot see,
The pretty follies that themselves commit;
For, if they could, Cupid himself would blush."
- Willam Shakespeare
Chapter 1
For Quinn Langley, 'prison cell' pretty accurately described her work environment. Something about being stuck in a cubicle for six years, doing the same nine to five job without any acknowledgement from her bosses, made her want to walk out of the office screaming, "I quit!" and never look back. But, she loathed confrontation and hated being broke even more.
Quinn worked as a risk analyst for Beckett and Associates, the second largest investment firm in the country and her boss, Mr. Hollingsworth, a middle aged, balding, stout man with a gravelly voice, wild temper, and always smelled like burnt coffee was the only one standing in her way of a much needed vacation. He had only been her boss for three years, but to Quinn, it felt like a lifetime.
Her dreams of laying on a sandy beach while a tanned cabana boy fetched her frozen cocktails and oiled her sun-kissed skin, were always on the front of her mind and as of recent, she found herself daydreaming more often than not.
"Hel-lo. Earth to Quinn," a familiar voice called.
Quinn’s eyes fluttered open as she sat up in her chair, confused. "Huh? Uh...what were you saying, Hannah?" she asked in a groggy voice.
Hannah cleared her throat and tapped her perfectly manicured nails on the desk beside her, "You were daydreaming again, weren't you? That's like the fourth time this week. Maybe you should really take that vacation you've been talking about."
Quinn nodded and mumbled, "I know." She straightened her back, took a deep breath and stood up. "I guess there's no time like the present," she said, smiling brightly. She turned the corner of their dull gray cubicle and glanced back at Hannah.
Hannah waved a hand over her shoulder and said, "Good luck, Quinn. Hollingsworth has been on a rampage all day."
Quinn stopped dead in her tracks and cursed under her breath. There's always tomorrow, she thought. She knew asking for time off didn't seem impossible, but asking Mr. Hollingsworth for time off was going to require a miracle. She spun on her heels and retreated back to the lifeless cubicle, slumped down in her chair and stared at her computer's tropical, sandy beach wallpaper.
Quinn shared a cubicle with Hannah, who was using her time as an intern to stalk potential boyfriends on Facebook and create funny memes with Hollingsworth's company head shot. They were pretty entertaining, but she did little to no actual work and Quinn didn't have it in her to say anything.
Hannah's long, lustrous blonde hair was pulled up into a loose French twist with the help of a ballpoint pen. She puckered her lips as she applied ample amounts of lip gloss and dabbed the edges of her lips with a tissue. It was hard not to stare at her. She was tall, blonde and breathtakingly beautiful. You could say Quinn was a bit jealous of her, but she was comfortable not being the center of attention like Hannah was.
Hannah angled her mirror over her shoulder and smiled when she saw Quinn watching her.
"You should let me do your makeup and hair sometime," she offered, but Quinn just shrugged and smiled.
Quinn rested her chin on her palm and propped her elbow on the edge of the desk. She realized she’d been staring at the same account for over an hour as she glanced at the tiny clock in the bottom corner of her computer screen. It was a little after two o’clock and she still had four other accounts to go over before the end of the day.
Quinn sighed loudly and scrolled through pages upon pages of numbers.
"Are we boring you today, Miss Langley?" Hollingsworth asked as he popped his head over the edge of the cubicle holding a cup of coffee.
Quinn straightened her back and smiled. "No sir," she said.
"I need those portfolios on my desk by five o'clock today."
"Yes, sir. It shouldn't be a problem."
"Afternoon, Hannah," he said eyeing the blonde beauty.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Hollingsworth," she said sweetly. Quinn pictured her batting her eyelashes and leaning over to 'pick up something', allowing him to catch a glimpse of her ample breasts that struggled to stay in her low-cut lavender blouse. Quinn rolled her eyes and flipped through the file lying next to her.
"Five o'clock, not a minute later. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." She nodded and he disappeared into the sea of cubicles.
"Looks like he's in a better mood," Hannah said and Quinn huffed.
She knew he had it out for her and there wasn't much she could do except to keep to herself.
"I'm gonna go get some coffee, you want anything?" Hannah asked.
Quinn reached into her drawer and pulled out her raggedy teal blue purse and set it on the desk in front of her.
"Can you get me a Chai tea?" she asked Hannah as she dug around in the abyss for her wallet.
"Jesus, Quinn. That thing is hideous, how long have you had it?"
Quinn shrugged. "I dunno...a while." Truth was, she couldn't recall the exact date of purchase, but if she had to guess, she’d say it was about five years out of style.
"I have a friend who sells purses. You know, the knock-off kind, but they look real. She's having a purse party this Friday, you should come."
"Uh, thanks, Han. But I think I'm good," she said spinning around in her chair to face Hannah as she held a twenty dollar bill.
Hannah took it and tucked it neatly into her brand new knock-off Kate Spade clutch. "One Chai tea, coming right up." She smiled and sashayed through the narrow cubicle entrance.
Quinn heard her greet everyone on the floor as she passed. She knew everyone and well, Quinn only knew her.
