Chapter 8
By mid-afternoon, Vidya was exhausted. She had tested her query, checked the results, fixed a problem, run it again and now things were looking good.
She would leave the AI running overnight to complete the same query on the full collection of contracts by the morning.
Then she would have to check a selected cross section of them to make sure they were right.
Leo telling her that he would take the flak if anything went wrong made her more anxious rather than less.
She was fine with taking responsibility.
The idea that any mistakes she made would reflect on him made her feel …
odd. Although he was gruff, she was fast getting the feeling that he was one of the good guys.
She didn’t want someone like that getting into trouble because of her.
She glanced at him. He was leaning over his file, with his forehead propped up on the fingertips of one hand, while he scribbled away with the other. You could feel the concentration radiating off him.
At the other side of the table, Caleb had spread his papers out and was slumped in his chair, reading.
He certainly had a different style of working, compared to Leo.
Her first instinct was to think that Caleb wasn’t working as hard and just wasn’t as good.
But as he himself had pointed out, Leo wouldn’t have dead weight on his team.
So, Caleb must be good at his job. Was the laid-back persona an act?
Or was he so clever that he made hard work seem effortless.
She looked at the stacks of contracts the men were working through. Leo’s file was dwindling a lot faster than Caleb’s. Maybe not then.
Udeni was very bright, if a little unfocused, and all evidence suggested she was talented at arts fundraising.
Unfortunately, when it came to real life, she was impulsive and did stupid things.
Caleb seemed less impulsive, but very relaxed.
Perhaps that was a good thing? Maybe the baby would be a relaxed kind of child.
Heaven knows the last thing their house needed was another highly strung Munasinghe.
She checked herself. She was falling into the trap of thinking Caleb was definitely the guy. Piotr was still a possibility. Angie hadn’t discovered anything definitive to rule him out yet.
Vidya still had to confirm the tattoo. Even if she didn’t know what the tattoo was, if he had one in the right place, it would make it much more likely that Caleb was the right person.
Whenever she saw him, he was wearing a suit.
It would even help if he would just take off his jacket. There had to be a way.
She secretly opened her phone and checked her messages. She had a notification from Angie.
Angie: So, have you got him to take his shirt off yet?
Vidya: No. It’s not a thing you can do easily with work colleagues!
Angie: Does he wear thick shirts? If not, could you drop a glass of water on his shoulder to make it see-through?
Vidya: That’s an option … except it’s not that warm, so he’s rarely just in his shirt.
Angie: You’re just going to have to challenge him to strip poker then. LOL
Vidya: You’re really not helping.
Angie: I mean, I totally would. Caleb is hot.
Vidya: Ew. He slept with my sister …
Angie: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Forgot about that for a second. I guess that renders Caleb’s hotness moot as far as you’re concerned. It’s a shame Mr Grumpy is so uptight. He would be hot too if he had a better personality.
Vidya: It was interesting today … I got attacked by seagulls and lost my chips. Leo shared his chips with me.
Angie: That was kind of him.
She thought about the strange intimacy of it.
A quick glance across the room showed her that Leo was still working, concentrating fiercely as he flipped through the file in front of him.
He was uptight, as Angie said, but he was also quite nice.
He had helped her when that blasted bird had pooed on her.
Nothing showy, just solid, practical help when she needed it. There was something real about that.
Vidya: He is quite kind, actually. Still serious though, he’s very serious about everything. I think that’s why he comes across as grumpy.
Angie: I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile.
Vidya: No. Me neither.
Angie: We (the girls and one guy in the admin pool) think that he’s simply not capable of smiling.
That made Vidya feel sorry for him. Yes, he was aloof and particular, but it was weird to think people talked about him like that.
Vidya: Come on, he’s not so bad. He must smile sometimes. Maybe he’s a completely different person outside of work. Caleb seems genuinely fond of him. He wouldn’t be if Leo was miserable all the time.
Angie: Do you think he wears a nicely pressed suit all the time? I can’t imagine him mooching around in jeans and a T-shirt, can you?
Vidya sneaked a glance at Leo; his dark head was still bent over his work. No. She couldn’t imagine him wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Or joggers. She could barely picture him wearing a dishevelled suit. He looked like the sort of person who could walk through a hurricane and come out immaculate.
Another message popped up from Angie: Although, he’s quite tall and broad shouldered …
Vidya shook her head. She wasn’t even going to go there. Her initial dislike for Leo was draining away, but he was still just the project leader for this piece of work.
She looked at the other side of the room, where Caleb was slouching over the file he was reading. He was her other project. Maybe she was being too subtle. While she didn’t want to draw attention with her questioning, she did need to find out more. She must make progress on that.
***
Leo finished his notes, put a few sticky tabs in the relevant places, and looked up to see Vidya staring at Caleb with a small smile on her face.
The stab of jealousy he felt was as intense as it was unexpected.
He didn’t know why he was surprised. Women always liked Caleb. It just had never bothered him before.
It shouldn’t be bothering him now. He hated that it did. He couldn’t get involved with a work colleague. Especially one that liked Caleb, his closest friend.
Vidya read something on her screen and her smile brightened. Was she working? Or talking to someone about Caleb?
