by Zante, Lily
He was about to walk up to her when Candace rushed to his side. Dressed in a bright red cocktail dress, she was impossible to miss. She’d been here all day overseeing the plans for this evening.
“Tobias,” she trilled, flashing him an ultra-bright smile that made him wince. “Nice of you to attend your own Christmas party.”
“I thought I’d show my face.”
“I hope you’re staying for dinner, after your usual annual address, since you’re not jetting off this time.”
“I’ll stay for dinner.” Or maybe not. Maybe he would disappear after the appetizers.
“How did Naomi take it? The news about you staying in New York?” Everyone, even Candace, believed that Naomi was his girlfriend and he liked to keep it that way. He paid Naomi enough for her to keep her mouth shut.
He shrugged. Naomi had no opinion. He didn’t pay her for her opinion. But it hadn’t stopped her from whining or making the occasional remark when she’d found out that he wasn’t going away this Christmas. She was onto a good deal, and the girl was smart, she knew it wasn’t in her best interests to piss him off.
“You’re not very talkative this evening, are you?” Candace was the only other person who spoke to him on an even level, like that Page woman. But sometimes Candace’s over familiarity grated on him. He clenched his jaw. “Let me get you a drink,” she suggested, hooking her attention onto a poor, unsuspecting waiter. “It might loosen you up.”
“No,” he shook his head.
“You need to lighten up, Tobias.” She grabbed a drink for him nonetheless.
“I didn’t know I paid you to disregard my orders.” Taking the glass of champagne from her, he saw the mischief in her eyes and guessed that she’d had more than a couple of drinks by now.
“Sometimes you need to be told, Tobias.”
“There are boundaries, Candace. Don’t forget them,” he said, before she made a comment that would make them both uncomfortable. She was excellent at her job but sometimes he wasn’t sure if she wasn’t slowly crossing the line. If she had any illusions about ever becoming something more, he wasn’t going to risk her getting any ideas.
“You’re sitting with the board of directors on Table 1.” She informed him, sobering up immediately.
“Another night of fun,” he muttered under his breath as he looked around the huge foyer. Just a walkway away there was the Centennial foyer filled to the brim with more employees. Food was served, buffet style, and people were spread out all over the hotel, mixing, flirting and enjoying themselves. Even if Savannah Page had been here, it would have been hard to find her.
Scanning his gaze around, he caught sight of the shock of auburn hair and recognized Briony talking with her friends, all with glasses of champagne in their hands.
“Excuse me,” he said, and without even looking at Candace, he left, and cut his way across the packed room to where Briony stood. People greeted him as he moved past them, so that it took longer than it should have to get to her. She turned to him in surprise. “Tobias?” They both knew he wasn’t one to seek out others, not in social situations. He usually preferred to watch from a distance, and keep his distance too.
“Is something wrong?” Briony asked.
“No,” he replied, wondering if he instilled the fear of god into everyone. The other two women smiled and looked into their glasses, but he remained silent, and they soon disappeared, as if on cue.
“I got it wrong with the Dalton file,” he said, finally.
For a moment Briony looked puzzled. “Oh, that.” She threw her head back slightly and he knew she considered it odd for him to bring that up now. “Yes, you did.”
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since that day. I wanted to clear up a few things.” He found himself in the awkward position of having to explain himself for he knew that whatever he said stood a chance of getting back to that Page woman. For some reason which he didn’t even understand himself, he’d been thinking about her lately and seeing her earlier in the line at the food bank had made him more curious.
“It was remiss of me to assume that your temp had taken the file.”
Briony was quick to nod her head. “Savannah wouldn’t do anything like that. She’s a hard worker, and she’s honest and reliable. She finished the original job I hired her for within two weeks. We’d taken her on for three. She could have taken her time, but she didn’t.”
“You’re not easily impressed,” said Tobias.
“That should tell you something. She’s the best temp I’ve ever hired.”
Tobias lifted his face and stared across the room. “She’s not here.”
“I know she didn’t like the accusation you made but she was planning to attend. I think she decided against it at the last minute.”
Tobias nodded his head. Maybe she was still mad. He knew he would be if someone had accused him of something he didn’t do.
“Just out of curiosity,” he asked, trying to sound casual. “When do temps get paid?” This was uneasy territory for him, not just making small talk, but the kind of information he was after—and it had nothing to with hedge fund transactions.
“Not until January.” Briony replied. “Apparently it’s how the agency works.”
Tobias narrowed his eyes. So that was why. The bastards. He was certain the agency had most likely already invoiced his company for the bill.
“That’s a shame. Some people need the money before Christmas. I pay my employees before Christmas and I’m sure it would help her.”
“Now that you mention it, I think it would. She seemed a little shocked when I told her.”
“Are you in the office tomorrow?”
Briony shook her head. “No,” she replied. Then after a moment, “You’re not inhumane after all, Tobias. It seems as if the Christmas spirit has touched you, too.”
