LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FOUR

      ‘YOU’RE HERE BECAUSE you want to keep your job. You’re here because you want to save Connor’s job. You’re here because you’re saving your colleagues’ jobs.’

      Callie repeated the words to herself as she walked into what had previously been known as Conference Room A. Blake had turned it into an office. Not one he would share with Connor. No, that had ended the minute she had agreed to work with him. This conference-room-turned-office was hers and Blake’s to share. It was one of their medium-sized conference rooms, and Callie had only been in it a few times when she’d had tours with groups of more than six. But, despite its reasonable size, Callie felt closed in. And this time she wasn’t fooling herself by attributing the feeling to claustrophobia.

      Her heart hammered as she saw him sitting at one end of the rectangular table, a large whiteboard behind him already half filled with illegible writing.

      ‘Are you sure you weren’t meant to be a doctor?’ she asked, hoping to break the tension she felt within herself.

      Blake looked up at her, his eyes sharp despite how hard she knew he had been working. The hotel had been rife with the news that Blake had been holed up in the conference room for the entire week it had taken for Callie to sort out her schedule. She’d done her tours for that week, but had cancelled everything beyond that. Blake had made it very clear that Callie’s full attention would be needed for the investors, and that was what she was doing.

      She tilted her head when he grabbed a cup of what Callie assumed had once been coffee from in front of him. By the look on his face, it was something significantly less desirable now.

      ‘I’ll get you some more,’ she said, and placed her files and handbag a few seats away from his.

      This was their first official day of working together, and Callie wasn’t sure what it would be like to work with the boss. She was already distracted by being alone with him in the same room, she thought as she poured coffee into two cups that sat on the counter along one side of the conference room. The hotel staff had made sure that everything their boss could possibly need was in that room.

      She’d heard them whispering amongst themselves, and had taken it upon herself to defuse their curiosity.

      ‘We’re going to try and save the hotel,’ she’d told Kate, knowing her friend couldn’t keep a secret for the life of her, ‘and if we do things will stay the same for the foreseeable future.’

      Since she’d let that little titbit go, her colleagues had done everything in their power to make sure they had the fuel to save the hotel. And maybe the world, she thought, and wrinkled her nose at the extensive display of pastries that lined the rest of the counter.

      ‘How many people are eating this?’ she wondered out loud, and set the coffee in front of Blake.

      ‘Two today.’ He sighed as he sipped from the coffee. ‘It’s been like that ever since I started working in here. I think they think I’m a competitive eater in my spare time.’

      She laughed. ‘Or a man who needs as much energy as possible so that he can work to save their jobs.’ He frowned, and she elaborated. ‘People were getting restless about what you being here means. I told a friend, and she told everyone else. Trust me—it’s better this way. Otherwise they might have been planning to starve you instead of feed you.’

      She grinned, and felt herself relax. This wasn’t so bad. They were having a normal conversation. Just as she would with any of her colleagues. But then Blake smiled in return, and her heart thumped with that incredibly fast rhythm she was beginning to think was personalised for him. Like a ringtone.

      She cleared her throat. ‘How’s everything going here?’

      ‘Good.’

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