Chapter 7
Cynthia watched as Melanie Burgos made another exaggerated show of flipping through her notepad as if she were one of the Olsen twins starring in a made-for-TV mystery from the nineties.
But because it was Melanie Burgos, Cynthia didn’t dare roll her eyes.
Instead, she shuffled backward, using the broad expanse of Rohit’s back to hide her expression as she studied Melanie.
She looked the same, sharp eyes magnified by large, statement eyewear, reddish-brown hair smoothed back in a tight French braid, and a wrinkle-free pantsuit paired with brown, square-toed loafers complete with tassels.
The woman had terrible taste in shoes.
But it wasn’t the ugly shoes that kept Cynthia partially shielded behind Rohit, who, for all his annoying prom-king tendencies, provided excellent cover.
The corners of Melanie’s thin lips lifted in a smile that was so knowing and sly that the hairs on Cynthia’s arms stood to attention.
As the self-proclaimed lead writer of The Watch —a local Kelowna newspaper whose staff, if Cynthia remembered correctly, boasted three writers and one editor—Melanie was always looking for an angle.
If anyone was going to uncover that a biannual traveling dog show was a front for a mafia-run drug cartel, it would be Melanie.
In every edition of The Watch , her name appeared in multiple bylines as if all her waking hours were devoted to running around town and sticking her nose in everything.
Cynthia risked a quick glance at Rohit’s profile. His face was stretched into the trademark good-guy smile Cynthia knew too well. She’d seen it plenty of times in the last year, had been on the receiving end when he tried, unsuccessfully, to disarm her.
Once was enough to fall for that smile, that charm.
But now, the fact that he could switch it on and off like a desk fan didn’t irritate her. In this rare moment, it felt nice to be standing on the same side as him.
“Come again?” Rohit asked. “Are we talking about the same company?” His voice straddled that fine line between humorous and teasing, and when Melanie’s lips quirked in what could be read as flirtation, Cynthia bristled.
“Let me check my notes.” Melanie continued thumbing through her notebook. “Oh, there we go,” she said, pointing to a page that was probably blank. “My sources claim that Kumar Construction lacks progressive workplace policies and is detrimentally hierarchical.”
Cynthia winced, and when Rohit inhaled sharply, she laid a gentle but warning hand on his lower back. When he spoke again, his voice was cheerful.
“I think you might have the wrong place after all.”
Melanie’s eyebrows lowered and her smile widened. “Can I quote you on that?”
Cynthia scoffed and nudged the back of Rohit’s biceps.
He immediately stepped aside. “Hello, Melanie,” she said, her voice loud and purposely drawing out the syllables in a chiding, singsong fashion that she usually reserved for Leering Larry when he hovered over her assistant’s desk a little too long.
“Cynthia.”
Rohit’s head whipped between the two of them. “You two know each other?”
Cynthia wasn’t going to waste any time explaining to Rohit that if he deigned to spend a fraction of the time she did networking with local business owners and getting her card in people’s hands, he likely would’ve run into Melanie a time or two as well.
But if he was choosing to put on a cheerful, friendly front in the face of Melanie’s accusations, so could she. For now.
“Melanie is a reporter from The Watch , which, correct me if I’m wrong, Melanie, is the second smallest newspaper in the city?”
Well, she’d tried. Killing someone with kindness had never been Cynthia’s style. At Melanie’s answering glare, Cynthia’s shrug was somewhere between innocent and indifferent.
“Uh…” Rohit coughed. “Okay.”
Had the circumstances been different, Cynthia might have indulged in a gleeful chuckle for throwing Rohit off-kilter for a change, but she pressed her weight into the heels of her feet instead, steeling herself as Melanie’s fingers tightened around her notebook.
“Allegedly, CEO Rich Kumar cares only about the bottom line, and employee morale is low,” Melanie spat, her gaze locked on Cynthia.
“ Allegedly ,” Cynthia repeated with a condescending smile.
“The word chauvinism was tossed around,” Melanie added.
Cynthia’s breath caught as if a handful of dry leaves were stuffed in her windpipe. When she failed to respond, Rohit took a small step forward.
“Well, that’s a load of bullshit,” he said, ever the ray of sunshine. When he glanced over his shoulder and caught sight of Cynthia’s face, he quickly added, “Off the record, of course. Who are your sources, exactly?”
