Page 14 of Past and Present

He sighed and fought the urge to tell her to go home and not come back. Firing her could wait until he talked to Kimberly in the morning.

“Thank you, Jill. I’ll be in my office for the rest of the day. I would like you to supervise the decoration of the lobby up here, please. Make sure it looks festive and professional. I’ll send my phones down to reception to handle my calls for the rest of the day.”

Jill stood and slipped on her shoes. “I feel like you’re angry with me, Mr. Moss. I’ll try to do better. I promise.”

He shook his head. “It’s OK, Jill. We all make mistakes. I just need you to be a little quicker on your feet in this job and do your best to actually do the things I ask you to.”

He decided not to even mention the fuck up with David’s conference call and turned back to his own office where he called down to reception and transferred his phones to them.

When he finished that, he called Marissa’s assistant and asked him to get her some lunch and make sure she ate it.

“You got it, Mr. Moss. Everything OK up there today?”

“It’s fine, Cameron. Question. If I wanted you to cover my calendar and Marissa’s sometimes would that be too much?”

The man laughed. “Not at all Mr. Moss. In L.A. I managed the calendars of an entire board of directors along with answering their phones.”

“Good deal. We might talk about that in the future if the need arises. With bonus pay of course.”

7

Thursday, December 13th

Marissa

“Are you sure it’s a good idea for me to be the one to take this dinner? I don’t mind getting to Solitaire late on Friday, but there’s no need for you to go ahead of me. Why can’t we take the dinner together?” Marissa asked as she paced her office later that day.

“Because, Kitten. I want to see you do this one on your own. It was your vision to begin with. And I already made plans to help Elijah with some things early on Friday so I need to get there.”

She frowned. That was the first she was hearing of it. Since they’d gotten back together, she’d taken on a lot of the cyber security at Solitaire. Was he working on something without her? Why did that irk her so much?

Twirling the engagement ring on her finger, she scowled at the speakerphone. “Fine. I don’t like it. But fine.”

“You’re going to be fine, Kitten. I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll see you at home?”

He hummed. “Home. Do you know how much I like that we have a home together again?”

“Are you about to get all mushy on me again? You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

He laughed. “I’ve always been mushy. It’s why you love me.”

She made a face at the phone. But he wasn’t wrong. His mushy made up for her less than mushy nature sometimes, and she did like the way he fussed over her even when she fought it.

When the call ended, she settled back at her computer and eyed the half-eaten sandwich her assistant had brought her. It would irritate Lance if he dropped by, and she hadn’t finished it. But she was too busy to eat. They were nearing the final stages of alpha testing for the app she’d been working on for the last few weeks and could soon send it into beta testing.

“Ms. Sullivan?”

She looked up to see Cameron standing in the door, looking confused.

“What’s up, Cameron?” she asked, motioning him into the room.

“I got a weird call from a reporter asking if you’ll be staying on board at Moss Tech if you and Mr. Moss break up?”

She wrinkled her nose. “What kind of reporter?”

He shook his head. “They didn’t identify their paper or magazine or anything.”

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