by Noelle Adams
“Okay.” That sounds easy enough.
“People are going to want in. They always do. You need to keep them out.”
“I will.”
He studies me from my midpriced boots to my smooth brown hair. “You look quiet.”
I frown. “What does that have to do with anything? I can be quiet and still do my job. If you don’t want me to let anyone into your office, then I won’t.”
I see that glint of amusement in his eyes again. I haven’t seen him smile yet. Not once. But that glint is oddly appealing. “All right then. Guard the door.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
“Good.” When I realize I’m still standing and staring at him, I make myself move to the door.
“Don’t let anyone in,” he calls back toward me as he sits down in his desk chair.
“You already said that,” I grumble. I figure if he can be grumpy, then I can too. And exactly how hard does he think telling people to come back later will be for me to do? “I won’t.”
I close the office door behind me as I leave. It sounds like he’s giving another dry huff of amusement, which must be what passes for a laugh for him.
Liam Cunningham is not at all what I expected, but he doesn’t seem as bad as everyone was painting him to be.
I can handle him. I can do this job. I can make enough money to get me through until I return to my teaching assistantship next semester.
Anything that happens here will just be temporary.
GUARDING THE DOOR ISN’T as easy as I was hoping.
The office was quiet in the morning, but the activity picks up in the afternoon. There are quite a few calls, and most of them are from people on campus who seem to know that Liam is working in his office. They don’t appreciate my saying he’s not available to take calls right now.
I’m not really a fan of conflict or confrontation, but these are nameless voices over the phone, so I can say no to them without too much trouble. But other people actually stop by. Either faculty or staff of Milford—I can usually tell the difference between them by how they’re dressed and how they act—all of them want in to talk to Liam. In all fairness, most of them are polite and easygoing, accepting my denial of entry without argument. But a few of them aren’t happy about it.
I should have realized that the person in charge of the money at a college would get a lot of visits—and not all of them friendly—but it never occurred to me that I’d have to have arguments with people who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
One member of the business faculty is particularly hostile. He’s a distinguished-looking man in his sixties, and he comes into the office, wearing a three-piece suit, which is unusual enough on a college campus to make an impression. When he says he needs to see Liam, I tell him he’s not available at the moment. He asks who I am. Then he has a five-minute argument with me about how Liam is obviously in his office right now, he only needs a few minutes, and I should let him in anyway.
I stand my ground. No matter how intimidating this man is, he’s not my boss. Liam is, and he told me clearly not to let anyone in.
The man finally leaves, much to my relief, but he comes back an hour later. Liam still isn’t letting anyone in, so I have to tell the man that he’ll have to try again later. This time the faculty member tries another tactic. He’s nicer this time—explaining about how his business is urgent because Liam cut his department’s budget for events and he needs more money for some sort of internship roundtable he’s hosting.
I smile and nod and act understanding but keep telling the man no.
It’s stressful. I don’t like this sort of thing. I really want this guy to get out of here.
After about ten minutes, he gives up again. Cindy has overheard some of the conversation, and she gives me a sympathetic smile. “That’s Dr. Hadley. He’s not the easiest person to work with. You’re doing great.”
That encourages me enough to persevere.
It’s after four when I hear a muffled “Polly!” from Liam’s office. I can hear it through the closed door, so he must have yelled it pretty loudly.
I go in immediately to find Liam at his computer, his tie loosened, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his hair rumpled like he’s been pushing his fingers through it a lot. He turns those gorgeous brown eyes on me and says curtly, “I had a piece of paper last week that broke down a proposed budget for student clubs, but I can’t find it.”
This seems like an easy enough job. The slight tension I was feeling on entering relaxes. “Where should I look?”
“It was on my desk.” He turns back to his computer.
I stare down at the surface of his desk. Unlike most faculty and academic types I’m familiar with, Liam keeps his desk perfectly clear. There are two inboxes, a telephone, a blotter, and a console that holds pens, paper clips, and Post-it notes. There’s nothing else. No stray papers or random books or leftover lunch containers. There’s no way a sheet of paper is hiding somewhere.
I look from the desk to Liam, who is back at work on the spreadsheet he’s been poring over and looks completely unaware of my presence. “Uh, should I look in the desk drawers?”
“Of course. Didn’t I just say so?”
I scowl at the back of his head. He certainly did not just say that, and surely he doesn’t think I’d start rooting around in his desk drawers without his permission.
But I don’t say anything. Naturally. Instead, I walk around to the other side of the desk and pull open the shallow top drawer. Unlike the surface of the desk, it’s cluttered with random items. Pens, pencils, scissors, highlighters, an assortment of paper clips and binder clips. Also sugar packets. Hot sauce and ketchup packets. A variety of unused napkins. But no stray sheets of paper.
Closing that drawer, I open the top side drawer. His drawers are clearly where he puts all his mess and clutter. This one is filled with paper and file folders. Piles of them. All jammed in together.
