It wasn’t Dan’s genuine and there wasn’t much heart in it, and it read like crap, but it was the best he could come up with.
I have noticed your bruises and I am concerned about them, about you. I’d like to know if there was anything I can help with in relation to that.
He wanted to ask if she was all right, if she was trapped in a bad situation and needed help to get out. He wanted to ask if she forgave him for being a big, loud fuckwit for the last twelve months and tell her that yeah, she was right, he was a pompous, walking bag of pissed off, but he was trying to get over himself. But mostly he wanted to ask if there was someone hurting her, and if he could lean on them for her to make it so she never got hurt again. But he couldn’t do any of that, because, well, just because. She hated him.
He hit send before he could think any further about it, powered down and tried to coax his scalded skin to sleep.
7: Sucker
Anthony Gambese managed to destroy Bree’s morning without even being in the office early. She read his email and felt a chasm open beneath her feet through all forty-two levels of Governor Macquarie Tower. Was he deliberately trying to wreck her life or just ineptly stumbling all over it? Did he not understand what he’d put in email was incredibly personal and deeply compromising, no matter how he’d tried to disguise it in officialise.
And what kind of a bastard act was it, given Anthony simply had to understand every piece of electronic communication in the office was stored for audit trails? It didn’t matter whether the email was deleted off their computers, it lived on in the firm’s servers, forever accessible, forever suggesting Bree Robinson was—what? He hadn’t put two and two together about roller derby or she’d have heard about it. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself. So, what precisely did he think she was—clumsy? And what did he mean by asking if there was anything he could do in relation to that. Did he mean to walk beside her and stop her bumping into furniture or...
Oh God. She jumped up from her desk as if it’s been electrified. Anthony thought she was being victimised, smacked around. Oh dear God. In his blundering way he was genuinely trying to help.
She sat back down; glad to her You’re a Piza Work pink toenail polish no one had witnessed her panicked state. She spent the next half hour furtively watching the door from the lift well for Anthony—no Ant, she needed to start thinking of him as Ant—a dunderhead who was trying to be gallant. If you considered gallant boxing her in a small room, ignoring her requests to leave, harassing her for no good reason, and then revealing that reason on permanently recorded email.
The minute he cleared the foyer door, his eyes were on her. He gave her a tight, toothless grimace and a quick bob of his head, but that was it. He went to his desk and two minutes later his eyes were down on his screen. Bree spent the next half hour trying to attract his attention and failing.
She took the long way to the water cooler to walk behind his workstation—twice. She engaged his closest neighbour, Mal, in a discussion about currency adjustments largely to put herself in Ant’s eye line, and when all her tricks failed, and before Christine smelled a rat, she reopened his email and typed a response.
Re: A moment. Thank you for your obvious concern and your offer to assist. However I believe there’s been a misunderstanding. No need for you to worry. Again thanks.
It was bland, clear and unambiguous. It said back off, without spelling it out. It said thank you, without welcoming further discussion. And that would hopefully be the end of it. They could go back to comfortably avoiding each other, like normal, even if that comfort was now a little lumpy. She read the email back. It was so to the point it was verging on rude, but there was no way he could misconstrue it as anything other than a dead argument. She shifted her cursor, hit send then tried to recapture her lost morning. She didn’t get much done in the half hour he gave her. And she knew he was behind her before he spoke.
“Bree, I’m wondering if you would look over my quarterly predictions report.”
She half turned her chair so she was side on to him. “Me?” Did he smell like sunshine and saltwater or was she imaging that?
“Yeah, you’re the senior analyst.”
And he was a passive aggressive low life. What was she supposed to say to that? No, and half the office would hear her being unhelpful, not Ant being a dickhead. Yes, and she’d have to talk to him, and sure as it was around the usual time he nicked downstairs to buy more of that strong coffee he liked, he’d make a big deal about buying her one too.
“Before you ask I’ve had coffee thanks.”
“Ah, good, yeah. I just thought you might have a view on the next six months.”
Chris spun around in her chair and glared at them both, a hand over the receiver of her phone. “Guys, on a call.”
Ant mouthed sorry, but put his hand on the back of Bree’s chair stopping her from turning away from him. He said, “Please, Bree,” so softly it was a surprise such a gentle, pleading sound could come from such a big bloke.
She was a total sucker. “All right buy me a coffee and I’ll look at your report.”
She grabbed her purse and pushed her chair back. He stepped away, but his eyes were on her as she stood and he followed her into the lift foyer, where he made small talk with various people and she tried to feel okay about being shanghaied by him.
They rode the express lift down all forty-two floors of the fifty-two floor building stopping only twice, but not speaking even when they had the carriage to themselves. In the building foyer, Ant suggested a coffee shop across the road. At least that was smart, they were less likely to run into anyone from the office there. Bree picked a table in the corner and took the seat facing out to the street front, that way she wouldn’t have to look at him; she could look at the people waiting at the taxi rank. Of course once they’d settled she realised he had nowhere else to look except at her.
Under his steady scrutiny she forgot her resolve to be pleasant. “I don’t know what you want to talk about, but the email, did you even think about the fact that’s a permanent record?”
“Go on?”
“What do you mean?”
“Have it out, Bree. Spill. Go to town. Say whatever it is you need to say to me. It won’t be worse than I’ve said to myself the last twenty-four hours.”
She frowned at him. “I said what I needed to say on email.”
He gave a bitter snicker. “You said what you thought would get rid of me quickest.”