“They’ve asked to remain anonymous,” Melanie replied.
Of course they have. Cynthia tucked her hands into the pockets of her dress and tried to adopt Rohit’s easygoing, loose-limbed stance, well aware that she’d feel more comfortable riding a horse backward while blindfolded.
A small part of her had to admit, in this at least, Rohit had her beat.
It wasn’t just dumb luck, either, because although his body language and tone belonged to a seniors-only cruise director, Cynthia didn’t miss the assessing gleam in his eyes.
Rohit might’ve been welcomed into Kumar Construction by her father with open, patriarchy-driven arms, but his popularity with every single staff member was not just a coincidence.
Much to her chagrin, he was genuinely likable and sharper than most of the senior leadership team.
“You can’t blame staff for seeking anonymity,” Melanie said, cutting Cynthia a smirk. “Given Kumar Construction’s influence in this town.”
“Well then, off the record, I second that it’s a load of bullshit,” Cynthia said, inwardly cringing when her attempt at cheerful sounded constipated at best.
Melanie raised a beautifully microbladed eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t want me to quote you?”
Cynthia straightened her shoulders and dropped the pretext that she could handle this with an ounce of Rohit’s charm.
That wasn’t how things were done in her world—acting deferential and magnanimous did little for women in business but attract unwanted attention or, worse, a pat on the head.
If she could learn to stop apologizing when other people bumped into her , she could deal with this gnat in human form.
Leveling Melanie with a firm stare and the cool smile that convinced clients to up their budgets and service providers to lower theirs, Cynthia stepped in front of Rohit and lifted her chin.
“No, but here’s your direct quote: those allegations are unfounded and do not reflect Kumar Construction’s organizational values.
” The words left behind a gritty layer of sawdust in Cynthia’s mouth, but she forced herself to nod, in hopes that doing so would project confidence for Melanie’s benefit while convincing herself that her own shattered morale after her meeting only moments ago was an independent event.
Her father might be a ruthless competitor and developer, but he was a teddy bear when it came to his beloved company.
Except with her. But that was different: that had nothing to do with the bottom line or the hierarchy and everything to do with the absolute shit luck of being born as Rich’s imperfect daughter.
“Well, I’ll be curious to see what other employees have to say,” Melanie mused, tucking her notebook away.
She turned to look at the office tower, a tenacious hunger in her eyes that Cynthia recognized immediately.
That same fire burned within her, often defying logic and rationale and being told no .
But this confrontation had diminished something inside Cynthia, and she couldn’t resist taking a small step closer to Rohit, seeking what exactly she wasn’t sure.
When her shoulder bumped into his biceps, she realized that he, too, had moved closer to her and she tried not to pay attention to the pleasant feeling flaring in her chest.
Not a spark, certainly.
“No one is going to talk to you,” Rohit said, his voice confident. “Kumar Construction is a great place to work.”
Cynthia forced another nod when Melanie glanced at her for confirmation. Whatever Melanie saw on her face brought a quirk to her lips before she turned and headed down the ramp toward the parking lot.
“Whatever you say,” she called over her shoulder, swaggering away in those terrible brown shoes. “But if anyone is talking, I’ll be listening.”
It was just not Cynthia’s day. Not even the sweet, savory smell of Korean barbecue could improve her mood.
But bitching about Rohit might.
“And he just sat there, with that annoying smile, all ‘no problem, boss,’ and ‘whatever you need, boss,’?” she complained later that day as she transferred a generous helping of bokkumbap to her plate.
Her hand paused in midair when her friend and fellow brand consultant, Naomi Kelly, raised an incredulous eyebrow.
“He actually said that when your dad gave him credit for your work?”
“Well maybe not those exact words. But he was thinking it.”
Naomi’s lips twitched.
“He was!” Cynthia insisted.
“How do you know?”
“I just know. You can tell with guys like him.”
Naomi added a few more beef short ribs to her plate, and it was Cynthia’s turn to cock her brows.
After befriending each other several months ago, the two of them had begun a weekly dinner, and their shared love for locally owned holes-in-the-wall had quickly cemented a surprisingly easy friendship between the unlikely pair.
Where Cynthia was intense, hard, and prone to see the world in black and white, Naomi was an empathetic and forgiving optimist.