Falling Into You (Geek to Chic) (18 page)

Collin
laughed.
 
“Does R and R stand for Roni
and Raunchy Sex? Because I think that could do it.”

“Collin!” Roni
screeched.
 
Heads whipped up from their
desks to stare at her like gophers popping out along the prairie to investigate
a sound.
  
She ignored the cubical
animals tilting their heads in curiosity.
 
Collin was still laughing into the phone.
 
“Your R and R plan would never work anyway,
he would have to actually leave this stupid building for that to happen.”
 
Disappointment was laced throughout her
words.
 

“I am so
disappointed in you Roni, such a lack of imagination.”
 

This time she
laughed.
 
“Collin, I have a feeling you
are dirty boy.
 
Enough about Godzilla and
raunchy sex.”
 
At that moment she looked
up to see Derek standing in his doorway.
 
Arms crossed tightly across his chest, a scowl across his perfectly
chiseled face.
 
Crap!
He heard what she just said.
  
“Look Collin I have to go.
 
Look
at your schedule and let me know what works.
 
Bye.”
 
She hung up without waiting
for a response.
 

“Roni, my
office. Now!” With that, he stalked back into his office.
 

With her head
hung she followed.
 
Closing the door
behind her.
 
She looked up hoping to see
some amusement twinkling in his eyes.
 
Nope, not even a little amusement.
 
“So… I… um… guess you didn’t like my conversation with Collin.” She
smiled, weakly.

“That is not
how I expect for my executive assistant to be speaking to a potential partner!
For fuck’s sake Roni I need Collin to sign on to be part of CPST! Now I am
going to have to call and apologize for your behavior.
 
Why can’t you be as good with everything as
you are with numbers? You don’t even know how to run a simple computer
program.
 
”
 

She walked
closer to him stood her full 5 foot 7 inches tall and poked him in the
chest.
 
“You are acting like a spoiled
overly tired two year old, you know that!
 
I was joking around with Collin, who A started the joke and B isn’t just
some random guy you are trying to hire.
 
He is also becoming a friend.”

He stepped
away from her.
 
Rubbing his eyes.
 
He started to speak, but she cut him off to
continue her rant.
 
“I know you need
Collin to join CPST if not for the simple reason that maybe, just maybe you
would be able to handle some things off and rest.
 
You are working not only yourself, but your
entire staff into the ground!
 
They are
all about to snap.
 
They need a fucking
day off Derek!
 
And so do you.
 
Cancel the meeting to let them all go home
and sleep, see their families or whatever else they want to do.
 
I promise a little good will would go a long
way right now!”
 

Derek seemed
frozen in his spot.
 
Not blinking. Not
moving.
 
She wondered if he was even
breathing.
 
I should have kept my big mouth shut!
They stared at each other for
a few minutes.
 
“First, you sneak off to
grab coffee without even bothering to tell me where you went or email me the
reports first.
 
Second, you have an
inappropriate conversation with a potential partner, friend or not. And now,
you are telling me to give my team the day off so I can what win some kind of
popularity contest?
 
You, Veronica Atlas,
are out of line.”
 
With that, he walked
to his desk and sat down.
 

Of course Roni
stocked after him not willing to give him an inch. “No Mr. Callaway you are out
of line.
 
You treat your staff like they
are robots created to do nothing more than to write your fucking code.
 
They can’t work 100 hours a week and manage to
have a life! Plus at this point you have worked the creativity and productivity
right out of them! Just like you have yourself.” She stood there with her fists
resting on his desk.
 
Her chest heaving
from her anger.
 
Part of her was happy
she had wracked him earlier.
 

Derek once
again became quiet and still.
 
The only
movement she saw in his body was the small twitch in his jaw.
 
Anger, and if she was being honest a thick
sexual tension, was taking up all the space between their bodies.
 

He broke the
stare.
 
Rubbed his hand down his
face.
 
“Fine, they can all have the day
off.
 
Let them go see their families or
whatever.
 
Hell, let them all take the
whole fucking weekend off.” There was no anger in his voice as he spoke.
 

“Ok.
 
Good.
 
Your team will appreciate that.”
 
She didn’t know what to do now.
 

“Now I have
some work to do, since my staff is off for the day.” He turned to his computers
essentially dismissing her.
 

“Um, I was
hoping that you would also take a break.” She said quietly.
 

He sighed.
 
“No Roni I need to finish.
 
You see this project means everything to
me.
 
I want to meet the deadline and have
nothing go wrong.
 
Jemma would understand
all of this.
 
I won’t have lost hours
teaching her new programs or listing off normal task for her to complete.
 
She would have known.
 
Maybe it was a mistake to hire you.”
 

Roni was
shocked.
 
She had been here all of four
and a half days and he expected her to be at Jemma’s level already?
 
A woman who had been with him for four years
as his assistant.
 
Who had learned to
anticipate everything he could possibly need.
 
She had a simple solution.
 
“Well,
let me help you out on that front.
 
After
I tell the staff they have the weekend off, I quit.”
 
She walked out of the office, hearing him
call her name and not giving a shit!

