He was in his late thirties, and handsome. He had olive skin, a shock of thick dark hair, the kind of face Michelangelo’s David would have been in awe of. He was sculpted and arrogant, beautiful beyond reasonable measure. And he was a complete bastard.
Carlyle leaped in immediately, ignoring both the greeting, and its rudeness.
“Christo, there are some concerns…”
“When are there not?” Christo smiled, brilliant and so incredibly handsome. It might have mattered if he was there to impress ladies, but the only people present in the room were Alex, Carlyle, and Sophie. Who, Alex thought yet again, did not belong there.
“I still don’t have funding for the Pravida trial,” Carlyle sighed. “I don’t know what we’re going to do with the rats. The scientists are baying for blood.”
“Then give them blood,” Christo smiled. “Sacrifice somebody. That’s why we have interns, and employees, and hell, managers…” He turned his attention to Sophie, suddenly noticing that she was in the room.
“Well, hello,” he said in that drawl which suddenly held notes of the old country. “Aren’t you a pretty thing.”
“I’m Sophie Pierce,” she said, mistaking his attention for interest. “I’m the new manager of…”
“Blah, blah, boring,” Christo interrupted. “Titles don’t mean anything, Sophie. It’s who we are beneath our suits that matters. Don’t you think?”
This was how he seduced almost every woman who joined Apex. Alex waited for the inevitable blushing and giggling followed by an invitation to drinks and the meeting being cut short. He’d seen it happen a hundred times at least.
“If titles don’t matter, give me yours,” Sophie said with a pleasant, polished smile.
After a beat of confusion at not having immediately seduced her, Christo threw back his head and laughed. “You. I like you, Sophie, manager of something boring.”
Alex thought he might just like her too.
Chapter 7
It was time for Sophie to attend a very late meeting. The one which made her feel as though she was being summoned to the principal’s office after dark.
Nobody at Apex went home much before eight o’clock. The company had several conference rooms, and all of them were regularly used for dinners for various teams on time crunches. As she walked past, she saw at least thirty people spread across them. She shouldn't have felt alone, because she wasn’t alone.
But the conference rooms were on the fifth floor, and she was getting in the elevator for the thirteenth floor, which, as Sandy said, was a whole other world.
She would have been lying if she’d said she wasn’t nervous to have been summoned to Alex Roth’s office. But she hadn’t said anything about it at all. Not even to her closest work friend. She had no idea what he wanted with her, but she was certain it wouldn’t be anything good. The way he’d looked at her in the company restaurant had sent chills through her. He had a way of staring right into your soul and taking the complete measure of you all at once, she’d discovered.
But the man was a genius. There was no doubting that Alex Roth was one of the primary forces who had made Apex what it was, a company with branches literally all over the globe, and business interests in everything from cotton swabs to rocket ships. Working for Apex was a dream come true. She really hoped she hadn’t already fucked it up by annoying the big boss.
There were limited lights on in the office building, sort of like the emergency lighting on an airplane. Enough to see by, but not enough to be accused of wasting power. Part of the Apex Forest Initiative. That was part of her purview now. She’d never considered how much it made the office feel ominous and even a little unsafe once the sun had gone down. Halls which were busy all through the day, lit with fluorescent traffic, suddenly became dark passages down which an intrepid manager had to find her way.
The floor Alex occupied didn’t have fluorescent lighting and heavy traffic footing. It had wool carpets and luxury panelling and soft indirect light which appeared to spill out of the walls themselves.
One of these days, she’d have an office up here. She’d look out over the city and feel as though she owned it.
It was so quiet up here. Maybe he’d forgotten about the meeting. Or maybe it had just gotten too late for him to bother to stick around. She half-hoped he’d forgotten, and was half-disappointed at the idea at the same time.
The door to his office was closed. There was no indication that he was in. His secretary was obviously long gone. There was a stillness and a silence which made the hairs on the back of her neck…
“Stop lurking in the hall, Miss Pierce.”
A deep voice emanated from behind the door, freaking her the fuck out for a second until she realized he probably had a camera in the hall. C-class executives didn't like to be sneaked up upon.