“Don’t push it,” he warned but couldn’t help let a smile slide onto his lips. The image of Savannah Page lining up to get food from that place troubled him. It had been hard enough when he was growing up, but his parents had never had to go to a food bank. He tried to imagine what that felt like, especially with a young son to look after. He noted she didn’t wear a wedding band. Where was the boy’s father?
“Tobias.” Matthias approached him with a firm handshake. “Sorry for the mix-up with the files.”
“So you should be,” replied Tobias coldly.
One thing he did know was that a woman in her position didn’t need any more aggravation from a man like him.
Chapter 14
It was an hour earlier than usual and Jacob was still bleary eyed by the time they made it into the sprawling office building.
Savannah felt a touch of sadness that after tomorrow she would no longer be coming here. Or have a job. Briony hadn’t said anything about whether her contract would be extended further or not and she assumed that it would end tomorrow. Most of the talk yesterday had been about the Christmas party.
She had no proper work to do, having finished the last task Briony had given her and these next two days would be easy enough. She only needed to rearrange the files on Briony’s work area and keep an eye on the phone and email messages. She anticipated an easy time, with the only difficulty arising from having to sneak her son into the office and then to make sure he stayed there. She knew it was too much to ask of a six-year old, especially being cooped up into a confined space for a long time.
“You can’t bring him in,” said the security guard, barring her way to the elevator. The trying-to-walk-in-casually-with-a-child approach had failed at the first hurdle.
Jacob hid behind her legs, as she knew he would. She could sense her son was scared of the large, hulk of a man and that his unfriendly tone would scare Jacob. It always did.
Remnants of life with Colt.
But she wasn’t going to give up. She couldn’t not work and she couldn’t leave Jacob anywhere. The lobby was decidedly quieter and she hoped it was due to the fact that a lot of people
had already started their holidays. Hopefully Tobias Stone had, too.
“You can check with Mr. Stone. He’s fine with this. But I’d think twice if I were you, about challenging his decision. I work on the same floor as him,” she pointed to her security tag, and tried to sound as if she didn’t care. But her nonchalance was only skin deep. Inside she was a quivering mess. After the recent run in with Tobias and the Dalton file fiasco, she didn’t want to give him a good reason to throw her out. That man seemed to take pleasure in making people suffer. Maybe she should have dialed her response down slightly. But she’d been that other type of woman when she’d been with Colt and it hadn’t served her well. She wasn’t going to become that person again.
She prayed that the guard wouldn’t check, and then she also prayed that Tobias Stone wouldn’t be in, just in case he did. The guard eyed her warily and picked up the phone. Savannah’s heart thundered as if she was getting ready to race 100 km.
This was definitely dismissal. Her lying, and Tobias finding out. But the man appeared to reconsider and put the phone down. “If Mr. Stone okay’d it, then it’s not a problem. Go ahead.”
“Thanks,” she beamed, closing her eyes and silently thanking the universe.
“Have a good, day, Ma’am.”
“You too,” she said, and rushed towards the elevator.
“This is a big place,” said Jacob, looking around excitedly as she ushered him in. “You work here?”
“Yes, honey.”
“For Tobias?”
“Mr. Stone.”
“Can I go see him?”
The elevator doors closed.
“No, Jacob.” She crouched and looked at him level in the eyes. “He doesn’t know you’re here, Jacob. He won’t like it if he found out. And he will throw me out.”
“He’ll be nasty to you, like daddy was?”
Oh god. He still remembered every nasty thing.
“No, honey. He’s not nasty. It’s just that children aren’t allowed in here. So you have to be very quiet. Okay? Do you remember Harry Potter’s Invisibility cloak?”
“I don’t like Harry Potter. It’s too scary. I like Iron Man. You should know that, Mommy.”
She let out a groan and didn’t see how being Iron Man would help. But she nodded, conscious that the doors would open any minute. “I don’t think Iron Man can become invisible, can he? He only shoots off into space and I don’t see how that—”
“He can be invisible if he has the Stealth suit.”
“Okay, then pretend you have one of those.” She rushed out of the elevators and pushed him into the safety of the office, relieved to have seen nobody on their way up. At this quiet time of year she knew the chances were slim that someone would see them. As long as that someone wasn’t Candace or Tobias, then she was fine.
Once inside, Savannah looked around. She couldn’t very well ask Jacob to hide under the table for the whole day. Nor could she lock the office door. But she could block the entrance to it by putting a chair with some heavy files on it, in front of it.
“We’re going to play a game, Jacob.”
“A game?” Excitement spread all over his face.
“If someone comes into this room, and you hear the door handle move, you have to take your things—your books, your toys, your coloring pens, and hide under that table?” She pointed to the table that was on the right of the door. It would give him some time to hide even if someone had managed to wedge the door open a little. “And you can’t come out again until I come and tell you. Do you understand?”
“It doesn’t sound like much fun. What’s the prize?”
“Prize?”
“There has to be a reason to play the game, otherwise, why are we playing?”
She let out an uneasy laugh. “Santa knows you’re helping Mommy, and he knows you’ve been a really good boy this year. And I think he’s going to get you something really amazing this year.”