I fucked that up royally!
Derek
chastised himself.
 
He knew how what he
said sounded and had regretted the words the second they left his mouth.
 
He meant he shouldn’t have hired her because she
was distracting him.
 
As in her body, her
voice, her everything was making him lose all focus.
 
Yet, his mouth and brain made it her fault by
pointing out all of her shortcomings.
 

In reality he
wasn’t pissed at all about her lack of professionalism with Collin.
 
He knew how Collin was and had no doubt he
initialized the joking.
 
It had more to
do with the fact that he had not made her laugh all day.
 
Hell, he had not even managed to have a civil
conversation with her.

When he heard
her flirty voice and the word sex while she was on the phone with Collin, he
will admit to being a little jealous.
 
His caveman had roared and wanted to lock her away where no other man
could speak to her or look at her.
 
He
had to roll his eyes at himself.
 

Now he was stuck
with no staff, no assistant and he imagined no, for lack of a better term,
girlfriend.
 
His CEO asshole persona had
really done a number on his life this time.
 

He starred at
the monitors in front of him, not able to focus on the code.
 
“Fuck!” To make matters worse, she was
right.
 
He was burnt out. At this point
he doubted he could write a simple game app for his stupid iPhone.
 
He needed a break.
 
Needed some sleep and to eat.
 
He also needed to beg Roni for
forgiveness.
 

He powered
down his computer.
 
Forcefully cramming
his laptop into his messenger bag.

 
Quickly crossing his sparse office, Derek was
determined to find Roni and make amends. Pausing with his hand on the door
knob. Derek realized he had no idea what the hell he was going to say to her.
 
He knew he had behaved like a world class
asshole, but how did he back track that kind of behavior?
 

Derek suddenly
felt defeated.
 
With no real plan he
decided to head home to work or sleep or join Assholes Anonymous.
 
If he was being honest, he was going to go
home and sulk.
 
He knew everything that
had occurred today was entirely his fault, but he still he wanted to sulk that
his day had been derailed after a five minute conversation.
 

Taking a deep
breath, he manned up and opened the door.
 
Of course Alex was sitting at Roni’s desk.
 
His feet up, his body leaned back in her
chair reading something on his phone.
 
Without moving or looking in Derek’s direction Alex simply said, “So it
only took you one week to get the girl of your dream to quit. She looked really
upset when she came to say goodbye to me.
 
Want to tell me your side of the story?
 
Or can I guess?”

“I’m going
home.” Derek stomped away.
 
When he saw
Alex start to follow him, he turned.
 
“And no I don’t want to talk.
 
No,
I don’t want to grab a beer. No, I don’t want anything.”
 

“Yep, it would
be that attitude that made Roni practically run out of here.
 
But I agree.
 
Go home.
 
Go rest.
 
Do not, I repeat for the stupid CEO, do not
call her, text her or otherwise communicate with her until you have returned to
Derek the person not Derek the fuck head CEO.
 
Then you can beg, on your hands and knees, for forgiveness.”
 
With that Alex walked to his office.
 

“I am a royal
fuck head” Derek whispered.
 
He decided
that for once he was going to take his friend’s advice and not contact
Roni.
 
Well other than the two work text
he was sending to her now.
 

Derek:
 
I’m sorry

***

Roni sat on
her couch with the remote in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other.
 
She decided a glass was pointless since she
intended to drink the entire bottle herself.
 
Roni knew that drinking and watching crap TV were not the answers to her
problems, yet somehow she couldn’t find it in herself to find a better
alternative.
 
Nope, she was going to
stick with her pity party.
 

“How can one
man be wonderful and caring one minute and an asshole the next?”
 
She asked to the empty house.
 
Sighing, she went back to flipping through
the endless amount of crap on TV.
 
She
heard her phone chirp in the kitchen alerting her to a text message.
 
This was the third time it had done so and
the third time she had ignored the damn thing.
 

Her phone
chirped again.
 
Roni blew out a large
breath and decided she better go answer the stupid text.
 
Walking into her kitchen, she grabbed the
phone from the island.
 
Roni stabbed the
text message icon with her finger.
 
Much
like her keyboard earlier, her poor phone was taking the brunt of her anger.
 

Derek: I’m sorry

She snorted
after reading that one
.
 
I bet you are!

Alex: These numbers are fantastic! I didn’t
have to make one change! Since you are no longer working for that monster of a
CEO, I want to offer you a job in my department.
 
Call me.
 

Roni didn’t
remember giving Alex her cell number, but this was Alex and he had the
resources to get a girl’s number.
 
She
laughed to herself.
 
Work for Alex?
 
He was more relaxed than Derek and she was
going to have to think about that offer though.
 
It was nice to know that she had done something right though.
 

Roni:
 
I’ll think about the job offer.
 
I
have a feeling a certain uptight CEO may have an issue with me working for
you.
 

She scanned
the rest of her text.
 
She had one from
Gracey giving way too many details about her stomach flu.
 
Yuck! The other was from Emma saying she was
still out of town.
 
