Page 22 of Reconciling With the Rival

Now, I’m soaked, looking very unprofessional as I get into the building.

It’s fine, I say to myself.Put your fucking game face on, Williams, and you’ll be fine.

I get into the office and set all my stuff down, but the files I was working on the other day aren't here. They should’ve been right in my desk drawer where I left them, but I can’t find them.Shit. Fuck. Fuck!

Where could they have gone? They’re for a long-time client, and if I really did lose them, they’re not going to trust me to do anything else for them.

God, can’t something go right for me today?

“Ella, there you are. Do you have the marketing plan I asked you to prepare for today?” Tim—the head of the firm—asks me, and I swallow hard before I answer.

“I do, but I seem to have misplaced them.”

“You what?” he asks me, raising his voice ever so slightly.

I scramble around my desk, searching for the blue folder I’m positive I left here on Tuesday. “I’m sure they're around here somewhere, and if they’re not, I have another copy on my computer that I can—”

“You lost it? I gave you one simple task, and you can’t even manage that?”

“No, I can. I—”

He cut me off for the second time, and I knew when I first met him in my interview, I was going to dislike working for him. I clocked his holier-than-thou attitude when he called me sweetheart in my interview.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” Leo asks as he waltzes over, my blue file folder in his hand, a shit-eating grin on his face.

He stole my fucking folder,I’m sure of it. He has been sabotaging me since we got here, and I wouldn't be surprised if he came over to my desk before I arrived today and took it to make me look incompetent. For some reason, Leo Zimmerman was put on this planet to push every fucking button of mine, and he knows just how to do it.

Tim grabs the folder from him and flips through it for about two seconds before he smiles at Leo. “Yes it is. Thank you, son. Will you sit in with me during the meeting with the client?”

He looks over at me, smiles, and nods his head. “I’d be honored, sir.”

I shake my head at both of them. “But that’s my work! Leo has no idea about any of the proposals, or what the client even does! How can he sit in on something he knows nothing about?”

“He clearly knows how to keep track of things better than you, Miss Williams. Let this be a lesson. Make sure this doesn't happen again,” Tim says. “Ten minutes, Leo. Meet me in the conference room.”

“Of course, sir.”

Tim then leaves, and as I slump down in my cubicle, Leo lingers behind me. I’m assuming his huge ego takes up most of the space around him, because that’s how I can tell when he’s near.

His ego smells like Dior Sauvage and pretentiousness.

“You stole my folder,” I say as I open my laptop.

“Maybe, but you should stop leaving things on your desk. It’s fair game when it’s out in the open.”

I shove my chair out from behind me and spin around to face him, my finger pointed at his chest. “If you’re going to play dirty, I can too. All you’ve done by being a snake is get on my bad side, and once that happens, you never get off my shit list.”

“How sad,” is all he says, a triumphant smirk on his face. “Maybe if you weren’t late, I wouldn't have had to steal that folder. Tim was all up in arms about it this morning. You would know that if you were here on time.”

My confidence falters. I was only five minutes late, and I’m usually punctual, but today hasn't been my day. My dad’s car broke down on his way to take my little sister to school. He normally drops her off and then goes to work, and this was ahitch in his morning. So, when he called me as I was walking out the door, I dropped what I was doing to help.

It took me an extra half an hour to drop my sister at school and my dad at work. Yet, I wasonlyfive minutes late. Fucking impressive, if you ask me.

I try so hard to act like I have it all together, that I’m put together and can handle anything and everything life throws at me, but some days, it all falls apart.

Today was one of those days, and it has barely started. I’d hate to see what the rest of the fucking day has in store for me.

“Go away, Zimmerman,” I say as I turn around and sit at my desk.

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