It was only Wednesday and it wasn't like she had any big plans for the weekend. She’d just do her usual routine, which consisted of Netflix, snuggling with her cat, Ziggy, and ordering enough Chinese take-out to feed a small village. Really exciting.
Quinn hadn't actually been to a bar or club in almost four years. They were loud, dirty and the drinks were always over-priced and watered down. Her last boyfriend, Matt, who worked upstairs as an assistant to one of the partners, was handsome in a nerdy kind of way and they'd been on three actual dates before she even let him kiss her. They broke up shortly after date number five because she refused to sleep with him and of course, she thought he was different from all the other brainless assholes she'd met, but was obviously mistaken.
After six years of working for the same company, she'd never actually been above the tenth floor. The higher-up's occupied floors eleven through fourteen and from the rumors she heard, Mr. Beckett's office took up the entire fourteenth floor.
"I hear he has a swimming pool with a deck and he sunbathes in the nude," she overheard one girl say. "No, it's a hot tub and I hear he practices Tai Kwon Do in the nude," the other girl said. "You're both wrong. I've been up there once. The entire fourteenth floor is nothing but windows, he has a three-hundred-sixty-five degree view of the entire city. There's a koi pond, with a water
fall, a wet-bar and an outdoor shower he uses only after one of his 'workouts'," an older woman whispered to the two girls. They all giggled like hormone driven teenagers and sighed. The gossip in the copy room was enough to make Quinn want to pretend she was deaf and mute just so she didn't have to participate in one of their catty conversations.
She'd never met Mr. Beckett either, nor had she even wanted to. She also heard through the rumor mill that he was a middle-aged arrogant jerk who went through women more often than she did Post-it notes. She was comfortable in her cubicle on the sixth floor and didn’t need to see what the top floor of an office building looked like, nor did she care.
Hannah returned with their drinks and set the change on the edge of Quinn’s desk. "Thanks, Han."
Quinn noticed there were only a few ones and some change as she glanced up at Hannah quizzically. "Hope you don't mind, I got a piece of cheesecake and an extra shot of espresso. I'll pay you back on Friday," she said quickly, sensing Quinn's irritation.
"Of course, no worries."
She mentally tallied all the money Hannah owed her, bringing her year-to-date total to ninety-eight dollars and some change. Quinn just shrugged because she knew she'd never see a dime of it. Hannah was lucky she made any money at all being an intern. The last two interns Quinn had trained weren't paid and only stayed for a couple of months, whereas, Hannah was paid a salary, had already been on board for almost six months, and Hollingsworth adored her.
"Do you want me to work on the Kimball portfolio? I don't have anything else to do today. I've already sent my files up to Bruce."
That was another reason why Quinn couldn't stand Hannah, she was careless and sloppy, always rushing to get her work in before it was due. The problem with that was, she'd make a thousand mistakes and the files would end up back on Quinn’s desk first thing the following morning.
"Bruce?" Quinn asked.
"Yeah, sorry. I meant Mr. Hollingsworth."
Quinn gagged at the thought of her being on a first name basis with him. "Uh, maybe you should let me go over those files before you send them up to him," Quinn said, hoping she didn't sound as crass as she felt.
"Oh, that's nice of you, but you already have a ton of them to do, plus, he never sends mine back, so I think I'm good." It never occurred to Hannah to ask why Quinn always had so many files to go through every day, nor did she offer to help. As nice as she was, she wasn't exactly the brightest crayon in the box.
Quinn was always a pretty calm, easy to talk to kind of person; a lover, not a fighter. She hated conflict and despised confrontation even more. So, instead of grabbing Hannah by the neck and shaking her pretty little blonde head back and forth until it popped off, she held her tongue, sipped her tea and continued working.
At a quarter to five, Quinn printed out her reports and gathered the portfolios from her desk before heading upstairs to Hollingsworth's office.
"See you tomorrow, Han," she said, waving.
"Have a good night," Hannah replied as she gathered her things and prepared to race out of the building once the clock struck five.
Quinn’s arms were full of manila folders and she struggled with the button on the elevator. She leaned back against the wall, slid down a bit and jabbed her elbow into the button, hard. With a pen in between her teeth and her reading glasses slowly drifting to the edge of her nose, she shimmied into the empty elevator. She leaned against the inside wall and nudged the tenth-floor button with her toe. The doors slid shut and the elevator began to ascend.
She adjusted the files in her arms one last time just as the door opened to the tenth floor. She hurried to Hollingsworth's office and stopped outside to speak with his assistant Tracy.
"He'll be with you in a moment, Quinn," she said as she filed her nails and lifted the receiver on the phone.
"Tracy!" he shouted from inside his office. "Goddamn it, girl. I thought I told you, I don't want to be bothered after four. Are you deaf?"
"Go ahead," she said, waving over her shoulder. She shot Quinn a knowing glance as she passed that told her she would most likely get her ass chewed later for allowing her into his office, but Tracy didn’t care. Like Quinn, she hated her boss.
