Page 56 of Hot in the City
“What? You’re leaving? We haven’t finished compiling all the reports!”
Jean sighed, long and low. Leaning on the back of her desk chair, she whispered. “You’ll do great. The guy wants to bone you, clear as day. All the UST was getting to me, so I booked a date with a dude from the apps. Must go, getting laid this evening. Priorities, you know.”
“Jean!” She shouted at her to come back, but it was no use. Jean grinned her slightly manic grin, then ducked and weaved around Megan to get out of their cubicle.
“Gah!” Screaming seemed like a sensible option, but Megan didn’t want to terrify the neighbours in the other cubicles. But now that she thought about it, the office was strangely quiet.
Megan leaned over a partition to glance into the Marketing team’s area, and her mouth popped open. Gone. Everyone was gone, except one lonely guy at their team's ping pong table, packing up the balls.
“Hey, where did everyone go?” she asked the guy, hoping he could hear her.
He spun around, pocketing ping pong balls as he turned. “Oh, after their interviews with that Ono guy, most of them left. Some are sacked, I reckon. I’m okay, got a new job to go to. Have a good one!”
He waved at her and strolled away, only stopping to grab an entire cookie jar from someone’s desk on his way towards the central elevators.
Wow. Megan turned slowly on her heel and took in the silent, deathly state of the office. It really was the end of something. Maybe, it was the start of something too. Didn’t Cruz say the new owners wanted to retain the good employees? To grow the business? Maybe it would be a good thing.
Megan scurried back to her desk and started piling her reports into a large cardboard box. Once she’d collected everything, she grabbed her laptop and phone and headed to the boardroom. She glanced at the clock on the wall. 6.15 p.m. She speedwalked across the office.
It was strange there was no-one around. It wasn’t usually deserted by the time. At least some of the management team worked later, but come to think of it, she hadn’t seen any of them all day.
The next strange thing she noticed, apart from there being not a single person left in the small customer service team, was the smell. Now, it wasn’t an unpleasant smell, not at all. A mouth-watering food smell was wafting towards her from the boardroom, and she didn’t think it was just Cruz’s cologne. It was spicier.
She popped her head around the corner of the doorway to find Cruz sitting at the table, papers and laptop spread out to one side, and an array of takeaway food containers set out in front of him. He also had a couple of beers placed on coasters, a set of chopsticks plus spoons, knives and forks placed on a plate.
Megan cleared her throat and stood in the doorway. “Um, sorry, am I too late for our meeting? I don’t want to interrupt your dinner.”
He looked over at her and smiled, a half-smile, not so evil this time. “No, it’s fine. I was just starving. I didn’t have a chance to eat lunch. I bought extra if you want to join me?”
“Oh, sure. That would be nice.” Her stomach took that as a cue to rumble, menacingly. She hadn’t eaten lunch either.
Cruz laughed, then took a sip of his beer to cover it. He motioned for her to come in. “Come. Sit.”
Megan sat and dumped all of her files on the ground, only placing her laptop and phone on the boardroom table. She nodded at the takeaway containers. “What is this, Chinese food?”
“Thai, actually. You mentioned you were half-Thai and it stuck in my brain, I guess. I’ve been craving Pad Thai all day.”
She pressed her lips together to stop herself blurting out, You were thinking about me! He was really thinking about food. Instead, she mumbled, “Cool, I love Thai food. Especially from...” she stared at the logo on the noodle box in front of her, “Golden Buddha.”
Cruz pointed at her and grinned. “It’s the best! You have great taste.” He grabbed a fork and opened a noodle box and shoved it towards her. “Here, try this.”
Megan took the plastic fork from his hand, feeling the same riot of sparks in her belly as earlier when he’d touched her with the towel. She accepted the box of noodles and dug in, only to groan really inappropriately at the first taste of Pad Thai.
“Oh, wow. This is heaven.”
They ate in silence for a couple of minutes but she could feel his eyes on her. Then Cruz offered her a beer. She shrugged, and said, “I don’t know if I should. This being a work meeting and everything.”
Cruz nodded. “Right. Let’s get that out of the way then. I’m currently analysing the responsibilities and productivity of the various teams here at Nora Heart. I was discussing your team’s work with the Marketing Manager earlier, and it seems he’s very impressed with you. Very.”
She tried to hold back another groan, but it slipped out. “Right. Nothing against Peter as a professional, because I think he does a good job. But he’s an insistent sort of man. He’s asked me out a few too many times for comfort, although I was clear I’m not interested.”
His eyes narrowed. “Uh-huh. Do you want to raise it with HR?”
She shook her head, unsure where this conversation was heading. “No, it’s fine. I can get along with him if I need to.”
Cruz shrugged. “And if he happened to move to the Sydney office?”
Megan went still, except for her eyeballs. She knew her eyes were as wide as the time Jean came into work wearing a crochet halter top with no bra. “He’s moving to the Sydney office?”
