“I swear I mentioned the personal items rule to her,” Alina says softly. “It’s in my onboarding email…”
“Oh, man, way to piss the boss off on her first day.” Zara giggles, then presses her lips into a tight line as she takes a moment to simply admire the young woman. “That being said… she’s a little too plain for my taste.”
“She’s an employee, not a hot new piece of ass,” I reply.
Technically speaking, Zara is right. On paper, there is nothing about Olivia MacArthur that would make her stand out. Had she not called me a prick over the jumped queue at SanFranLabs, I probably wouldn’t have even remembered seeing her before her presentation. Yet watching her approach the center of the open office area now, I find myself staring, taking every aspect of her into consideration.
Firstly, she is absolutely oblivious to the hard stares she’s getting from the other employees. She hasn’t noticed our minimalist approach to the workspace, either. She’s trying to smile, but she’s nervous. I like the way her lips curl. Her full, pink and glossy lips. Her big brown eyes remind me of a Disney cartoon—huge, sweet pools of unadulterated innocence, though I’m willing to bet she’s got a dark side that’s just dying to be explored. She hides under that pale blue linen shirt that’s two sizes too large, but I can appreciate the tight fit of her jeans, instead. Olivia MacArthur works hard to make herself look presentable, but not quite appealing.
She’s got the potential to break a man’s heart.
I can’t help but wonder if she’s got the nerve to do it, too.
“I’m gonna go intercept her before she comes to you,” Alina says, her voice trembling slightly. “It’s not a good start…”
“No, it’s fine,” I tell her. “Her work has the potential to change the world, Alina. We’re not gonna grill her over a potted cactus.”
Alina scoffs and downright ignores me, walking away to greet Olivia. Zara stifles another laugh as I move past her and go after my PA to at least soften the blow that we can all see coming. I make the rules in this place, but Alina is the one who enforces them. And whatever happened with that onboarding package, she has taken the error personally. I need to make sure my new star engineer doesn’t walk out the very day she walked in.
“Oh, Olivia is going to love it here,” I hear Zara’s say as I leave the office behind.
Let’s hope so.
Because this girl could very well be holding my company’s future in her hands.
CHAPTER4
OLIVIA
I’ve done something wrong.
I must have done something terribly wrong, because Alina is looking at me like I just killed her puppy.
My blood runs cold as I stop in the middle of the open office area, realizing that she’s not the only one glaring at me. Looking around, I notice dozens of eyes quietly reprimanding me as I struggle to not drop my box with personal belongings on account of my very sweaty hands.
Oh, God. Did I miss something in that email about my first day at work here?
“Hi, Alina,” I manage as she reaches me in a rush. “You said dress casual… I don’t think I got that wrong.” I add a nervous but short laugh on top, attempting to remove some of the tension, but I feel like all I’ve done is poke the landmine some more.
“What the hell, Olivia?”
“Oh-kay…” I freeze on the spot, a deer in her deadly headlights.
“What did I tell you about personal belongings?”
“Whoa, wait… what?”
Alina exhales sharply and rolls her eyes at me for good measure. I haven’t seen this side of hers before, though admittedly I’ve only met her twice before. That’s twice more than I’ve seen Will Bucklow since the SanFranLabs episode. Oh, hell, there he is, coming out of his office, looking hot and troubled as he walks over to us. Oh, hell, hell, triple hell.
“Didn’t you read the onboarding manual?” Alina asks.
With the box occupying my arms, I’m unable to fish my phone out of my purse to double-check, but I do remember flipping through some of the PDF file’s pages late last night. “I may have skimmed some of it… but I figured it was just standard office stuff, and I know most of that from my internship days,” I say, trying to smile.
Alina sighs. “We have a strict policy of no personal belongings in the office space. Look around you!”
I throw another gander at the office space and that’s when it hits me. “Holy crap.”
“Yeah…”