“So?”
I lied, I had no other choice. “I have no idea, Mr. Hudson. Theresa and I were getting along fine. She even invited me over for drinks Friday night. I went to Octave with her.”
He started a huff, but froze midway. “You went to Octave? You got into Octave?” He was taken aback. “Well now. My girls say that’s the place to get into and you got in?” His head bobbed in some form of a nod, but then he frowned. “Well something happened between then until now. We’re out. I want you to fix it. I want to be on that team, Emma. Make it happen.”
I picked up my phone, ready to call…who? I had no one to call. Mallory was the one I usually called. If she didn’t answer, I went to Amanda. But since the bathroom a full week ago, I hadn’t heard from her, and Mallory had never been one to reach out. Who was my other friend? Theresa, for one week, and Carter but I couldn’t even call him. He was off doing what Mike had termed, ‘the clean-up’ from Friday night’s attack. I didn’t want to know what that meant and judging by the grim set of his shoulders, I saw that he didn’t want me to ask. But it made sense since there’d been no coverage of our attack. I checked the news over the weekend. Nothing.
I put my phone back down and sent Theresa an email instead. An automatic response came back stating she’d be out of the office all week. A few days passed with no results. It wasn’t until Thursday, the day that I was supposed to be leaving for New York that I even glimpsed Theresa.
I pushed the button for the elevator, and it opened. My eyes popped out when I saw Theresa inside, with a pencil in her mouth and two large suitcases beside her. She was holding onto a large poster, but it started to slip out of her hands. “OH!” She scrambled to catch it, losing her other grip on the briefcase. It fell to the floor and opened, scattering papers, pens, folders, and flashdrives all over the floor. “Oh no.” She bent and started to grab for her stuff.
I got in, hit my button, and knelt to help her.
“Oh gosh. You don’t have to do that. Really, Emma.” She gave me an awkward smile around the pencil still in her mouth.
I settled back on my feet. That wasn’t the reaction I had been expecting. “Oh, no. It’s no problem.” I glanced down at some of the papers in my hands and saw the logo for the new Richmond Bourbon. The two suitcases seemed ominous next to her. “So you’re going to the airport from here?”
“Oh yeah.” She brushed her hand back and smoothed her hair from her forehead. It only pulled more out of the ponytail. “Since Noah added Allison, this week has been hell. I meant to call you the other day and see if you wanted to meet at Joe’s for a drink after, but I never got time to do that. I haven’t had a chance to check my email. Can you believe that?” She groaned. “I know that once we finish this, I’ll have a week’s worth of email stuff to catch up. And that’s on top of everything we’re going to be doing after we present to the board.”
“Wait.” This wasn’t making sense. “Noah pulled me?”
“Noah pulled Mr. Worthless. He didn’t want your boss to get the credit so he added Allison and Harold instead. Talk about being ineffective. With you, we would’ve had a great week and had all this done by Monday. With her, I’ll be lucky to get it all done by the time we walk into that boardroom. I wish you were coming, trust me.”
“Oh.” That was unexpected. “I thought it was you that requested the switch.”
“Gosh no! I wish you were still on it. We could’ve been relaxing poolside with margaritas by now if you were on the project.” When the last piece of paper had been picked up, Theresa stood, smoothing out her skirt and her hair. More strands were pulled from her ponytail. “By the way, who was the hottie getting into that car with you?” She laughed, “Next thing I know, I’m returning from the bathroom and Noah’s says you got a ride home. Imagine my surprise when we leave later and there you are, holding hands with Mr. GQ himself.”
Mr. GQ himself? Did she really not know? “Uh,” I laughed. “It was kind of sudden.”
Theresa snorted as the elevator slid open. “You can say that again.” After she stepped out and saw that I remained, she caught the door. “Aren’t you coming?”
My exit was a floor down. “I forgot something by the lobby. I’ll see you next week.”
“Oh. Okay. See you! Let’s have wine when I get back!”
When the doors closed behind her, I was left with one very confused thought. What the hell had just happened?
I should’ve gone through the back exit I had come to use since Carter came back into my life. I should’ve gone home, but I didn’t. Feeling rebellious for some reason, I went out the main entrance and turned into the café where Amanda worked. With a quick scan, I saw that she was working. She was placing cookies onto a tray for their display case so I rounded the counter and leaned against its side next to her.
She kept sliding the cookies onto the tray and ignored me.
I had sent another text earlier that morning, but it went unanswered. Again. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, pretending I didn’t exist, but I knew Carter advised against communicating with all three of them. He said they were a risk. They could hand me over to ensure their safety, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Mike pretending to study the menu by the door and one of the other guards just came out of the bathroom. I was safe. I had no idea how they moved that fast, but they were good and since my visit to Joe’s they had upped their surveillance over me.
“Amanda.”
Nothing. She rearranged a row of the cookies now.
“You can’t ignore me.”
She sighed and moved an entire row of cookies to the side on the tray.
“Why are you mad at me?”
She shot me a dark look, moved the same row back to their original spot.
Okay. I got the message, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I was tired of being alone. Since I got the boot from the account, the other girls I’d previously been friendly with had taken her cue. They stayed away. I didn’t get a hello in the break room anymore so my week had literally been spent by myself in the office. Mr. Hudson hadn’t come back to the office since he gave me that warning and his secretary only shook her head every time I popped in to see if he was in or not. I had sent Theresa emails and considered emailing Noah himself, but he was the Big Man. Before last Friday, I would’ve pissed my pants at the thought of sending him an email without having it approved by Mr. Hudson. I didn’t think it was appropriate now.
Maybe it was my sorrows at disappoin