Between the Covers Read online

  “Your grammar is very good,” he said—in French. “How long have you been learning?” He made sure to speak clearly and more slowly than usual.

  She blinked a few times, no doubt still hung up on the shock and guilt of having laughed on the day of her grandmother’s funeral. Grief was a funny thing—although he was certain that Dani’s grandmother would have wanted her family to feel happiness again, grief had a way of warping that knowledge and digging its claws deep.

  For a moment, he worried they would lose her to melancholy, but then she took a deep breath and replied, “A year and a half—since I knew Ben wasn’t coming back to live.” She spoke slowly, but Malik was sure that was just from lack of confidence. “I thought it would be best for when I visit.”

  “We appreciate it,” Léo said. “We will speak only French when we are alone, so you can practice.”

  “Thank you,” she replied promptly. “Please correct me when I make mistakes.” She tilted her head. “I think I am pronouncing some things wrong.” She pouted, clearly not happy with the idea.

  Ben leaned over and gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “I hate that you never told me you were learning French,” he told her, and then switched to English. “But the fact you did this reminds me so much of Gran Carol. It’s just the kind of thing she’d do—spend over a year learning a new language so she could visit a friend in another country.” He picked up his glass and raised it in salute. Dani’s lip wobbled for a moment, but then she raised her glass also—and knocked back the contents.

  “She loved the idea when I told her,” she said quietly. “She was the one who helped me choose the app, and in the early days we did it together.” She stared into space for long seconds, then shook her head and switched to French. “She was so excited to hear everything you were doing. She wanted to know everything about Léo, too—and you.” She looked at Malik.

  “Me?” he asked, surprised, and she nodded.

  “Oh, yes. She loved gossip, and you did—caused gossip a lot.”

  Well, he couldn’t argue with that. “I’m reformed,” he said loftily, mostly because he knew it would make her smile, and at that second, he wanted to see that.

  Sure enough, her face lit up, even as Ben snorted, and then Léo asked if her grandmother had ever been to France. She turned to answer him, and it felt to Malik as though the light in the room dimmed.

  Oh, hell.

  No. No way. He was not forming an infatuation for his cousin’s boyfriend’s best friend. A woman who was grieving. A woman who had always been funny, kind, and sweet, and who did not need or deserve his brand of chaos in her life.

  And yet, as he watched the flash of her smile again, the sinking feeling in his stomach told Malik it was already too late.

  Going back to work felt both odd and wonderful. Gran had passed on a Saturday, and Dani had taken a full week off work to deal with the funeral arrangements and sorting out Gran’s house. Her mother had told her it wasn’t necessary, but Dani had seen the relief when she insisted. Some things just shouldn’t have to be done alone.

  But now, on this cold and miserable Monday morning—it wasn’t even officially winter yet, but the weather was being nasty—Dani had left the luscious hotel suite to return to work. She had yet to go home, although she refused to admit there was a significant reason for that. She was just enjoying the time spent with her bestie, soaking up every second. Ben had pouted when she’d dressed for work and had tried to extract a promise that she’d meet him for lunch. Dani had hemmed and hawed, not knowing exactly what she’d find at the office. Theoretically, everything was set up to run smoothly in her absence, and she had an assistant-slash-intern to keep an eye on things, but… the truth was, Lisa, the intern, was a bit… flaky. In fact, she could almost be called inept. If it weren’t for the fact that her father was a friend of the owner and had begged for a six-month work placement for her, there was no way in hell Dani would have kept her on. She was a nice enough girl, though a little shallow, but her incompetence was such that Dani had to review everything she did.

  Which was why a niggle of apprehension was curling in her belly as she walked in through the main doors and waved at the receptionist, who was on a call. The cringe she got in response was her first indicator that something had happened.

