Cruel Heart

PART 2

"You and Lake should come over for dinner tonight. Robin and I finally settled into the new place," Kallie said, pale strands of hair straying from her ponytail. Kallie had started working at Gillian & Wells a few years before Mia joined the team. 

She wasn't exactly the type of girl Mia would associate with outside of work. Kallie was...intense to say the least. An extrovert on steroids. She had a tendency of giving Mia a headache, especially when the woman went on about gossip. Kallie could talk office rumors until she was blue in the face. 

It made for good entertainment. But after a few hours, it made Mia's brain turn to mush. But then again, that was more of an effect from the office itself rather than Kallie. 

The frenzy of ringing phones and tapping keyboards filled the office floor.

Grey cubicles wove throughout the carpeted space. The steely clouds outside, so uniform the sky was a splotch of charcoal, looked as depressing as the office. It was a sea of muted colors even on the hottest of summer days.  Gillian & Wells had a way of sucking the life out of everything. 

Even the plants on Kallie's desk withered faster than average. Like even the little green guys had had enough of the office life 

Mia looked back at her computer screen and shook her head. "No," she said. "We're kind of...not together anymore," Mia admitted, running one of her shellacked nails over the lip of the keyboard.

Kallie's eyes went wide, the corners of her painted mouth dropping slightly. "Oh, Mia. That's awful. Why'd you guys break up?" she asked. Her brows scrunched together in distress.  

Mia shrugged. "You know, we just had different interests I guess." 

Yeah. Lake was interested in screwing Gigi, and Mia, on the other hand, wasn't such a fan.

She'd ended up sleeping on Ruth's couch last night, smothering her face with her pillow to keep out the sounds of the barking dogs from the house over.  

She still hand't spoken to Gigi since that night. For all Mia cared, Gigi could have Lake; she was done with him. And it's not like Gigi or Lake hand't tried to reach out. Gigi had given up after her twenty unanswered calls followed by a parade of half-ass 'I'm sorry' texts. 

Mia had lost count of how many times Lake called. He tried texting her two. Rows and rows of bullshit that Mia hadn't bothered to actually read. Ruth ended up reading a few of the texts from Lake. 

She was sure Ruth had broken some kind of record for eye rolling. 

"Well," Kallie began, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder, "I never liked him that much anyways."

Me too, Mia thought with a snort.

Really it was good that this happened. In a twisted way, she was happy he'd cheated. Well, it would have been nice if it hadn't been with her sister, but still; she was glad.

It was like the trash had taken itself out.

Sevian sat at his desk across from Kallie, inky curls spilling onto his face. "You're still coming by though, Sev," Kallie said as he sat down. "For dinner tonight?"

Sevian nodded. "Yeah, Benny can't come, though. He's sick." Mia liked Sev. He was always smiling, even on Mondays. He made the office seem a fraction less grey. The man was always decked out in color. She was sure he had a suit in every color of the rainbow. 

"Benny too?" Kallie shook her head as she finished typing something. "Something must be going around," Kallie said.

Kallie and Sevian began talking about the flu that seemed to be spreading throughout the office, but Mia had already zoned out.

Everyone was hard at work. And Mia was...well, Mia was sitting and staring at a blank calendar up on the screen. It wasn't like she could do anything; the new boss was late.

She flicked her gaze over to the bottom of the screen. "Are you kidding me?" she mumbled when she saw the time.

The new CEO was beyond late. Dangerously close to complete asshole territory.

"Guess the rumors are true," Kallie said over her shoulder, spying the time as well.

Mia rolled her eyes and stood from her seat. "I might as well leave now," she said. No point in waiting the extra two hours. She had other things to do. Like moving all of her stuff from Lake's apartment into her new place. Which was non-existent at the moment.

"Mia, you're coming to Kallie's tonight, right?" Sevian asked as Mia threw on her coat, punching her arms into the wool sleeves.

Mia considered for a moment. "I'll try," she lied while throwing her purse over her shoulder.

"Well, he's cute," Sevian said with a devilish smirk, his attention shifting over to the front of the office.

All the sound was sucked from the room. Or maybe that was just Mia's imagination. Every eye swung to the front entrance, the tapping of the keyboards ceasing.

No, was all Mia could think when she saw the two men. The elevator's doors slid shut behind them. The older man was Jonathan Moore, head of HR.

"Everyone," Jonathan said to the quite room. Mia's heart jackhammered against her ribs as she sunk back down into her chair. "Meet the new CEO, Harlan Veers."

Mia began to scream internally.

Harlan's dark eyes ran over the sea of faces, the inky drops of onyx finally landing on her. A small smirk pulled up at the sides of his mouth. A mouth that Mia couldn't seem to look away from.

Harlan was the CEO. The same guy she'd told about her cheating boyfriend, the guy she had inadvertently called an asshole to his face, was now her new boss.

Mia blew out a long sigh and ducked behind the partition of cubicles so Harlan couldn't see her.

Wow.

Her week couldn't possibly get any worse.

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