With a sigh, I lift the whole stack out of the drawer and start to go through it. Some of these files are from the file cabinet near my desk. I know because I recognize the way they’re labeled. I check them to make sure they’re not about student club budgets, and then I pull them out to return them to their proper place.
The remainder of the stack is random paperwork. I have to go through every sheet to make sure it’s not the one he’s looking for. I start at the top since he saw the piece of paper last week and surely it couldn’t have gotten too far down in this pile.
I go through about a third of the stack before I find the one he’s probably looking for. “Is this it?” I’m standing about a foot away from his desk chair, and I extend my hand with the sheet of paper toward him.
He turns around and takes it without glancing up at me. “Yeah. Good. Finally.”
He doesn’t look at me. I scowl again at the back of his head. He could at least say thank you.
I return the random papers to the drawer and take the files with me to return to the cabinet.
I’m just walking through the doorway into the main area of the suite when my eyes land on Dr. Hadley. He’s back.
“Ah,” he says, striding toward me. “He’s available now.”
I’m surprised by his sudden presence, so it takes me a minute to react. “Oh. No. He’s still busy.”
Dr. Hadley is standing right in front of me. I swear he’s about to push right in. “I’ll just be a minute.”
I’m an even-tempered person. I do get annoyed fairly often but only mildly so. I rarely get angry. But I am now. I’m sick of dealing with this pushy man, and I don’t like being treated like I can be walked right over. “He doesn’t have a minute,” I say more firmly. “I’ve already told you. He’ll give you a call just as soon as he can.”
“But I need an answer right now. Let me just—” He actually puts his hand on the door over my head, ready to open it all the way and go in around me.
I grab the doorknob so he can’t push in. “I tol
d you no. You can’t see him right now. Come back later.” I can’t remember ever sounding so forceful and authoritative in my life.
I keep holding on to the doorknob. I’ll fight this jerk for the door if I have to.
He frowns and narrows his eyes and grumbles under his breath—I’m just as happy not to hear the words he’s using—but he turns around and huffs out of the suite.
I relax with a whoosh of air when he disappears. I’m about to lose the pile of files in my arms, so I reposition them more securely. Then I glance back into Liam’s office through the partly open door. I don’t know why since he’s probably still focused on his work.
He’s not. He’s looking at me. He’s just seen and heard the confrontation in his doorway. Our eyes meet across the distance.
The corner of his mouth turns up in a ridiculously appealing way. “Very nice,” he says before he turns back to his computer.
I smile. I can’t remember the last time I felt so proud of myself.
Two
AFTER THE FIRST COUPLE of days at work, I stop being nervous all the time. I’m generally a fast thinker and an organized person, despite my lack of experience in office environments, and most of the duties I’m given to do are easy to get used to. I keep answering the phone, and I have to guard Liam’s door at least two hours every day when he’s focusing deeply on a project. I file and sort the mail and enter data from forms that are submitted. On the third day, Liam asks me to write up a bunch of his notes into a memo. I do the best I can to decipher his messy scrawls and write them into paragraphs and bulleted lists, and he evidently likes the result so much he keeps giving me more to do.
That’s pretty much the extent of my work in the first week. It’s not bad. It’s better than it could have been. Liam is never friendly. He’s always brusque and abrupt, and his manner occasionally strays into rudeness. But he’s not mean. He’s certainly not personal. And occasionally he remembers to thank me.
I’m not sure why the other people they brought in last week to do this job didn’t last more than a day or two. Maybe they didn’t need a job as much as I do. Nothing Liam has said or done is bad enough to tempt me to quit. Not even close.
This kind of job doesn’t really suit my personality. I don’t like being trapped in an office all day, and I prefer to study and talk about literature and grammar. But that doesn’t matter for a temp job. Being here is boring sometimes, but all jobs are boring sometimes. The pay is better than any other short-term position I’d be able to get. I can certainly make it through six more weeks of this.
On Friday morning, I get to campus at seven thirty to find that Liam is already there, working in his office. I don’t know what time he comes in every day, but it’s earlier than anyone else. He also stays later in the evenings than anyone else. I’ve gotten emails from him this week at ten thirty at night and five after five in the morning. He literally works all the time, and I can’t imagine he has much time left for a personal life.
He’s not married. At least he doesn’t wear a wedding ring. He’s never mentioned anything about his private life to me, even in passing. Maybe he has a significant other, but the person would have to be incredibly tolerant and long-suffering to put up with such a workaholic.
After I put my stuff down at my desk, I stick my head in to say good morning and see if he needs anything.
“Did you get my email last night?” he asks, looking over toward the doorway when I greet him.
“Yes. I’m going to work on the memo right now.”
“I need it by nine.”
“I’ll have it done by then.” I came in early on purpose so I’d be sure to get it done by his deadline.
“Okay.” He turns back to his computer.
I stare at him for a minute, suddenly conscious of how handsome he is. His body is naturally lean, but he has really good shoulders. The cut of his jaw is square beneath his beard, and his forehead is high, making him look intelligent, thoughtful. His chocolate-brown eyes might be the most beautiful ones I’ve ever seen.
