Chapter 4 Elizabeth
ELIZABETH
@pancakesareelite:
theanswerisno is not a name.
What am I supposed to call you?
@theanswerisno:
Whatever you want
@pancakesareelite:
All I know about you is that you’re a Legend of Zelda fan. Should I call you Zelda? Your avatar is a picture of Link. I could call you Link.
@theanswerisno:
I try not to share too much with strangers on the internet
@pancakesareelite:
I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours
@theanswerisno:
The answer is no, Pancakes
@pancakesareelite:
Okay, Zelda
@theanswerisno:
Big no
@theanswerisno:
Now get back to building our city. We’re running out of daylight!
@pancakesareelite:
I love this game
@theanswerisno:
I’m aware
@pancakesareelite:
By the way, I like being called Pancakes, but if you want, you can also call me Lily.
“Watch where you’re—” I gasped the second I realized who those strong arms belonged to.
Mr. Carden released me as though I were a live wire. He jumped backward. “Uh…” he started, far more hesitant than he’d been with Mr. Anders earlier. “Sorry. I’m so sorry.” Underneath dark, long eyelashes, his gaze met mine for all of one microsecond before giving me a once-over. “Are… you okay?”
“Fine. Perfectly fine,” I squeaked out, clocking the In My Era burgundy lipstick stain on the bottom end of his shirt’s breast pocket. “You have, um…”
He looked downward, and his eyes widened.
I’d left plenty of lipstick stains before, but never in my life had I smooched my boss’s (firm) pecs unprovoked. Heat crept up my cheeks, and I was sure they were almost as red as my hair. “I’m so sorry.”
He blew out a small, quick breath and pulled at his collar. “Not your fault,” he said, his voice lower than it had been. “I was…” He swallowed hard and searched the floor. “Distracted.” He bent down and grabbed his fallen phone before slipping it into a pants pocket.
“It’s okay. It coulda been worse. If I were taller or you were shorter, we would have…” I smacked my hands together, immediately regretting the decision.
But then one corner of his mouth twitched upward.
Was that the hint of a smile?
Before I could say or do anything else, the HR director popped her head out of the boardroom. “Come on, the next segment is starting, and it’s an important one.”
“Be there in a sec,” I said, and turned around, but Mr. Carden had already disappeared.
I hurried into the boardroom and pulled out my phone. I needed to panic-text someone who knew how filterless I could be. I scrolled down to Link’s name and hovered over it, wondering how much I could share. We had an unspoken rule about oversharing. It was a small industry.
And yet, every day I fought the urge to risk it all and tell him everything.
Mr. Carden and I never spoke about the lipstick stain. We barely spoke at all.
As it turned out, Lincoln Carden was a man of few words and far too many projects.
After two and a half days of working together, I’d surmised that he liked his coffee with cream and sugar, enjoyed a simple sandwich at lunch, got to the office before sunrise, and lived nearby, because yesterday and today, his soft, black curls were still wet and dripping onto his well-ironed white shirt.
Oh, and that his headset was noise-canceling, which I embarrassingly discovered after having a long, one-sided conversation with him.
When he’d eventually taken them off, I’d tried asking him about his life or his friends, but he kept his answers short and to the point, and they were almost always followed with a work instruction.
He may as well hold up a sign that said: BUSINESS ONLY.
“Mr. Carden?” I used the sweetest voice I could muster. Everything I did seemed to tick him off, and I wasn’t about to take any chances.
“Elizabeth,” he said without looking up. My name was always a sigh on his full lips. “What can I do for you?”
I lifted the Arch D sheet, and he sighed again. He looked at his smartwatch. “I’ve got five minutes.” He pointed at the large desk on the other end of the office.
I laid the drawing flat on top of many other drawings as he walked over.
He wasted no time. His long fingers traced the shape of the road, and his gaze skittered across the design.
His dark brows pulled close, a line of thought separating them.
Without looking, he reached out for his red pen.
My stomach twisted in anticipation. That awful color had torn through my work multiple times over the last few days.
“This needs to be wider.” He scribbled, circled, and scratched through things that had taken me all day. “This isn’t the correct font. Check our standards.”
How much wider? What font?
But he never paused long enough for me to ask a question. Mr. Carden moved at the speed of light. I could barely register everything he said.
“The north arrow is too small. But I’m pleased to see you’ve included it this time.”
I sucked on my teeth as I thought back to the numerous mistakes I’d made in the past few days. “Live and learn.”
His mouth twitched upward.
Getting Mr. Carden to smile was a new game I liked playing with myself.
He straightened to his full height, which left him about a head taller than me. “Where’s the vertical alignment?”
“I’m not done with it yet,” I admitted. Although the truth was that I hadn’t started. Everything took longer than I’d anticipated. “I’m sorry.”
Instead of being mad, Lincoln Carden nodded.
I couldn’t get a read on this man. It was weird. Everything was either a nod or a sigh. He was always stressed and appeared angry, but the anger was different from what I was used to. And it was never directed at me.
But he didn’t seem happy around me either.
As a people pleaser, this killed me. People were generally very pleased by me. Well, those who didn’t know the real me.
Pursing my lips, I stared at all the corrections I’d need to make. My eyelids drooped. It had been two days of working nonstop. I’d been falling asleep before managing to get into pajamas.
While no one asked me to stay late, I had to. I was already four years behind everyone else after dropping out and starting over years later.
Mr. Carden walked over to his desk and unplugged his laptop. “Go home. We’ll deal with that in the morning.” He packed his bag and swung it over his wide shoulder.
I tried not to think about how hard his chest had been when we’d collided or how effortlessly he’d caught me. My pale cheeks threatened to expose my inappropriate thoughts, so I turned away. “I’ll leave when I finish these corrections.”
As soon as Mr. Carden was out of sight, I went to the kitchen. The next revision required a fresh cup of coffee.
“How’s it going?” I asked Kimberley, another intern, who was also filling her cup. She was number three on the intern list and the only other woman in the internship. Other than that, I knew nothing because all her social media accounts were set to private.
“Good,” she responded with a curt smile.
I waited for something more while adding a generous serving of sugar. “That’s great. It’s been such a hard transition for me. I don’t feel like college prepared us for this.”
“Yeah” was all she said before slipping out without a backward glance.
It was no surprise. The sick scent of competition was thick between the interns. Heads were kept low and resources hidden because only two of us would find placement after the eight-week internship.
Another intern walked into the kitchen as I was leaving.
He grinned. “Hey, Seven.”
My muscles tensed at the nickname, but I steeled myself and rolled my eyes.
I knew what everyone thought: I was hired because my stepfather, Douglas Gordon-Bettencourt, was the CEO of one of the biggest movie production companies in North America.
Mr. Anders assured me that wasn’t the reason. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder. Did I earn this? Did I get lucky? Or was it because everyone wanted to be close to Douglas Gordon-Bettencourt in the hopes that his success would rub off on them?
From prior experience, the third option seemed the likeliest.
But if I worked hard enough, I could still ace the test and earn this internship. I could overcome every roadblock Douglas had set up for me. I could prove to him, to myself, and to everyone that I am capable.
Because Douglas Gordon-Bettencourt doesn’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do.
Not anymore.