“Has he called you?”
No.“I don’t know what to say to him.” Justin’s mood was on a high-speed roller coaster, and the bottom had dropped out again.
“The truth.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
She bent at the waist and kissed him on the cheek. “I can’t help you there. Call me. And him.”
God damn it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
EMILY WANTED TO CHUCKher laptop out the window. She’d only been looking for work for a week, and it was already driving her nuts. Considering she only had enough savings to live in the extended-stay hotel for another two months, and that didn’t include new hardware purchases, destroying her computer in frustration was probably a bad idea.
She settled for putting the computer next to her, where she sat cross-legged on the bed, falling sideways, and screaming at the top of her lungs into her pillow.
Frustration temporarily vented, she rolled onto her back. For as long as she’d been contracting, she’d never gone without work for more than a week or two. Silicon Valley was a wealth of startups and shutdowns, and there was always contract work for an experienced developer.
She was on her second Monday of unemployment, and she couldn’t get headhunters to return her calls. Lining up interviews? That was a universe she couldn’t even see from where she sat.
If she believed it was a thing, she’d wonder if she’d been blacklisted. The thought was ridiculous; that didn’t really happen.
Antonio would bring her back without hesitation—he said as much—but he was still under a hiring freeze until their new CEO was announced. He’d been told there was one, but not given a name. Even if it were an option, though, she couldn’t go back to APPropriate Designs. Her employment agreement with Grant forbade her from returning within six months to any company he’d placed her with as a contractor.
The job search wasn’t getting her anywhere. If she hitRefreshon her email one more time, she might break her F5 key.
She sat up and pulled her computer back into her lap. Maybe there was something new on the tech blogs that would point her in a direction. Some startup that didn’t care who she was—only that she had experience.
She was only two or three headlines into scanning her RSS feed, when her brain stalled.
Trouble in PParadise for APPropriate Designs?
She scowled at the headline. Someone thought they were being clever.
Technology giant and rewards provider extraordinaire, APPropriate Designs, announced today their founding members had been bought out. Justin Conroy and Antonio Bianchi are no longer with the company.