Crossing Hathaway (2 page)

“Fuck me sideways.”

Beverly from Human Resources looked askance at me, her muddy brown eyes surveying me as if I’d turned into an escaped psyche patient with a horn growing out of my forehead.

“Sorry,” I muttered and forced a partial smile, fighting not to laugh at her look of disgust.

She went back to scanning the paper in her pudgy hands, shaking her head.

Mr. Hathaway was beginning to remind me of Dad, king of his own twisted little world. The only reason I’d gone into IT in the first place was because he told me I wasn’t smart enough to do it. Yeah, no better motivation for a stubborn girl than to tell her she can’t do something.

I stepped out onto the twentieth floor and peered down the long, straight hallway. The paisley carpet glowed crimson under the rows of pot lights in the ceiling. Artwork of weird ass shit, blobs of colors smeared on a canvas that any monkey could have done, most likely worth more than ten years of my salary combined, lined the beige walls, highlighted with little lights perched above each frame. At the end, Mr. Hathaway’s door glimmered gold. A false idol expecting to be worshiped by all those who came to grovel at them. A golden door. Really? Who was this guy? The Sultan of Brunai come to Canada? Sheesh.

Half chuckling to myself, I started down the hallway. Despite my amusement, my pulse sped as I neared the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked a man in a prissy voice.

I drew in a quick breath and searched the lobby for the owner of said voice. A man stood from behind a desk in a sunken alcove to my right and sauntered toward me. His gray suit glittered as he moved, and his shining blond pageboy cut fanned across his forehead, curled under a little at the ends.

I held up the phone, waggling it in my fingers. “Cameron sent me to help Mr. Hathaway this afternoon.”

He didn’t let anyone know?
What. An. Ass.

“Oh no,” blondie said in a singsong tone, clucking his tongue. “No, this will never do. He’ll never let you in there.”

“Listen…” I searched his desk for a nameplate, and his slender form, but didn’t find one.

He bounced the toe of his black alligator skin shoe against the carpet and put his hands on his hips. “Brent.” A flick of his head emphasized his annoyance. Jeez, I’d have bet him and Mr. Hathaway were an interesting pair in the same room.

I flashed a fake grin instead of rolling my eyes as I wanted to. “Listen, Brent, my boss sent me here so I have to at least try. And in case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Hathaway isn’t the most patient guy.” I skirted around Brent and pressed the thumb lever on the handle of the golden idol … er … door.

“Wait. You can’t go in there!”

The door opened with a swish to reveal a small room with one light shining down in the center. The kind of room I’d seen on cop shows where they interrogated suspects. Just splendid. Squinting to see past the cone of brightness, I edged closer to the far side of the room to find the route into Mr. Hathaway’s office. The door clicked shut behind me. I spun around, but found no handle on the inside.

What the effing hell is this?

A booming bass voice echoed from a speaker in the ceiling. “You have exactly five seconds to tell me what you’re doing in my office. If I don’t like your answer, security will escort you from the building. Permanently.”

Well, hell. What have you gotten me into, Skeletor?

“I’m Eva Ross from the IT department,” I said, the words all jammed up together. “Cameron’s wife is in labor. He asked me to fill in for him while he’s away. Call him if you like. He’ll tell you. Seriously.”

I searched for his camera in the silence. The mellow tone and smooth cadence of the disembodied voice made me think he might be mid-thirtysomething like me. He might have sounded hot if he wasn’t such an obvious prick. My fingers fiddled with the hem of my dress shirt as they always did in unfamiliar situations. Not that I was nervous or anything.

“You don’t look like someone Mr. Jones’s would have working in his department. Even if you do work for him, why would he send
you
?” Mr. Hathaway asked.

My back stiffened, the hairs on my nape prickling as they stood on end. “Because I’m the best person for the job.”
Duh. Why else would he send me, Sir Genius?

“That remains to be seen. Go to Richmond’s Grindhouse on the corner. Fetch me a Metropolitan latte, heavy on the whipped cream, two peach biscotti, and a cherry cheese Danish.”

Brows pressed together, I chuckled and dragged fingers through the end of my ponytail, snagging on a snarl I found halfway down. “I’m sorry, I think you misunderstood me. I’m from the IT department. As in Information Technology. I’m here to do whatever Cameron Jones would have done for you.”

