Company - Max Barry [102]
“Of course.”
“Or because I've done a good thing for you?”
There's a pause, then she says, “Why do you say that?”
His body flushes cold.
“Jones? Hello? Jo-o-ones?”
“Yeah,” he croaks.
“Is this a bad line? Hang on. I'll call you back.”
The following Monday, Jones wakes at 6:14 A.M. He knows this without even opening his eyes, because he's one of those people who always wakes just before his alarm goes off. And Jones's alarm has been set for 6:15 A.M. every weekday for the last three months.
But not today. This morning, Jones's internal clock has been fooled. He rolls over and pulls up the sheet. He smiles without opening his eyes. This morning, Jones can sleep in, because he doesn't have an Alpha meeting.
Elizabeth arrives at Zephyr at 8:55 A.M., almost an hour late. She feels guilty for taking advantage of the lack of Senior Management to grab a little extra sleep—until, cruising through the parking lot, she passes empty space after empty space. Apparently she's not late at all. Relatively speaking, she's early.
She catches the elevator to Staff Services and wends her way between empty cubicles. A sudden burst of loud voices prompts her to turn and peer over the dividers: three people are by the coffee machine, sharing a joke. She keeps walking. Just before her cubicle, she finally sees someone at a desk: a young guy with spiky hair. He looks up, surprised, and she smiles at him. He quickly changes the screen on his computer. Belatedly, she realizes he was working on his CV.
The second she bends down to tuck her bag under her desk, her phone rings. She picks up. This is a big mistake. “Elizabeth,” says Roger, his voice deep and utterly commanding. “We need to talk.”
Wait! some part of her shrieks, but already the blood is rising in her head like a storm. Her fingers sing with pins and needles. Her toes freeze. Her body floods with the insane, unspeakable, insatiable craving: Roger, Roger, Roger.
Horrified, she watches her feet turn around and clump her blindly along the carpet. When she reaches Roger's door, her hand (traitor!) comes up and knocks. When Roger calls her in, her body trills in response.
Roger sits with his hands folded neatly on his desk. His brown hair is neatly parted. His suit jacket sits on him as easily and perfectly as a sculpture, the shoulders dusted in gold from the morning sun. For a second, Elizabeth thinks she is going to vomit.
“So?” To her relief, her voice comes out hard and sardonic. “What's the story?”
“Have a seat.”
She shrugs, as if she doesn't care one way or the other—as if her heart isn't trying to break out of her chest and her brain not drowning in a dull roar of lust. She folds both hands firmly around the armrests, where they are less likely to do anything stupid.
“I'm not sure how to put this.” He hasn't glanced away from her, even for a second, since she entered the room. “Last week, in your cubicle . . . you had some fun at my expense.”
Yes! Elizabeth will die to defend this fiction. “I suppose so,” she says nonchalantly. Her hands, appalled by this lie, try to get away from her; she squeezes them back down on the armrests.
“Or so I thought.” Roger opens a drawer and holds up a tiny plastic cup, the kind doctors ask you to pee into. Elizabeth can't fathom why Roger would have such a thing, and for a second her stupid, addled brain spins with bizarre possibilities. “Human Resources has a new drug-testing policy. You've been randomly selected from our department.”
Elizabeth may be more hormones than synapses, but she can see through that: Human Resources wants to know if she's pregnant. Outrage flares across her face. Then she realizes Roger is watching her reaction.
He says, “That's what I thought, too.”
Oh God. “What?”
“It's not about drugs.”
“Then what's it about?”
“In my opinion?” He purses his lips. “I think you're pregnant.”
Kill me now. Please.
“Very pregnant, in fact. Maybe five months.”
Her hands spasm.
“Which would put the conception date around . . . well.”
Roger's