Leo closed his file with a slap. It rang out in the quiet room. Oh, no. They were both looking at him now. Think of something to say. Quick.
He cleared his throat. ‘How is your experiment coming along, Vidya?’
‘Not bad, actually,’ she said. ‘I ran some of the scanned contracts through and the query put it all into a spreadsheet correctly.’ She called it up on her screen and turned it around.
He leaned forward to look at it. ‘What am I looking at?’
‘We have agreement number, agreement title, signing parties, third parties, if they’re named, signature date, expiry date, type of agreement, term.’
That was pretty impressive, considering all she’d had to start with was a jumbled mess of PDFs. But he had reservations about using an AI to do work that normally required a pair of human eyes. A machine couldn’t spot nuance, could it?
‘That’s great for when they use a template and just plug in names and dates,’ he said.
Vidya’s eyes narrowed and she gave him a tight smile.
‘If there are extra clauses compared to the template agreement or if clauses have been taken out, they get flagged in this column.’ She reached over the top of the screen and gestured with her pen.
‘I have to review those individually to see what’s changed.
If it’s anything substantial, I’ll pass it over to one of you. ’
Which made complete sense. But … ‘How sure are you that it’s all correct?’
She took a deep breath. ‘I’m currently checking every fiftieth entry. If I find anything wrong, I’ll go to every twenty-fifth one. If not, I’ll assume that there aren’t any errors.’
‘What if they didn’t use the in-house template at all? They could have used the other party’s—’
‘If they used a different template,’ she said, before he had finished speaking. ‘Then the system flags that as non-standard and we … I have to review that manually.’
Damn. She was good. She had anticipated what he was going to ask.
‘Extensions?’
‘I have a separate table from Stella of extensions and agreements. I’ll incorporate that into the spreadsheet if it’s not an issue.’
Leo stared at the screen for a few seconds more, trying to think if there was something she’d forgotten. There was nothing. Then he said, ‘Good work.’
This time the smile was genuine. ‘Thank you,’ Vidya said. She pushed herself away from the desk. ‘I think I’ll take a comfort break for a few minutes. Go stretch my legs.’
When she left the room, her step was jaunty, as though she was very pleased with herself.
Leo tried not to watch her leave, but he couldn’t help himself. She was capable as well as pretty. That was so unfair. How was he supposed to ignore her now?
When the door clicked shut behind Vidya, Caleb said, ‘Oooh.’
Stay calm. Don’t respond. Don’t respond. Leo let out a slow sigh. ‘What?’
‘She’s good, isn’t she?’ said Caleb in a childish singsong voice. ‘Really competent. You looove competent.’
‘Yes. That’s a good thing. We need competent people.’ Leo moved the file he’d just read to the ‘concerning’ pile and reached for another one. He didn’t meet his friend’s eye.
‘You already like her and it turns out that she’s good at her job … and she’s not scared of you. You really are in trouble now.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’ He could feel the heat rising from his collar.
Caleb laughed. ‘You don’t fool me, my dude. Admit it. You’re a little bit turned on by that.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Caleb, what are you?
Ten?’ He didn’t look up because Caleb was right.
He had found the intensity of that exchange really hot.
The more he got to know Vidya, the more he liked her.
But he knew better than anyone not to get involved with a work colleague.
Anyway, she didn’t feel anything towards him.
He cast a quick glance at Caleb, who was still grinning at him.
Knowing his luck, Vidya would fall for Caleb.
Leo sighed and opened the next file.
His life was a tragedy.
***
While she was outside, Vidya took the opportunity to call her sister. ‘How’re you feeling?’ she asked and braced herself.
There was a pause before Udeni took a deep breath and said, ‘Okay, I think. I’m not crying randomly anymore. Well, I cried when I saw an advert for nappies, but … that’s pretty normal, right?’
Vidya nodded. ‘I imagine it is. How’s the nausea?’
‘Oh, that’s still terrible,’ Udeni said. ‘But I worked out that if I eat between eleven and three, I can eat a proper meal. So, I’m having breakfast at eleven and lunch at three and then having toast for supper. That seems to work.’
Vidya worried about nutrients. ‘You’re taking the vitamin supplements I got you, right?’
‘Yes, Akka, I am. Stop nagging. I’m reading the same book you read. I know just as much as you do. A bit more, in fact, because I’m the one that’s actually pregnant.’
Ouch. ‘Cheek,’ she said. But Udeni had a point.
‘So … what have you found out about him?’
Vidya gave her an update.
‘So, you’re no closer to being sure he’s our guy.’ Udeni sounded disappointed.
‘No, but I’m going to find out as much about him as I can,’ said Vidya. ‘Just in case he is.’
‘What if he’s the wrong one?’
‘Then I’ll know quite a lot about a work colleague,’ she said. Aside from Angie, Vidya didn’t have that many friends at work and from what she’d seen, Caleb was pleasant. It would be good to have him as a friend. ‘Has Angie had any luck finding information about Piotr?’
‘Don’t think so,’ said Udeni. ‘He’s back from the US now, so she’s trying to get herself invited to the pub with that group, after work on Friday.’
‘That’s a good idea.’
Udeni laughed. ‘This is quite fun!’
‘For you, maybe. Not for me and Angie.’