Those two texts
officially killed her dreams of a girl’s night somehow coming together.
 

Her phone
chirped again.
 

Alex:
 
Screw what the monster thinks! I need you on my team!
 
Better title, better pay and best of all you
get to stare at me all day
J
 

Despite her
sour mood, she laughed.
 

Roni:
 
Staring at you all day is not a selling point.
 
J

Alex:
 
You know you want me, all the girls do.
 

Roni:
 
I can think of two in this house that don’t fall into that category.

Alex: You are wrong.
 

She was hoping
for a better response to her sarcasm.
 
Shrugging, she decided to tell him she would think more about the
position.
 
Bringing her phone with her,
she went back into the living room and back to her pity party.
 
She took a large swig of wine.
 
In an attempt to kill the disappointment from
only getting one crappy text from Derek.
 

Snuggling
under the fluffy blanket she allowed herself to think about the day.
 
She knew the Derek she dealt with today was
not the real Derek.
 
The Derek she faced
today was one that was tired and stressed.
 
She understood that he was working way to many hours and under a great
deal of pressure.
 
Had he not said the
last part about how he shouldn’t have hired her, she would have let his
behavior go.
 

Unfortunately,
he had hit a nerve.
 
She wanted to be
good at this job.
 
She was always good at
her jobs.
 
Although this was different
from anything she had done.
 
Numbers were
her thing, keeping an office running not so much.
 
She took another big swig of wine.
 

She passed the
time refusing to think about Derek the man (not the CEO), flipping repeatedly
through the channels and drinking her wine.
 
She must have been doing this longer than she thought because Izzy
walked through the door.
 
Home from her
day of shaping the minds of the youth.
 
Roni giggled at the thought of her COD addict friend being in charge of
a hoard of kindergarteners.
 

“Oh no, this
can’t be good.”
 
Izzy stated as she sat
on the opposite end of the couch.
 
Taking
in the sight of the now empty bottle of wine and a second one ready to be
opened.
 

Sighing, Roni
launched into the story of her day.
 
Roni
was sure Izzy was having a hard time keeping up with her drunken story telling
that was interjected with pointed opinions of what an ass Derek was.
 
Izzy being the good friend she was, simply
nodded in agreement and opened the second bottle of wine.
 

“So where does
this leave you two?”
 
Izzy asked
innocently.
 

“No frickin
idea! I haven’t heard from him other than the one text, and I haven’t bothered
to contact him.” Roni had crossed in belligerent drunk zone and will happily
live there for quite some time.
 

Izzy took a
swig of wine, looking up as if she was in deep thought.
 
“I guess it is time to drown your sorrows in
pizza, wine and chocolate.” Izzy left the couch, on a quest to order the pizza
and find the chocolate stash.
 
“Then,
maybe, we can TP his house later!” Izzy called from the kitchen.
 
Roni burst out laughing.
 
She loved that her friend didn’t call him an
asshole or tell her she was being a drama queen. No, her best friend just
stuffed her full of food and wine and offered immature (and impractical) ways
of getting back at him.
 

***

Derek had
fallen into bed with the intention of only sleeping an hour or so.
 
Instead, he slept for 5 hours.
 
That was not a nap that was a full night’s
rest in his book.
 
The first thing he did
was grab his phone from his nightstand hoping that Roni had sent him a text or
called.
 
Hell at this point he would have
settled for any words from her, even if they were “fuck off”, at least he would
know she cared enough to fight with him. Instead, he had nothing.
 
Which was completely unusual for him.
 
No text from Roni, Alex, Caroline.
 
Not even a whisper from work.
 

He knew he
should take it as a sign that, either people were resting like they should be
if he gave them the day off to get their productivity back or they were
avoiding him.
 
Thinking he had finally
lost his mind all together at work today.
 
He had to call Alex.
 
But first he
needed to test the waters with Roni.
 
Now
the question was, what to say?
  
He spun
his iPhone in his hand. Over and over again.
 

He typed “I’m
sorry” again thought about it and erased.
 
He spun his iPhone some more and stared at the ceiling.
 

Derek:
 
Roni, I am really sorry for my poor behavior today. My CEO asshole and
my caveman asshole hooked up and took over. That is my best explanation.
 
You were right, I needed rest.
 
You would be proud I slept for 5 hours.
 
Please forgive me.
 
Don’t let my CEO baby side win.
 
He needs a woman like you to kick his ass
into shape so he never turns into (cringe) Alex! Please save him from that
fate.
 

Derek read his
text over a few times.
 
Finally, he
determined it was enough parts apology and enough parts self-deprecation.
 
He took a deep breath and hit send.
 
Placing the phone down on his bed.
 
He paced the room a few thousand times or
so.
 
Then he grabbed the phone convinced
it was broken and sent a test text to Alex knowing he would answer since that
man had his phone glued to his hand.
 

Derek:
 
How are things at the shop?
 
Anything I need to know?

He went to the
kitchen suddenly needing something to do.
 
Scrounging around, he realized how little grocery shopping he had done
due to lack of time.
 
As he hunted for
sustenance, his phone beeped.