“I didn’t misunderstand anything, Ms. Russell. Did you get my order, or do I need to speak slower?”

Fists tightened to beating sticks, I fought to keep frustration off my face, though I didn’t imagine I’d succeeded, judging by the nerve twitching under my eye. “It’s Ms. Ross, Mr. Hathaway, and I—”

“Perhaps a picture will aid your comprehension.”

A monitor hummed to life, set into the wall in the upper corner of the room. After a few moments, a typed version of his order appeared on the screen. A storm of curses brewed in my mouth, an impending screw-you stew.

“Are you capable of remembering all that, or shall I have Brent print you a copy?” Condescending much?

I unclenched my teeth so I could speak and hoped profanity wouldn’t come spilling out. “Am I to understand that you paged me four times in a period of five minutes because you wanted a coffee and an afternoon snack?” My sarcastic tone left no room to misinterpret my utter dismay.

“Very good, you can learn. Off with you now. Don’t be long.”

The monitor blinked off and the door behind me swung open, spilling light into the room.

I squinted for a moment, blinking at the brightness, muscles tighter than harp strings about to play a shrill tune that could have burst an eardrum. His, to be exact.

I had shit to do, and he wanted me to get him a coffee?
I’m not an effing errand girl!

I turned and strode past Brent whose mouth gaped open in a large
O
, continued down the hallway, and hammered the button for the elevator. Five times. Maybe I’d broken it. Oh yeah, that’d be satisfying.

Greg from quality control stared out at me when the elevator opened. He wore the stunned look he always did, mouth open, sand-brown eyes glazed until his focus landed on me. His back straightened and he ran fingers through his auburn hair, cut short and spiked up.

Flying fuckballs.

He’d asked me to go out with him a few days ago and I’d blown him off and bolted out of the copy room as if my ass were on fire and burning hot. If I’d had more time and didn’t have Mr. Hathaway royally screwing me over, I’d have taken the stairs in a heartbeat. I considered jumping out the window, but I didn’t like heights.

With a deep breath to steady my nerve, I stepped in beside Greg, faced the corner, and inspected my fingernails as we rode down in strained silence.

At the bottom, the doors had mercy on me and opened, and I stepped out onto the first floor. Greg exited and sped off toward his department. Thank God for small mercies.

People swarmed the ridiculously large lobby of Hathaway Pharmaceuticals. The ceiling, three stories up, dangled crystal chandeliers the size of Volkswagen Beetles and probably four times as expensive as one. Strips of red carpeting looked like open wounds against the white marble tile, leading from the elevators to the security desk. The clacking of women’s heels joined the chorus of chatting voices. A group of men in tailored suits hung around the reception desk, chatting up the platinum blonde-haired woman who leaned over to give them all a flash of her mountain of boobs. The men all had slicked back hair and fake smiles—the hallmarks of sales reps. Gag me.

I waded through the crowd, inhaling a jumble of aftershaves and the stench of burned coffee from the lobby’s café. I stopped. Blinked. Swore to myself. There was a café right in the building and he still wanted me to get soaked just to get him a stinking latte? I gave a mental shrug, trying to rein in my temper. Fine, fine, I’d play along with his game for Cam’s sake, but I didn’t have to like it.

Sheets of rain washed down the glass doors. Wind pushed the downpour sideways for a moment before it came straight down again. I didn’t have time to get my coat so I trooped to the door and stepped into the deluge. Even in the rain a thick smog hung over Toronto’s downtown core. Traffic shuffled in small bits, horns honking and people shouting obscenities to one another as everyone got nowhere fast.

By the time I made it to Grindhouse three blocks away, rain had soaked my cotton shirt, my black loafers squeaked, and I shivered. My mood didn’t improve when I saw the line of people snaking out the door and down the sidewalk for half a block.

Shit, people. It’s coffee, not crack.

Shoulders slumped, I tugged my wet shirt away from my body and stepped into line behind a woman holding the largest umbrella I’d ever seen. Of course, she kept it tilted forward and all to herself as she blathered on into a Bluetooth ear piece for her phone. Traffic ambled by, bumper to bumper, most of the drivers appearing as annoyed as I felt. At least they were dry and didn’t work for a total dick face.