His blue dress shirt is already wrinkled. He’s pulled his tie loose. He looks like he’s at the end of a long day, and it’s not even eight in the morning.
“What?” he demands without turning back toward me.
My first instinct at hearing his tone would be to duck out quickly, but I’ve gotten to know him better now, so I risk the question that crossed my mind. “You haven’t been working all night, have you?”
He turns his chair toward me, squinting in my direction. “What? No. I went home last night. Why?”
“Just making sure. You look...” I trail off, wondering if this isn’t professional enough.
He leans back in his chair, his eyes narrowing as they run up and down my body. “I look what?”
“You already look tired. What time did you get in this morning?”
“I don’t know. Five thirty or something. I always get in early.”
“And you work late?”
“What’s your point?”
“No point really. It just seems like a lot. Don’t you get any time for yourself?”
His expression changes. For the first time, he looks just a little soft. Almost poignant. “Sometimes it’s easier not to have much time for yourself.”
I want to follow up. I want to know what he’s talking about. For a few seconds, he looks almost broken, and it affects me strangely.
Like I need to take care of him.
But asking for him to spill his personal feelings is definitely outside the bounds of our professional relationship, and it’s probably best for me not to get too irrationally attached to this odd, grumpy man.
So I murmur, “Yeah. I guess. I’m going to work on that memo. Let me know if you need anything.”
He calls out a muffled “Thanks” to my back as I turn to leave.
I GET THE MEMO DONE for him well before nine, and he seems pleased with it.
Pleased for him means he doesn’t complain about it. That much I’ve figured out this week. If he says “Okay” when I do something for him, then he’s as happy with my work as it’s possible to be.
At one o’clock, I’m ready for lunch. I tap on his office door and push it open to see him at his computer in his normal position.
“I’m taking my lunch break,” I say with a smile. “Do you need anything before I leave?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“You want me to pick something up for you?” I ask, looking at the coffee cup beside his keyboard. It’s been filled way too many times today.
“What?” He blinks over at me like I woke him up from a deep sleep.
“You haven’t had anything but coffee all day. Can I bring you a sandwich or something?”
“Oh. Yeah.” He looks like he forgot that lunch even exists. “If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all. What would you like? I’m just planning to go to the dining hall to get something.”
“Doesn’t matter. Some sort of sandwich is fine.” He pulls out his wallet and retrieves a twenty-dollar bill.
I take it, rolling my eyes at the vague instructions. It’s a lot of pressure to put on someone who has no idea of your eating habits to decide what you might want for lunch. But I don’t press him for more information. He’ll just get annoyed and snap at me, and he hasn’t done that all day.
I’d like to avoid it if possible.
I go to the dining hall on campus and get soup and a salad, finding a relatively quiet corner and reading while I eat. I have an hour for lunch, but I only take a half hour. Liam hasn’t eaten all day, and it’s after one thirty. It’s nagging at me that he won’t take care of himself, so I want to get his lunch back to him.
I get him a club sandwich and a cup of the vegetable beef soup since it was really good. He hasn’t moved when I return to his office with his lunch.
“Thanks,” he says, when I put the food containers down on the blotter on his desk.
I lay the change from his twenty down be
side the food. “I’ll get you something to drink,” I say, grabbing his coffee cup.
“You don’t have to—”
I’m out the door before he can finish the sentence.
I’m not going to fill up his coffee cup. He’s had way too much today—even more than normal. I get him a bottle of water out of the refrigerator in the executive kitchenette and put his mug in the sink to clean it later.
When I return with his water, he hasn’t yet touched his food. He does look away from his computer enough to notice that I replaced his mug with the water bottle. “I was drinking coffee,” he grumbles.
“I know you were. But you’ve had enough. Drink some water. It will make you feel better.”
He gives me a mild glare as he unscrews the top and takes a big swig.
“And eat the soup before it gets cold,” I tell him, ignoring his expression with a blithe nonchalance I’m sure will annoy him. “It’s really good.”
His glare deepens, but he pulls off the lid of the soup bowl, unwraps the spoon I brought him, and eats a bite.
“It’s good, isn’t it?” I ask with a smile.
“What’s gotten into you this morning?” he asks, unwrapping the sandwich and checking it out. It evidently meets his approval because he takes a big bite.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You’re usually nice and quiet, but you’ve got some sort of attitude today.” Despite his words, he doesn’t look like he’s annoyed by me. In fact, he looks almost amused.
I arch my eyebrows. “Maybe I was just quiet because I’m new here. Maybe this attitude is my normal self.”
He’s gazing up at me with that dry smile in his eyes, and it’s giving me surprisingly fuzzy feelings. “I don’t think so. I think quiet is your normal self. This is new.”
“It’s not new. I just find it ridiculous that you work constantly and survive on nothing but coffee, so I thought it wise to make sure my boss doesn’t keel over from a heart attack or caffeine overdose before my work here is done.”
