Page 122 of One Night Only
“Shit.”
He nods in agreement, stealing some of my blueberries. I feel a little ill. Amanda. Chris. Ethan went just after Christmas. Janelle just before. We knew the firm wasn’t exactly in trouble, but we weren’t raking in the big clients either. Harvey’s tightening his belt and if I don’t start making traction…
“You think he knows something the rest of us don’t?” I ask. “Harvey wouldn’t do another round of cuts, would he?”
Will shrugs, looking unusually down, and another thought hits me as I go through the list of people in my mind.
They all have something in common. They all have someone here doing the exact same job.
“You’re in the middle of Declan’s office,” he says as if reading my mind.
“That’s small fry and you know it. It’s not pulling enough money to keep me if it’s a choice between Matthias and me.” I sit back, tapping my fingers on my phone. “This is the part where you say I’m wrong.”
“I don’t know anymore. You ask Harvey and he’ll deny anything’s going on. But the proof is in the pie.”
“Pudding.”
“What?”
“Proof is in the pudding.” I sigh, standing up.
“Where are you going?”
“To follow up on some old contacts.” Like I’ve been doing all summer. All in the vain hope that someone who didn’t want to move forward with a project has suddenly found the money or the time or the will.
“Can I eat your—”
“Yes.”
I dump my yogurt carton in the trash and head back to the floor.
The desks are empty, some cluttered, some clean, a snapshot into the creative minds that work here.
Matthias’s desk is neat and orderly, just like him. He’s on a site visit today, and if I didn’t know he sat here, I wouldn’t have a clue he was here at all. No favorite coffee mug, no office jacket, no picture of his friends, his girlfriend. There’s no personality here at all.
Probably because he has noneI can imagine Will saying.
I’ve never paid much attention to Will’s dislike of him before. Mostly because Will claims to dislike everyone, but he seems especially scornful of Matthias.
Before I can stop myself I step into his cubicle. It only takes a second to pull out his plans for the Grayson Group, neatly filed away like everything else. My hands are steady as I flick through them, looking for the signs of his genius, the confirmation that when it comes down to me and him, he is the visionary victor and I’m stuck in the mud.
But it’s not there.
The only thing there are my plans. My ideas.
He’s scribbled some notes on them sure, a few minor adjustments, but they’re mine. No hint of the “different direction” they were supposed to be going in, no sign they’re deviating at all from my pitch.
It confirms what I think a part of me has known all along.
They’re my plans.
Matthias just took them over from me.
“Can I help you?”
I whirl to see Margot standing beside me, looking like a mother bear protecting her den.
“Just writing him a note,” I say, pretending to scrawl something on a Post-it. I don’t bother tidying them away. Let him wonder who was looking through his things. Let him know it was me.