He sat in his over-sized leather chair as he tapped the edge of the desk with a pen.
"I have those files you asked for, sir," Quinn said as she slowly walked through the door.
"Miss Langley, it's about time. Almost thought I'd have to send in the cavalry."
She took a few steps forward, the files were cutting into her bare skin and the weight of them made her arms tremble.
"Where would you like these, sir?"
"On the file cabinet, where else?" he snapped.
"Of course," she said and placed the stack next to the other three piles of files she’d brought up during the previous week.
As she turned to leave, a hand on her shoulder caused her to jump. She spun around to face her invader of personal space with a scowl.
"Excuse me," she said as she tried to inch past him, but he moved his robust body in front of her, blocking the doorway. He was so close, she could smell the faint scent of mothballs on his suit and coffee on his breath.
"You got somewhere to be?" he asked and the word 'creep' echoed in her head. Her heart began to beat wildly in her chest and she dug her fingernails into her palms, which were beginning to sweat.
"Yes, sir. If you don't mind, it's five o'clock and I have somewhere I need to be soon," she lied and felt the anxiety overwhelm her. She needed to get out and soon before she had a full blown panic attack in the middle of his office.
She heard Tracy clear her throat and Hollingsworth took a step back, away from her.
"Have a good night, sir," she offered and hurried out of the office. Tracy winked as Quinn passed and she offered her a silent, 'thank you'.
Quinn felt violated and dirty. Although, it had been several months since he'd gotten that close to her, it still made her stomach churn and she despised him even more.
Chapter 2
The blue glow from the alarm clock flashed, six-twenty. Quinn pulled the covers over her head and snuggled down into the warm, comfortable bed. Ziggy let out a half yawn, half meow, letting her know it was time for him to eat. The orange tabby leaped from the edge of the bed and made his way into the kitchen.
Her one bedroom apartment was cozy, the rent was decent and she could walk to work when the weather was warmer. The neighborhood around the apartment building was rapidly growing. New urban houses were replacing the worn down ones that lined the streets in the twenties and thirties. It depressed her to see most of them go as she imagined they must have been filled with so many wonderful memories, but she never bothered to do any research on them, so who knew what history or treasures they left behind.
Ziggy meowed loudly and she finally poked her toes out of the edge the covers and got up. The old wooden floor creaked as she padded into the bathroom and turned the shower on. One thing about living in a building that was built in the early nineteen-hundreds was nothing ever seemed to work right. The water took exactly fourteen minutes to reach an acceptable bathing temperature and once it got hot, she only had eight and a half minutes before it turned icy cold. The radiator in the living room rattled, the stove was so old, she was sure it was on the verge of holding antique status soon and the only reason she had stayed for so long in the same apartment, was the enormous balcony that overlooked the city. In the summer, she would fill her planters with flowers and drag out her lounge chair to catch a few rays. She loved her little apartment.
She bent over, patted Ziggy on the head and filled his dish with food. "Ah, the luxuries of being a cat. What a bum," she said to Ziggy as he crunched the food between his teeth and purred loudly.
She started a pot of coffee and hopped into the shower. She had her routine down to a fine science and so far she’d only had one morning where the water was so cold, she couldn't rinse all the conditioner from her hair. From that day on, washing her hair beca
me an every-other-day luxury, whereas shaving and washing her face had been bumped up on the list.
By the time she was done dressing, the smell of fresh coffee filled the air, beckoning her into the kitchen with a towel still wrapped around her head. She filled her mug, grabbed a banana and returned to the bathroom.
After a light coat of mascara on her lashes, she ran a brush through her thick, chocolate brown hair, pulling it into a ponytail and securing it with an elastic band.
"Bye, Ziggy. You be a good boy." She patted the orange ball of fur and opened the front door.
"Mornin' Quinny," Gladys Winters, her eighty-three-year-old neighbor said as Quinn pulled the door closed.
"Good morning, Gladys," she replied and tossed a wave over her shoulder.
She was sure Gladys had been born in the building, she'd lived there for so long. She was quiet and kept to herself mostly. Her husband, Leo, had passed away a few years ago and some nights she could hear her talking to him as if he were still there. It made Quinn sad, yet she longed for the kind of love Gladys shared with her husband.
"It's gonna be a cold one today," she said.
Quinn turned and smiled at her, lifting the lapels on her burgundy wool coat. "All set, thank you,” she said waving to Gladys.
Quinn lived on the third floor of the small apartment building, she took the opportunity to get in her morning workout by taking the stairs, it was that, and the fact the elevator was always out of order.
It was the middle of February and the air was slightly colder and humid than normal, indicating snow was on its way. She tucked her hands into her coat and slung her ratty purse over her shoulder. She had sold her car as soon as she moved to Denver, so she took advantage of the public transportation system and as she walked the two blocks to the bus station, she noticed another old house was being torn down. One of her favorites, actually. It was a Victorian with beautiful intricate stained-glass windows that reminded her of an old church she’d visited once when she was a child. Now, only a dull green dumpster and a pile of bricks stood where the old house had been. She frowned as she passed.
