Josh rolled his eyes and give me a wink before walking over to his partner's office with a shit-eating grin on his face. Mark turned and gave me a sharp glare before shutting the door behind him.
Five o’clock came and went, and even though Josh stormed out the front door a few minutes after Mark demanded to talk to him in his office, Mark never came out. I waited, and at thirty minutes after my quit time, I started to pack up my stuff for the day. I slung my bag over my shoulder and glanced at Mark's door, but he never looked up from his computer like he always did.
Disappointed, I walked out and headed for the train. The whole time, I hoped to feel my phone vibrate with a message from Mark, but it never came. That night, as I went to bed, I looked one last time, but he hadn't sent me even a single word.
Had he seen the kiss and decided he didn't want me as his secretary or anything else anymore?
Chapter Six
Mark
I staredin dread at the email about Emma’s temp contract almost being up. I had no idea when, but Josh and that DeVille guy had decided she'd only be around for a month. Her time was almost up, and soon she'd be going to a new placement. I'd called the staffing agency, but nothing could be changed.
"Emma's talents are needed elsewhere, Mr. Tanchen," the woman answered flatly when I offered to extend her contract.
Talents were needed elsewhere? My pulse quickened as jealously raced through me.
"Fine. Then I'll hire her full-time myself," I said angrily, sick of that woman and my partner today.
"Mr. Tanchen, she signed a contract with us that requires her to go wherever we send her or pay ten thousand dollars to break the contract."
My mouth dropped open in shock. Emma couldn't afford to pay them ten thousand dollars. She'd told me that she spent most of her money to keep her apartment, so I doubted she had a spare ten grand just hanging around.
I hung up on the woman at DeVille Staffing and went back to staring at the email that told me my time with Emma was nearly up. It didn't matter that I could see her after work and whenever she didn't have work. I hated the idea of her working for someone else.
Sitting in their office as they stared at her and wished the whole world would fade away so it was just the two of them.
What if her new boss felt like I did? What if she was sent to some extraordinarily wealthy client of DeVille's who could give her everything she ever wanted, including being someone who didn't have to work day and night to get their company to be a success?
What if she wanted that, which was more than I could give her?
Worrying about that on top of what the hell Josh was doing made me feel like my life was spiraling out of control. This wasn't who I was. My partner routinely spun out of control. Then he left town for a while and got his shit together.
That's how life worked for us. I didn't lose it. He did.
Yet now I felt like I was the one spinning out of control.
As I tried to logically think my way out of my problems, Josh appeared in my doorway. Our disagreement earlier about his behavior with Emma had ended in him storming out, very much in his usual style, but now he appeared contrite and seemed to want to talk.
But if he wanted a pass on his actions with Emma, he came to the wrong guy.
He knocked on the doorframe and smiled. "Can we chat?"
"Sure."
Josh sat down in front of my desk and nodded. "We haven't had a disagreement like that since a few months after we started this business. What's going on?"
I had to control myself or he'd figure out what Emma and I were up to. Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly and then shrugged my shoulders. "Partners fight. It's not a big deal. I just don't think how you acted toward our secretary is a good idea."
"You know how I am with women," he said casually.
"Not that this makes a difference, but she's from that temp agency. What if she goes back to that DeVille guy and makes a complaint?" I asked, not missing the huge hypocrisy of every single word coming out of my mouth.
Josh chuckled and waved away my concern. "That guy? Trust me. He'll handle it. He's that kind of guy."
I had no idea what he meant, but I didn't care. At the moment, I wanted to know something else. "By the way, why did you and he decide that Emma would only work here for a month?"
"Oh, that? I thought it would be nice to have different people come in. Variety is the spice of life, you know."