  Sighing, Dani made her way through the still mostly empty floor to her office. She’d been working for this printer and stationery supply company pretty much since she’d finished uni nearly eight years ago. The owner, an older gentleman called Harry, had hired her as a temporary receptionist. For Dani, it had been a stopgap job to make money while she hunted for something she really wanted. She was newly armed with a business degree, but not really sure how she wanted to apply it. That didn’t mean she’d been about to half-ass the job, though, and within two weeks she’d overhauled several processes that made reception run much more efficiently. It hadn’t taken her long to get bored, and she’d started poking around the rest of the office, picking up odd tasks the salesmen and admins didn’t have time for. Before her three-month contract had run out, she’d had a better understanding of how the company worked than some of the senior execs, and Harry had basically told her to pick the job she wanted and he’d make sure she got trained for it if necessary. By then, she’d known exactly what that would be. Harry had created the office manager role, and together, in consultation with other staff, they’d redistributed duties in a way that kept Dani challenged and created deep gratitude amongst her colleagues. And she’d been happy for years.

  It was only this year, since Harry had retired and his dick nephew had taken over, that tiny niggles of discontent had begun to settle in. The office dynamic had changed. A lot of longtime employees were not happy with the way “Dickhead Tom” was running things, and staff turnover had jumped in just a few months. Worse, the new people Tom was hiring didn’t fit the core values Harry had spent so long instilling in the company. She and Tom had butted heads many times already about unnecessary and inefficient changes he wanted to make. At first, she’d respected his desire to put his own stamp on the company and had made suggestions that would make his changes practical, but he’d made it clear that her input was not wanted. He’d been running the place less than six months, and in the first quarter under his management, profit had already been down. The second quarter was only half done, but Dani knew it was going to be bad. If it wasn’t for her dogged loyalty to the company and the remaining longtime staff, she’d already have been looking for another job—but how could she abandon them without trying her best to fix things?

  She flipped on the light in her office and dumped her bag on her chair. Everything looked… fine. Neat. Tidy. In fact… untouched. Was that file in Lisa’s in-tray the same one she’d left there over a week ago? Had Lisa not actioned it? She squinted around the room. Had Lisa even been in there while she was away?

  A single knock on the open door preceded Kate, the receptionist. “Hey. How are you?” she asked with that you’ve-just-lost-a-loved-one sympathy Dani both appreciated and had been dreading. She smiled faintly.

  “I’m okay. It’s hard, but it wasn’t unexpected.”

  Kate tipped her head. “If there’s anything I can do….”

  “Thank you. And thank you so much for sending flowers. They were lovely, and so thoughtful.”

  Kate nodded, sighed, and closed the door. Dani’s stomach sank.

  “There’s something you should know before Lisa gets here.”

  Groan.

  “Was she sick last week or something?” she asked. Could that be the reason her office looked like it had been locked and guarded for a week?

  “Or something.” Kate grimaced. “Keep your shit, yeah? Sometime since they both started working here, Tom and Lisa hooked up.”

  “What?”

  “Shhh!” Kate looked nervously over her shoulder at the glass wall.

  “Sorry.” Dani lowered her voice, trying to process. “I’m just… surprised. He’s, what, fort
y years older than her?”

  “Closer to fifty.” The twist to Kate’s mouth made her feelings very clear. “We’re trying not to judge, right?”

  “That’s right,” Dani said firmly. “The age gap between them is none of our business.” Having the CEO date an intern, though…. She made a mental note to check in with their HR team this morning. They must be going gonzo. Also, Tom was gross and a real dick. Lisa was cute, mostly sweet, and fun. It couldn’t be money, could it? Her family was way richer than Tom, and— Oh, crap. “Does Harry know yet? And Lisa’s family?” This is not my problem, she assured herself, even as she remembered Harry asking her to look out for Lisa. He’d meant it in a professional sense, right?

  Kate shrugged. “I have no idea. Harry hasn’t been in or anything. They basically just walked in on Wednesday holding hands, and then he pretty much ate her face off before he went into his office and she went to lunch.”

