Company - Max Barry [103]
“Given that, I'm looking on recent events in a new light. Such as what you said to me.”
He stands.
Oh no.
“It makes me wonder . . .”
He comes around the desk and drops onto his haunches in front of her.
No! No!
“. . . if that was in fun . . .”
No no no no no no—
“. . . or not.”
The sun shines behind him, forming a halo. She bites down on a whimper. In this moment, he is the most beautiful, desirable asshole in the world.
“Stop me if I'm off base here,” Roger says softly, “but I'm wondering if that was for real.”
She holds out for a full second. Considering the tidal wave of physical need crashing against her, it's a kind of victory. I tried! she thinks. Then she grabs Roger's face with both hands and mashes her lips against his.
Jones is halfway across the lobby when a hand touches his arm. He looks around into the pale gray eyes of a blue-uniformed Human Resources and Asset Protection security guard. “Mr. Jones?”
Jones supposes this is the part where he is forcibly escorted off the premises. “Okay, who told you to do this? HR? Because they don't have the authority to fire anyone.”
The guard looks startled. “I just have a message for you.”
“Oh,” Jones says.
“What you did on Friday was a great thing, Mr. Jones. I told my kids about it.” He consults a scrap of paper. “The message is that the Alpha team wants to see you. As soon as possible. In the usual place.” His eyes flick up at Jones. “Does that make sense? I wrote down exactly what they said.”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
Jones claps the guard on the arm and walks on. When he's inside the elevator, he presses 12 and 14 together, even though he is sure nothing will happen—surely the first thing Klausman did after Jones trashed his company was to revoke his Alpha clearance. But no: the elevator moves. Jones chews his lip. At the right moment he hits DOOR OPEN and the car slides to a halt on 13, just like always.
Jones hesitates. There are not too many reasons Alpha would want to see him, and even fewer that will be much fun for him. One possibility is they want to bawl him out; another is they want to inflict some kind of horrendous revenge on him, the nature of which they've spent all weekend devising.
But he can't dodge them forever. He leaves the elevator and walks to the meeting room, his business shoes making no sound on the plush carpet. Despite himself, he is nervous. He reaches the door, stops, and wipes his hands on his pants.
Then he throws open the door. An agent, Tom Mandrake, stops speaking so abruptly that Jones hears his teeth click together. “Hi!” Jones says. “How you guys doing?”
Klausman, sitting in his giant leather chair, eyes him from dark, sunken hollows. The man looks ten years older than he did on Friday. He also looks as if he would like to punch Jones in the guts. “Sit down, Jones.”
He takes a few steps into the room. “I'm good, thanks.”
Klausman eyes him for a moment, then shrugs. It is the worst attempt to feign nonchalance Jones has ever seen. Then Klausman's eyes flick across the room and Eve says, “Jones.”
She's not sitting in her usual position, but rather at the foot of the great table, opposite Klausman's big leather chair. Her expression is stony—which is what she told him to expect, at least in front of Alpha. But at this point Jones isn't taking anything about Eve for granted. “I suppose it would be redundant to tell you how disappointed we are.”
“Probably.”
“Ten years. That's how long this version of Zephyr Holdings has been running. That's how much sweat and blood went into it. You destroyed a decade.”
Jones glances at Klausman, who is staring back at him with his arms folded. He doesn't seem to want to join in, so Jones guesses Eve is today's designated attack dog. Well, too bad; he's addressing this to Klausman. “Are you serious? Do you really think Zephyr was corporate Utopia? It wasn't. It was a shit place to work, and a shitty template for a successful