Her New York Minute by Darby Baham

Author:Darby Baham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-11-01T19:32:15+00:00

Chapter Ten

Even though I was head down on the latest portfolio proposal that needed my review, I knew it was on or about 5:30 p.m. as soon as I heard the all-too-familiar hustle and bustle from the cubicles near my office. Over the past couple months, in fact, I’d learned all the telltale signs of various hours in the day at my job, never even needing to look at the gold, sunburst-style wall clock that hung near the canvas image of me symbolically waving goodbye to London.

Around 8:30 a.m., I’d normally hear the rush of people walking onto the floor, telling stories about their evenings and sighing about all the work they still needed to accomplish. At about 10:00 a.m., the floor would seem eerily quiet, but only because most of the staff had inevitably either started congregating in the kitchen area for their morning coffee breaks or were in various meetings throughout the building. No later than about 1:00 p.m., I usually heard puttering footsteps as groups of people decided if they were going to eat lunch somewhere in the neighborhood or simply heat up whatever they’d brought from home. And somewhere around 5:30 p.m. usually signaled the time for the mass exodus, leaving only the few masochists like me and Walter to close down the floor each day.

Every once in a while, I stepped out of my office during these daily interactions to partake in the activities with the rest of the teams—feel like I was actually part of the portfolio crew. But more often than I’d like to admit, I spent my time like a working Sleeping Beauty, enclosed in my glass office until someone (usually Wendy or Julie) burst in and forced me to take a sanity break.

The last of the telltale signs was the sound of Walter’s feet as he stomped down the hallway toward my office anytime between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m.—something that had become a sort of regular routine for him, especially in the last couple weeks. The first time I’d heard him clobbering around, I’d thought it to be an indication of his anger, but no. He just seemed to have a heavy walk, which was quite interesting considering he was maybe one hundred sixty-five pounds wet and probably no taller than five foot nine. But Walter did almost everything big—commanded the room when he walked in, paced up and down in his office during calls and stomped throughout the floor when he was simply walking from one office to the next. It was a far cry from the meek and mild man I’d met on day one, but then again, I’d also learned by now that our first interaction had been more of an anomaly than the norm. Walter was the man in this office, and he knew it.

Since that first day, he and I had actually formed a pretty great thought partnership. Not to say we were the best of friends—he was still my boss, obviously—but he’d meant it when

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.