Disloyalty

- Spilled -

Are you serious? Another pile of work?" i stared at the stack of files towering on Andrew's desk.

"Yes, very. I expect it on my desk by 2," he replied, not even bothering to look up from his laptop.

If there was one thing I hadn't miscalculated about Andrew Graham, it was his relentless need to bury me in work. Stacks of files, endless sheets of numbers, graphs, and reports—this job wasn't just busy, it was drowning. Holly had mentioned in passing that Andrew had started building his empire at just eighteen, and that his "genius" had made him the youngest successful businessman in the world. 

Even knowing that, it still didn't sit right with me. Andrew? Smart? Sometimes I half-joked to myself that this wasn't even the Andrew Graham I used to know, but some doppelgänger—someone who looked just like him but with a different personality.

"Are you just going to stand there gawking, or are you going to actually start working?" His voice cut through my thoughts, sharp as a knife.

I cursed under my breath as I turned away, balancing the mountain of papers in my arms. "Asshole," I muttered, just loud enough that he might hear, but not enough to get caught.

"Not the first time you've called me that," he said, so casually it sent a shiver down my spine.

I whipped my head around, stunned. He hadn't even looked up. His eyes were still glued to his laptop as if the conversation barely registered to him. The nerve of him...

 Without another word, I stormed out of his office, feeling the heat of frustration crawling up my neck.

Holly and James both told me that I probably wouldn't see much of Andrew, that he was too busy to micromanage us. Yet, here I was, barely three days in, and I'd already been called to his office four times—each one to collect more ridiculous amounts of work. 

James and Holly seemed to manage just fine with their workloads. So why was I the only one buried under stacks of files like a paper-pushing prisoner? The answer was glaringly obvious: Andrew was playing his game, and I was his favorite toy to torture.

I reached my desk and threw the papers down with a thud, loud enough to make James jump in his chair.

"Sorry," said, "don't mind me—just trying to get through the other 5,000 pages I was just handed."

James rolled his chair over, raising a brow as he scanned my desk. "You must've made a pretty bad first impression. Maybe he's testing you."

Holly also wheeled herself over as well. "Or," she teased with a grin, "he just hates you. Could've been that first-day outfit."

 They both laughed, but my smile was tight knowing the truth was far more complicated than they could ever imagine. I wanted to tell them so badly, I wanted to spill the whole story. That Andrew and I had a messy, tangled history that went far beyond any professional feud. 

That we despised each other long before I ever walked through the doors of this office. And yes, I had worn cowboy boots to piss him off on purpose. But how do you explain that without sounding completely deranged?

"Okay, okay, it wasn't that bad," I said, trying to shrug it off.

"Yeah, well," I shrugged, trying to play it off, "today's better, right?" I gestured to my white button-up shirt and black mini-skirt. Though, of course, I had kept the boots. A subtle act of rebellion, one that Andrew hadn't mentioned but I could see his eyes flick to when I walked into his office. It gave me a strange satisfaction.