Authors: Julia Sexton
Chapter 2
“I have been waiting here for damn near two fucking hours!” Robert Daniels exclaimed, and he planted his hands on Genevieve’s desk with two loud slaps.
“I told you that you were almost two hours early, Mr. Daniels,” Genevieve reminded him calmly.
He snorted like an angry bull.
“And you told me to wait,” he spat.
“I said you
could
,” Genevieve corrected him.
“I also said you were free to leave.”
“Do you even know who I am?” he demanded, leaning farther over the desk.
One answer was ‘not really,’ and another answer was ‘not my boss,’ but Genevieve did not say either of those things.
Instead, she said, “I understand that your business with Mr. Grimoire is very important, but that doesn’t change the fact that he isn’t available yet. Now please, sit back down. I’m sure Mr. Grimoire will return shortly.”
“You stupid bitch, you do not have the right to—“
Mr. Daniels didn’t get a chance to say what Genevieve didn’t have the right to do, as the elevator door chose that moment to slide open.
He whipped towards the elevator to stare at it like a deer in headlights as Genevieve offered a pleasant, “Welcome back, Mr. Grimoire. I hope your meeting went well.”
“Yeah, it was great, Gen,” Vincent replied, sounding distracted. He focused on Mr. Daniels.
“Daniels, right?” he asked.
When he got a stiff not in answer, he asked, “You wanna finish whatever you were about to say?” and nodded towards Genevieve.
He watched his guest expectantly over the edge of his sunglasses, and Genevieve realized with some surprise that his eyes were actually lilac.
Mr. Daniels swallowed and shook his head slowly.
“Didn’t think so. My building, my office, my secretary. You respect them. You don’t get to act like a toddler stomping on sandcastles.” Vincent continued towards his office door.
“Come on. Time to get this meeting over with.”
Robert Daniels slunk meekly in Vincent’s wake, and Genevieve relaxed in her seat. That could have gone worse.
She hadn’t expected Vincent to defend her—she had been fully expecting to need to fend for herself—but she wasn’t going to complain about it.
The phone rang.
“Orbital Prime. You’ve reached the office of Vincent Grimoire. How may I direct your call?” Genevieve greeted.
There was a pause as she listened. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but he’s in a meeting at the moment. Would you like me to take a message?”
Mr. Daniels stepped out of the office, paused long enough to glance at Genevieve, and then he hunched like a grouchy turtle and hustled into the elevator.
Genevieve offered him a cheerful, “Have a good evening, Mr. Daniels,” as he left.
She glanced towards the office when she realized Vincent was leaning in the doorway.
“How was your meeting?” she asked.
Vincent made an unimpressed noise.
“Well enough,” he replied.
“He agreed to help fund the next project.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Genevieve questioned, faintly bemused. He didn’t seem particularly pleased.
“Oh, yeah, it’s great,” he assured her.
“Nothing to worry your pretty head over, Gen. He’s just not the most pleasant to work with.”
Genevieve widened her eyes, making herself look as innocent as she could.
“
Really
?” she asked, sarcasm thick around the word.
“I never would have guessed.”
Vincent snorted. “I guess you already know that,” he admitted.
“Anyway, how ‘bout you order something from that Chinese place down the street?” He tossed his wallet onto the desk.
“They know my usual order, and just order whatever you want for yourself. Great. Thanks, Genesis.”
“Genevieve,” she called after him as the office door closed behind him. If he heard her, he didn’t acknowledge it, and she sighed slowly.
Things could be worse. At least he seemed to like her well enough.
The delivery boy stepped into the waiting room and paused to blink at Genevieve slowly.
“You’re not Cathy,” he finally stated, as if Genevieve was unaware of that. He coughed a second later and added, “Sorry.”
Genevieve laughed. “You’re not the first to say that today, trust me,” she replied.
“I take it Cathy worked here for quite a while.”
“Oh, yeah,” the delivery boy replied, as he set about unloading the order onto the desk.
“Pretty much since the company got its start.”
Genevieve’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“That long?” she mused curiously.
“What made her leave, then?”
The boy shrugged. “You’re askin’ the wrong person. I just deliver food.”
He handed over the receipt, Genevieve handed over the cash and the tip, and with a jaunty wave, the delivery boy way his way back into the elevator.
Two minutes later, the office door slid open and Vincent poked his head out.
“I smell food.”
“That’s because there’s food,” Genevieve replied, as she picked up a carton of pork fried rice and a pair of chop sticks.
“Fabulous.” He picked up a pair of chopsticks and two cartons.
Before he could disappear back into his office, though, Genevieve asked a question. It seemed like a fairly harmless question in her mind.
“What happened to Cathy?” she wondered curiously.
“Why’d she leave?”
The little of Vincent’s expression that she could see closed off. “Heh.” The short snort of laughter managed to be devoid of any humor.
“Pretty sure your job is to do your work and otherwise mind your own business.”
He turned on his heel and stormed back into his office, leaving Genevieve staring after him in confusion.
…Well, alright then.
Perhaps life would just be less complicated if she and her boss had a largely silent relationship with each other. That seemed like the safer option, all things considered. So much for ‘he seemed to like her well enough.’
