Page 8 of Diego

I smile and start typing a reply.

The office fills quickly over the next fifteen minutes. More voices join the low hum around me, printers start running, and someone near the far end of the floor is already arguing into a headset about staging. By 8:45, every desk around mine is occupied and the conference rooms have begun turning over with the first meetings of the morning.

I finish my email, reread it once, and hit send.

Carter appears beside my desk again with no warning whatsoever.

I look up at him. “Do you work?”

“Occasionally.”

“You’re here a lot for someone with his own desk.”

“My desk is boring.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

He leans one hip against the corner of mine. “Lunch?”

“If I’m free.”

“You are new. You’re always free.”

I give him a look.

Leah laughs from her desk. “He means you don’t have enough clients yet to cancel lunch on us.”

“Thank you, Leah,” I say, deadpan.

“I’m helpful.”

Before I can answer, a door opens at the end of the office.

The shift is subtle, but I notice it immediately.

People lower their voices. Carter straightens away from my desk. Leah turns back toward her monitor with impressive speed.

Randall Shaw steps out of his office.

I have been employed by Meridian long enough to know that Randall enjoys entrances.

He is somewhere in his forties, always impeccably dressed, always wearing a watch that looks expensive enough to require its own insurance policy, and always carrying himself as though the rest of us should be mildly grateful he has chosen to occupy the same space. He runs the brokerage floor with a smile that never seems to reach his eyes and has an irritating habit of touching people on the shoulder when he speaks to them, as though every conversation is a private confidence between old friends.

He has called me sweetheart twice.

The first time, I assumed it was habit.

The second time, I looked at him hard enough that there has not been a third.

Randall walks toward the center of the floor and claps his hands once, loudly enough to get everyone’s attention without actually raising his voice.

“All right, everyone. Listen up.”

Conversations stop. Chairs swivel. Even the phones seem quieter, although that is probably wishful thinking.

Randall waits until he has the room before continuing. “We have a very important client coming in later this morning.”

The emphasis on very is enough to make Carter glance sideways at me.