  Resisting the urge to gag at the image Kate had put into her head, Dani asked, “Wait—she arrived at the office and then went right out to lunch?” The faintly pitying look on Kate’s face said it all. “Right. Well, that explains why nothing’s been touched in here. Thanks for letting me know, Kate.” Now what the hell was she supposed to do?

  Kate left, and Dani booted up her computer, mindful of the glass wall and all her colleagues trickling in. She kept a calm smile on her face as several people wandered in to offer their condolences and tell her she’d been missed. One or two asked after Lisa, obviously fishing for gossip or hoping to drop a bomb on her, but Dani was the office manager for a reason. Those people were so efficiently managed back to their desks, they weren’t even sure what had happened.

  Still smiling, Dani began going through her emails, one eye on the time at the bottom of her screen. Lisa was late, which was not unusual, but today it presented Dani with more than the usual problem. How was she supposed to handle this? Pretend nothing was happening? Honestly, if this was someone else’s workplace, she’d be agog for the gossip and not really give a fuck otherwise. Lisa wasn’t her daughter or sister or her anything, after all, and if she wanted to be with a man who was old enough to be her grandfather and was a giant fucking prick, that was her business. Ditto for Tom. Although in other circumstances Dani couldn’t really give a flying fuck who Tom hooked up with, except in a “I never want to think about Tom hooking up” way. But this…. Lisa was her intern. She was a senior manager in the company—all administrative staff reported to her, no matter which department they were assigned to—so she couldn’t pass the buck. Tom was the CEO, and he was diddling a junior—very junior—member of her staff. She had to do something… she just wasn’t sure what yet.

  First, maybe review the HR policy manual? Call her friend from uni who specialized in employment law? Think of something to say to Lisa, because oh God, they just walked in and fuck my life, that’s disgusting! Kate hadn’t been wrong when she’d spoken about face-eating.

  Choking back the bile that had risen to her throat, Dani shot a quick glance around the faces in the open-plan area of the office. Some were carefully blank, gazes averted. Some were disgusted. Some mixed shock with horror. Nobody looked happy, amused, or titillated, though. It wasn’t the kind of kiss anyone ever wanted to see in a public space.

  As the—barf—happy couple broke apart, Dani returned her attention to her emails. She’d checked in on her private address several times in the past week, despite being on leave, so it wasn’t as out of control as it could have been. But the shared administrative inbox truly concerned her—it looked as though Lisa hadn’t checked it at all, or if she had, she’d left a lot of emails unaddressed.

  That was what needed to be handled first, Dani decided, just as Lisa strolled in.

  “Good morning, Lisa,” she said, hoping her tone was no different to what it would be on any other day. “I hope you had a good weekend. I have some questions for you about the admin inbox.” There, that was professional, right? To the point, but still courteous.

  “Hi, Dani.” Lisa smiled brightly, and Dani was reminded again that she really was a sweet girl most of the time. She was just completely self-centered and not that bright. And clearly needed close supervision. “Tom wants to talk to you.”

  That threw her. Say what? Tom wanted to talk to her? Normally she had to practically tackle him in the hallway to get a minute with him.

  “Uh, okay. Thanks for letting me know. Did he want me to set up a time, or—”

  “Oh, no,” Lisa assured her earnestly. “He said now.”

  Right. “Did he say why?” That wasn’t professional at all, but neither was sending her intern to tell her he wanted a meeting rather than setting it up himself.

  Lisa shook her head, and Dani stood. “I’ll head over and see for myself, then. While I’m gone, can you get started on the admin inbox? And that file on your desk needs to be taken care of.” She didn’t say a word about how all of that should have been done last week, but her pointed look must have spoken volumes, because Lisa flushed.

  On her way to Tom’s office, she was waylaid twice, and only her determined stride and closed expression put off the others who tried to catch her attention. She still wasn’t sure exactly how to address the whole “dating” Lisa thing with Tom, but if an opening came up, she’d take it and worry about the details in the moment.