I peered into a bakery to my right where the smart ones had gone, sipping their coffee at little round tables, all nice and dry and warm. Water dripped into my eye. Nice. The scent of freshly baked breads and pastries drifted out the door each time its little bell announced another customer entering or leaving. Damn, that was heavenly. I found myself leaning toward the entrance, inhaling until I ended up snuffing up a few droplets into my nose and having a coughing fit.

Mr. Hathaway’s phone buzzed against my thigh. I frowned, still hacking over the water in my nostril.

Oh, you have got to be shitting me!

I pulled Satan’s cell from my damp pocket and bent forward to keep the rain off. The text on the screen filled me with an urge to hurl the phone through the window into the bakery:
I want my order today, Ms. Russell, and it had better be hot when you return
.

“You pompous, simple-minded, dick-for-brains!”

The red-haired woman in front of me whirled around and scowled, her umbrella hoisted high above her. Little rivers rolled off the side of it right onto my head.

I offered her my best evil smile. “Mind not soaking me anymore than I already am, toots?”

Her lip wrinkled like a cat’s butt-hole—definitely a smoker. She whirled back around, but didn’t move her giant umbrella.

The rain pelted down harder, bouncing off the sidewalk onto the only dry part of my pants. My fist itched to pound Mr. High and Mighty in the face, though I had to improvise in my fantasy because I had no idea what he looked like. What could be wrong with him that he wouldn’t want anyone to look at him? Images of Quasimodo with a bad case of elephantiasis of the face came to mind.

Fifteen minutes later, after a marathon round of feet shifting and cracking knuckles, I made it into the building feeling like a cat dropped down a well. A freezing cold one. Ice water dripped from my ponytail onto my back.

Umbrella-wielding Red Hair stared at the menu forever before she ordered and then changed her mind. Twice. Make that three times. My groan came out a little louder than I’d meant it to and I earned myself another death ray via her stare.

I tapped my watch along with my foot. The lady, who hadn’t bothered to fold up her umbrella, poked me in the face with it as she paid and stepped aside, muttering something I didn’t bother to listen to.

“Can I help you?” A young, petite girl I wouldn’t have put over the age of fourteen smiled from behind the counter.

“Yes, please.” In my mind’s photograph, I summoned the image of Hathaway’s order when it had appeared on the monitor. My photographic memory came in handy now and then. “Can I have a Metropolitan latte, heavy on the whipped cream, two peach biscotti, and a cherry cheese Danish?”

She raised two sculpted eyebrows at me, her crystal-blue eyes sparkling with humor. “Uh … I’m not sure what a Metropolitan latte is, and we don’t sell peach biscotti or Danishes.” She flashed a sympathetic smile, but the amusement in her expression flushed my skin.

I gripped the edge of the counter until my fingers turned vampire-white.

Very funny, you bastard.

What the hell Columbia could I do now? Return empty-handed and look like a fool? Not bloody likely. Turn up with something he didn’t want? Hell no. I stared at the phone, considering who I could call. An idea hit me so hard I flinched. My lips twitched into what felt like a wicked grin. “Do you know Mr. Hathaway? You know, from Hathaway Pharmaceuticals down the street?”

“Uh … no, sorry.” The girl leaned forward as if encouraging me to recover from my embarrassment.

“How about his secretary, Brent? He has a blond pageboy cut, like Larry from the Three Stooges, as flaming as they come? Probably wearing alligator shoes.”

She wrinkled her brow, stared at the counter for a moment, and shook her finger at me. “Yeah, I think I know who you mean. Total prima donna. He wears a pink trench coat and carries a gold Coach shoulder bag.”

Bingo, baby! “Yep, that sounds like him.” A grin stretched my lips wide. Gotcha, asshole. “Does he usually get two separate orders when he comes?”

“Yeah.” Her eyebrow arched.

Bouncing my heel in excitement, I asked, “Does he ask to have one of the coffees wrapped so it stays warm?”

She grinned. “How did you know that?”

“Lucky guess. Can you please give me whatever he asks to have wrapped? My boss is kind of—” I circled a finger at my temple and grimaced.

Laughing, a bright, infectious sound, she pulled a cardboard cup from the dispenser. “Sure thing. A large Mocha latte and four chocolate biscotti, coming right up.” Four? What a pig. Maybe he was four hundred pounds and that’s why he didn’t like anyone gawking at him.