“You mean like the new Iron Man things in that shop?”
She nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Now, it sounds like fun.”
She settled down and powered up the computer, checked through the emails and saw that Jacob seemed to be keeping himself entertained. The phone rang again, she answered it quickly, eager to have something to do. She preferred being busy to doing nothing; at least it made the day fly by.
“Ms. Page, please come and see me.” The sound of his voice made the hairs on her arms stand up.
What did he want to see her about? He couldn’t have found out about Jacob already, could he? She looked around the room for CCTV cameras.
“I’ll be right there.”
She put the phone down and wondered what Tobias Stone wanted with her. She wished Briony was here. At least then she could have also found out about the Christmas party last night. She stared at Jacob and tried to muster a smile. “I have to go to a meeting, Jacob. You have to stay here and be quiet. Promise me?”
“Are you going to see Tobias? Can I come too?”
She didn’t like that her son was so informal about her boss. “It’s Mr. Stone, honey. And yes, I am going to see him, but no, you can’t come along.” Her son gave her one of his cutest and most endearing looks.
“It’s not going to work, Jacob. ‘No’ means ‘no’. Stay put and be good, otherwise I’ll have to take you home.” She smoothed a hand through her hair and wished she’d shampooed it last night. It was limp and hung like wet spaghetti.
Just get this over with.
She knocked on his door and was surprised when Tobias opened the door himself instead of ordering her in as he usually did.
“When were you going to tell me?” he asked, as she walked in, her mind running wild with fear.
Tell him what?
She tried not to look as nervous as she felt but there they were again, the butterflies dancing in the pit of her stomach. Feeling ever more anxious, especially with the way he hovered around her, she took the bold step of sitting down.
“Did I tell you to sit down?” he asked.
She frowned. Was he being serious? She turned to stare at him.
“I didn’t realize we were in a military academy.” She wished this man, always so stiff and so cold, would pull that steel rod out of his ass. “If you think I’m going to stand back up again and wait for your permission, you can think again.”
She thought she saw the faintest wisp of a smile on his lips.
“You’ve got some spunk.”
“Excuse me?” She leaned forward, taken aback by his choice of word.
“Bravado. I like it. You’re not afraid to speak your mind.” It had cost her dearly when she hadn’t. She’d only learned recently that the best way to fight bullies was to stand up to them. Not cower from them.
“It seems to me that most people are afraid to tell you what they think.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“You really want to know?”
“I really want to know.” His gaze was cool, magnetic, and she could not look away if she tried.
“Because you have money, and power, and people want to please you.”
“People want to please me,” he said, slowly repeating her words. He walked over to his side of the desk and sat down. “Do you want to please me?” he asked, entwining his hands together and placing them on the desk.
“I want to work. I don’t look at it in terms of whether it pleases you or not. You don’t really factor into my equation.”
He nodded, and placed his elbows on the table, lifting his hands so that his chin rested on them. He said nothing for a few moments, and she was left with a mouth that had suddenly gone dry.
He stared at her, as if awaiting an explanation, and she, remembering the way he had interrogated her the other day, chose to remain silent. Finally he spoke. “I’m sorry.” It sounded as if it pained him to say the words.
“You’re sorry?”
“It’s not a trait that is alien to me.”
; She drew her eyebrows together.
He continued. “I’m sorry for implying that you had taken the Dalton file.” Now she remembered. “For thinking I was a spy, you mean?”
“I have enemies everywhere, Savannah. I can’t let my guard down, or trust anyone.”
“What a sad way to live.” The words slipped out before she’d had a chance to put them through her internal filter.
“It’s not for everyone.” He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve and she wondered if he was buying himself more time or thinking of something else to say.
“Was there anything else?” She was anxious to return to Jacob. This whole exchange with Tobias had taken her by surprise and she knew she would analyze their conversation later. In a place of safety, away from him.
“No. Please close the door on your way out.”
She was more than relieved to leave his office and escape to the safety of hers. Walking back into her office and seeing Jacob’s smiling face made her forget the awkwardness of meeting with Tobias.
The rest of the morning went smoothly enough. Nobody had tried to come in. The phone had rung a few times, but it was things that could wait until Briony got back. She responded to all the emails that came in otherwise she continued to tidy up Briony’s network folders.
Then Jacob spoke. “I’m hungry, Mommy.” He’d been a good boy all morning, playing with his Spiderman figurine and doing some drawing. He’d been a good boy and hadn’t even needed to go to the toilet yet either.
But now he wanted food and she had forgotten to make lunch. She usually brought sandwiches to eat but with both of them leaving so early today, she’d clean forgotten. She had to go out for lunch. There was no way around it. It meant she had to leave the office and leave Jacob unattended—something she hated to do. Yet to take him out of the office during the busy lunchtime risked her getting caught.
The building had no restaurant, except for vending machines on a few floors and she wasn’t going to feed her boy snacks for lunch. She had no option but to sprint out of here, across the road, run into the sandwich shop and sprint back.
