Gina
WhenIwalkedintothe office on Monday morning, I froze. Mateo was sitting at my desk, one of my pictures in his hand. He spun from one side to the other in my chair, his lips pressed together in a thin line.
He looked up and saw me, his frown only deepening. Mateo put the picture back down on my desk and got up.
“Morning, Mateo,” I said, dropping my purse off under my desk. “Odd to see you here. I thought that you liked working from home.”
“I do,” he said, not offering anything else as he tucked my chair in before I could sit down.
“Alright. Well, is there something that I can help you with? I have several listings to get up on the website, and I can’t do that if you’re blocking my desk.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he looked down at me, his dark eyes narrowing. “I have something that I need to talk to you about. I was warned that you don’t hold your tongue, but I didn’t think you would start with me this early morning.”
Other employees started to enter the building. Shelby looked over at me as she sat at the front desk, raising her eyebrow. I nodded to her with a bright smile. Shelby shook her head but turned around in her seat and started talking to one of the real estate agents.
“Mateo, is there something that you need right now? I have work to do.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that.”
I sighed and crossed my arms. “Well, you’re determined to waste my time.”
“Come with me,” he said before walking down the hall to one of the conference rooms. He grabbed a file off someone’s desk and took it with him.
I looked up at the ceiling, wishing we were at the end of the day so I could go home and shower. The last thing I wanted was to meet with Brandon’s assistant as soon as I walked into work.
From what the other staff had told me, Mateo was a hard ass, and everyone was happier that he worked from home. But most of them had altercations with him, leaving a sour taste in their mouths.
And I was looking forward to having a good day, I thought as I followed him to the conference room.
I closed the door behind me before I took a seat across the table from him. Mateo opened the file and scattered some of the pages inside. I looked at the pages and expected to see something, but the sheets were blank.
“What’s this meeting about?” I asked as I nodded to the papers. “There’s nothing on those.”
“I know there isn’t. But imagine my surprise when I drove over to Brandon’s last night to see if he wanted to go to the bar while Amalia was away, and I saw your car sitting in the driveway.”
“We had work to get done.”
“Don’t lie to me. I have access to every aspect of his schedule. So I know that nothing needed to be done yesterday.”
I shrugged and leaned back in my chair, trying to look relaxed even though my heart was pounding a mile a minute. “I’m interning. I don’t know what you want to hear, but I went over there last night to get work down.”