“Hey, it’s, uh, G from the bar. You’re probably still just outside. You dropped your wallet,” Gracie said in a rush.
“Oh, hello. You tracked me down pretty fast, huh?”
Gracie’s eyes narrowed and she felt a shiver of disquiet at his phrasing. Of course he couldn’t know that she was a PI. There was no reason for Chesney to be suspicious, but the odd wording caught her off-guard.
“You bet,” Gracie said, forcing her voice to sound cheerful.
“I’ll be right there,” he said before hanging up. Gracie went back to her seat at the bar and double checked her folder on Attitude magazine was safely hidden in her handbag. It was, but it didn’t help her feeling of being wrong-footed. Chesney came back in, grinning widely at her. Gracie nodded back in greeting.
“Thanks for calling me. You saved me a long evening of dealing with my bank.”
“Oh, it’s what anyone would have done,” she demurred.
“Trust me, it’s really not!”
“So, I should tell you...full disclosure, I got your phone number from your business card and -”
Andy sat back down into the chair next to her, his knee bumping gently against hers and not moving away.
“Yeah, I figured.”
“I am about to start working for you. I just got hired as a Personal assistant at Attitude. ”
“Oh,” his smile dimmed, no longer reaching his eyes. He straightened in his chair, his knee no longer touching hers. “Greta Smith! Right! Not just G after all.”
She silently cursed Klarov, “Yep, Greta. That's me.”
“It’s a nice name,” he said, easily picking up on her dislike of the name.
“I wouldn’t have picked it for myself.”
He snorted. “I know what that's like. My boss insists on calling me Drew, instead of Andy. It drives me crazy. Now half the office calls me Drew and I can’t get used to it. I’ll hear someone call ‘Drew, Drew!’ and I’ll just walk past, totally oblivious.”
Gracie smiled weakly.
“I guess this means we’ll be seeing more of each other after all.”
“After all?”
“Yeah…” There was something like disappointment in his eyes. It wasn’t not like anything would have happened between the two. Gracie had no intention of ever telling him her real name and they wouldn't see each other again after this short assignment. “Actually, now that we’re talking about full disclosure. You’re going to be working as my PA.”
“Yeah, I know. I saw your name on your business cards, that’s when I realized.”
“Of course. You’re probably wondering why I wasn’t at your job interview.” There was a coldness in his voice now that wasn’t there before and Gracie wasn’t sure what to make of it.
“It’s not uncommon for a PA to get hired without meeting their new boss, especially in bigger companies,” Gracie said carefully.
“Yeah? I’m not sure how big you think Attitude is, but it’s not my way of doing business. If I’d known that my boss was hiring me a PA I would have wanted a say in who he hired.”
Was this an apology for not meeting her before? Or was he hinting that he wouldn’t have given her the job? Either way, Gracie was rapidly coming to the conclusion that there was more to Andrew Chesney than met the eye.
"My boss decided that I need help getting organized. I only heard that he'd hired someone this morning. Usually, he's not that...eager to hire new staff. I thought he was joking when he first called me.”
“Well…” Gracie frowned at the insinuation that he considered her undercover job a joke. “Let’s hope I live up to Mr. Huang’s expectations. Excuse me, I should be getting going. I can’t stay out too late, I have to make a good impression on my new boss in the morning.”
Chesney gave her a small half-smile.
“I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”