  Tom’s PA, Julie, smiled widely at her as she approached, but Dani didn’t need to be psychic to see the underlying note of desperation. Julie had been hired specifically when Tom came on board, Harry’s assistant having retired when he did, and Dani had found her to be competent, capable, and utterly unimpressed with Tom as both a man and a manager. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if she resigned.

  “Good morning, Julie. Apparently, Tom wants to see me.” Dani’s tone conveyed her opinion of that. Julie nodded.

  “He said as much as he went in,” she replied, her tone conveying her opinion also. She stood, took the few steps to Tom’s door, knocked perfunctorily, and then stuck her head in. “Dani’s here.” She stepped back and gestured for Dani to enter.

  Since Tom had a glass wall looking out into the main office as well, announcing visitors was redundant. In Harry’s day, Dani would have said hello to his assistant and then just knocked and announced herself. Tom liked a more formal, old-fashioned way of things—right down to boinking the office intern, apparently.

  Dani smiled at Julie, walked in, and shut the door behind herself. Tom pretended to be absorbed in his computer screen, holding up a finger for her to wait—a tactic designed to establish him as the more important party and put her in her place. She had too much experience with big egos to be intimidated, so rather than hovering by the door awaiting his pleasure, she walked over to the visitor chair, made herself comfortable, and pulled out her phone. A quick check of the admin email inbox showed that Lisa was actually doing her job, so she switched to her message app and sent Ben a text.

  Dani: My wanker boss is playing power games.

  Ben: Men who need to play power games are lacking in power.

  Dani: Well, you would know, being surrounded by powerful men.

  Dani: Wow, can’t believe I actually said that.

  Ben: Me neither. I was just about to ask who had stolen your phone.

  Ben: but you’re not wrong ;-)

  Dani: Whatcha doing?

  Ben: Nothing interesting until you texted. Why’s the wanker playing games?

  Dani: Because he has a tiny dick and needs some way to feel important? How should I know?

  Ben: How should you know his dick size? Don’t want to think about the answer to that.

  Dani: EW! That’s disgusting. And also, why would a pretty, sweet, popular almost-teenager want to fuck a nearly 70yo gross dickhead?

  Ben: OMG! WHAT IS HAPPENING THERE?

  “Danika?” Tom’s annoyed voice broke into the message she was composing. Casting a wistful glance at the screen, she hit Send halfway through her explanation and tucked the phone away. Ben
would know it meant she’d been interrupted, and although he might be frustrated by the half message, he would wait for her to text again.

  “Good morning, Tom,” she said deliberately. “How was your weekend?”

  He waved a hand, as though social pleasantries weren’t worth his time. Dick. “I need to discuss something important with you.”

  Oh God, was he going to raise the subject of Lisa himself? Did she really want to hear it? Forcing a look of mild concern onto her face, she said, “Oh?”

  Tom steepled his fingers. “I’ve been concerned about your work performance.”

  Everything in Dani froze. For a second, it was as though the universe had come to a standstill. And then it jolted back into action in a hot rush of fury. In her lap, her hands clenched into tight fists before she forced them to relax, and over the sound of her pounding heartbeat, she said, “What do you mean?” There was nothing about her work performance that warranted concern. Even with the massive personnel changes lately, the office still ran like clockwork. If this was another ploy of his to throw her off-balance, she was going to eviscerate him.

  Slowly.

  With a blunt object.

  “It just seems that you’re unable to cope with the changes I’ve been making in the company. You’re set in your ways and unable to adapt.” His smug tone made her itch all over, but she fought down her knee-jerk anger and defensiveness and forced herself to consider her response.

  What is he doing?

  There was no reason that she could see for him to be saying this. He couldn’t sack her without three written warnings—which she didn’t have, since her work and professionalism had always been up to standard—or unless she breached her terms of employment, which she knew she hadn’t. He couldn’t give her a poor performance evaluation, because all her job metrics showed that her performance was well above acceptable. So what was going on?

  “I’m sorry you feel that way. I can assure you that I’m not opposed to change, and I believe I’ve been working with the staff to implement your changes as smoothly as possible.” You incompetent, dickless wanker.