Chapter 3
On her second day on the job, Genevieve didn’t really see her boss particularly much. She caught glimpses of him a few times as he went from his office to the elevator, or from the elevator to the office, but he never said a word to her. He barely even looked at her.
In return, Genevieve kept whatever she said to him to a bare minimum, telling him only what was necessary.
At least until midway through the day, and then she couldn’t really tell him anything. He breezed out of his office to get to a meeting, and after that, he failed to come back.
By all logic, it should have been a short meeting, just to meet with one of the development teams and check on the progress of a particular project (to her mild irritation, Genevieve didn’t actually know what any of the projects were until they were officially unveiled, as they were simply listed as Greek letters in all of the files she had access to). And yet an hour later, when Ms. Cavanaugh of the Vector Corporation walked in for their meeting, Vincent had yet to return.
Genevieve apologized profusely and explained that no matter how many times she called the development team, no one was picking up, but she was sure he wouldn’t be gone for too much longer.
Two hours later, after Mrs. Greenfield and Mr. Victor showed up, there was still no sign of Vincent.
Forty minutes later, Mrs. Greenfield impatiently told Genevieve, “I’ll reschedule for a time when he’s not so overwhelmingly busy. Just let him know that Isaiah is getting impatient for an update.” With that said, she turned and left, her high heels clicking.
Dutifully, Genevieve typed the message into that day’s calendar, and she barely managed to hold in an exasperated groan when Mrs. Harvester walked in.
The president of Skyview Incorporated paused just outside the elevator, taking in the complete lack of anything productive being done. She looked at Genevieve and her harried expression and laughed gently.
“Don’t worry, dear,” the woman assured Genevieve.
“We’ve worked with him before. This isn’t the first time he’s kept people waiting.”
Genevieve smiled weakly, but she felt calmer after that.
Finally, after another forty-five minutes of waiting, the elevator pinged and slid open and Vincent strolled back into the waiting room, as if he was perfectly on time.
Before he could disappear into his office with Ms. Cavanaugh, Genevieve hastily informed him, “The representative from Arco was here, but she said she would reschedule, and she said to let you know that Isaiah is getting impatient.”
Vincent paused long enough to swear rather colorfully, and then he hurried into his office with Ms. Cavanaugh in tow.
Genevieve sighed slowly and rubbed her temples. By the time she left that evening, Vincent was still meeting with Mrs. Harvester.
Genevieve had barely been at work for ten minutes when Vincent stepped out of the office.
“You. Come with me.”
Vincent left it at that as he stepped into the elevator.
Genevieve quickly switched the phone over to voice mail and hurried after him before the elevator could close.
Down they went, to the development floor. Genevieve followed him off of the elevator, and she caught a pair of goggles and an apron when he tossed them to her. He handed her a sleek, glossy tablet a bit more delicately.
He was shrugging out of his jacket and his vest and rolling up the sleeves of his shirt as he said, “I’m going to say things periodically now and then, and you’re going to record it. Even if it seems irrelevant. Even if it just sounds like I’m talking to myself. Got it?”
He pulled on a pair of gloves, took off his sunglasses, and put on a pair of goggles.
Genevieve nodded quickly, put on the goggles and apron, and got ready to start typing.
“Is this the project that you were checking on yesterday?” she asked, since the worst he could do was not answer.
He grunted an affirmation. “If I need something done right, I need to do it myself, apparently,” he groused.
Conversation ended there. Vincent was wholly focused on the work before him, and Genevieve was wholly focused on recording everything he said, along with brief notes about what he was doing whenever he said something.
Most of it was written in the same shorthand she had taken notes with in college; a bit odd, but fairly intuitive.
Some of it was seemingly unrelated rambling, talking about some man named Isaiah and work that the other man was doing. Some of it was equations that consisted almost entirely of Greek letters.
Some of it was griping about physics, gravity, thrust, propulsion, friction, how things behaved in a vacuum, and things that Genevieve really only understood the basics of. The entire time, his hands moved, reworking the blueprints on the computer and pulling the prototype in front of him apart.
Eventually, Genevieve’s stomach growled, and she blushed faintly as Vincent stilled for a moment and turned to look at her, blinking at her in quiet bemusement.
He pushed the goggles up onto his head and asked, “What time is it?”
“Almost 3:00,” she replied, glancing at the time on the tablet.
“Shit, we’ve been in here for that long?” He laughed incredulously.
“Well, come on.” He set the goggles down and stripped off the gloves.
“We may as well go get some lunch.”
“No meetings?” Genevieve wondered as she pulled off the goggles and apron. She set the tablet down beside the scattered remains of the prototype, and she jogged after him as he stepped back into the elevator.
“Nope,” he replied.
“I keep post-dev days free in case of emergencies.”
Rather than up, the elevator continued downwards, all the way down to the lobby, and Genevieve realized with some surprise that he had actually meant ‘go get some lunch.’
“Emergencies like reworking the entire project?” Genevieve asked wryly.
“Precisely,” he replied.
“Let’s go, Genesis. I know a great little café down the street.”
“Genevieve,” she corrected once more as she fell into step beside him.