11. Tristan
ELEVEN
TRISTAN
I curled my fingers into a fist, then grazed my white knuckles over the edge of the desk. I just woke up hungover and my temples hurt like a motherfucker, so having Sara in front of me with those puppy eyes of hers did nothing to dim the pain. If anything, it increased it.
My blood boiled in my veins at the sight of her. While I was able to contain my anger with Haelyn, I found it difficult to do the same with Sara.
I didn’t sleep a wink all night and while it was supposed to calm me down for the conversation I was having now, it only added fuel to the fire.
“How did this happen?” I asked, relaxing back in my seat and cracking my neck from side to side. There was no ounce of patience left in me, no matter how hard I tried to fake it.
Sara was my assistant, meaning she knew better than anyone what our priorities were and a mistake like that was impossible to make in her position. She had no excuse.
She looked behind me as her lips pursed, heat rising on her cheeks. “I—” Sara took a deep breath and unlike other times, she did her best to keep her eyes off me. “I forgot?—”
My back straightened in an instant and I placed my arms on the desk. “You forgot? Is that what you’re saying? That you blew off a chance because you forgot ?”
Her mouth parted, but no words came out of it, and instead she offered me a nod. It would’ve been better if she just stuck to the part where she stood silent rather than offering a stupid excuse.
“Then why do I pay you? If you don’t do your job, why should you have it in the first place?”
Her eyes shot up to me, rounding as if I just slapped her. Sara’s shaky fingers lifted to her shirt, unbuttoning the first few buttons enough to show her boobs off. The way she was, I couldn’t even tell if she was doing it because she was feeling hot or because she wanted to seduce me. Either way, she couldn’t escape this.
“I’ll talk to them and get you a contract,” she whispered, looking at her feet under my desk.
Did she even believe herself?
A mocking and barely hearable laugh escaped past my lips. “I have someone else taking care of that.”
Even though I didn’t believe Haelyn Ross could pull off her promise, I wanted Sara out of this. If Gorig changed his mind, no one on this Earth could convince him.
“Who?” she dared to ask.
“Haelyn,” I told her and watched how her eyes darkened and her body tensed. I leaned over my desk, holding eye contact. “Is this how you’re securing your place at the company? By trying to screw up others with our most important goals?” The same as mere moments ago, her painted lips formed an O, only her breaths coming through it. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, Sara. I was planning to keep you both, but I’m expecting your resignation to be signed and on my desk by tomorrow morning.”
It wasn’t hard to figure out why she set Haelyn up. She felt threatened by her, and she knew if Haelyn had made a mistake like that, I would’ve never let her stay.
She fought raw with her claws when she should’ve been smart about it by proving to me that she was good at her job.
Instead, she put the company at risk and stained its image.
A shadow appeared in front of my open door—which I didn’t bother to close when Sara walked in because there were only three other people on this floor and everyone knew what she did—and my eyes lifted to meet a speechless Haelyn.
Her gaze traveled from me to Sara and our proximity, her arms hugging the documents tighter to her chest. “Am I… interrupting?”
At first, I didn’t understand her question, but when I looked back at Sara who had her shirt open, it was clear why she asked that. I was towering over Sara, yet I hoped Haelyn could see that it wasn’t in a romantic way, despite what it seemed.
Our position was more than interpretable.
“No,” I said, then returned to my seat on the chair. “Sara was just leaving.”
“But—” she started.
“You resignation. Tomorrow,” I instructed, pointing at the door.
She pushed the chair away with her legs, then marched out of my office, knocking shoulders with Haelyn.
Haelyn watched her walk away with an increased amount of disinterest.
“I won’t take long,” Haelyn announced and took two steps inside, but avoided coming any closer.
My heart hit my ribcage when my eyes did the quickest survey of her body. Her dark skin was covered by a black pair of jeans and a white t-shirt that sat too tightly over her breasts. I nodded and chose to move my attention to her face, where a few curls bumped over her crimson cheeks.
“I got a meeting with Gorig.” She gestured with her palm in the air, then bit her bottom lip. “Well, kind of.”
How could she get a meeting with them after that email and this soon? It was only yesterday when I called her to explain what happened—or better, to lash out at her for something she didn’t do.
I hid my bewilderment and eyed her. “What does ‘kind of’ entail?”
A twitchy smile lifted on her lips before she spoke. “Um, they are looking for employees, and after I created a completely fake and polished CV, I scheduled an interview. Today.” She sucked in a breath, pushing her hands forward when she noticed me staring like a fool. “Before you get mad or draw any conclusions, please listen to what I have to say,” Haelyn said, and I couldn’t decide whether she asked me or commanded me to do so.
When she realized I wasn’t going to speak over her, she continued. “If they are as unapproachable as you said, this is our only shot to explain what happened and if you ask me, you should be there personally when I’ll get on my knees to beg them to give us a chance.”
An image of her on her knees in front of me and her hair curled into my fist flashed through my mind.
I shook my head, touching my temples. This was all her fault with her stupid idea of sexting on Unlock. Since then, I’ve had fantasies of her as if I’d never fucked a girl in my life.
Still, her suggestion didn’t make sense to me. “That doesn’t sound professional at all,” was all I told her.
She nodded, taking two more steps toward me. “If you allow me, I think Gorig sees things outside of the box. I spent all night scrolling through their social media and website, and if you want to work with them, you have to show them your company is not strictly professional. Even their forms for the interview had questions like ‘What would you do if a large number of our cars ended up with factory problems?’ and one of the options you could choose was ‘I would test them on car crashes and film a campaign’.”
My brows furrowed in thought as I leaned back in my chair. Apart from the fact that she said my company was ‘strictly professional’, she had a point. I knew better than anyone that a partnership could be done with firms that had something in common. If Gorig was looking for companies with creativity, Haelyn’s idea could give them that opinion about us.
“It might not even work, but if I’m right, they’ll love your devotion to work with them, and showing up there in person will also prove you are deeply involved in the growth of your company instead of having pawns to take care of it.”
I stayed silent, not really knowing what to say. She was right, it could’ve been the biggest failure of Graves Automobile’s history, but if it worked, it was going to change everything. Gorig and Graves had a great future ahead in a partnership—they were the best with tech and we specialized in design.
How didn’t I think of this sooner? I was so focused on working with them that I thought sending a few emails with our offers and growth over the years was going to get it done for me.
My gaze swept to her, where two deep purple bags rested under her eyes. When she said she’d fix it, I didn’t buy it for a second. “You didn’t sleep all night?”
She looked from side to side, probably not believing this was the first thing I said after her genius speech, and then shook her head. “No.”
Fuck me for thinking it was hot she didn’t sleep a wink all night to come up with the best solution to partner with Gorig.
I rose to my feet, buttoning my coat. “Then we better get going. It wouldn’t be fair for all of that work to be thrown away because I do things traditionally,” I said, and watched how her eyes were about to fly out of their sockets. “If we get a meeting, the job is yours. If we get a contract, your salary will skyrocket.”