Office Affairs

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Something was wrong.

When I walked into the office, the room was deadly silent. No music playing, no voices chatting, and no kettle boiling. The only sound was that of my heels as they clicked against the solid flooring, each step drawing another set of eyes towards me.

Alastair was pacing inside the Cube, a phone to his ear. Judging from the way he gesticulated with his free hand, his tie flapping around with the jittery movements, it seemed to be a tense conversation.

Apprehension clogged the atmosphere; the sounds of fingers tapping on keyboards or clicking mice had never been so audible—or significant. Our happy office was now a place of tension, nobody daring to glance in the direction of Alastair despite the attention he was drawing to himself.

Even I knew better than to knock on the door after he'd finished the phone call and had sat down at the desk, still inside the Cube.

Ten minutes passed.

An hour.

When he eventually emerged, he marched straight down the corridor, long legs carrying him out of sight. For a few moments, we all remained on edge. Then, like releasing an inflated balloon, everyone visibly relaxed. A chorus of relieved sighs blew around the room.

"I think Alastair's having a rough morning," Amelia said under her breath.

"Yeah, no shit," Stephanie said.

He didn't return for the rest of the day, but everyone acted as though he was still there. Nobody took an extra-long lunch break, the phones were answered as promptly as always, and even Amelia kept her normal nattering to a minimum. It was almost as though the ghost of Alastair was still present—or at least everyone respected him enough to crack on with their job.

* * *

"Will you do me a favour?" Dark circles hung below Alastair's eyes as he scrubbed a hand over his jaw.

Two days after his dramatic exit from the office, we stood in the corridor together. He'd cornered me in the kitchen, then asked for a quiet word. Apparently even the sound-proof Cube wasn't private enough for this.

I resisted making a joke, his grave face persuading me that he wasn't in the mood for my dark sense of humour.

"What's up?" I asked.

"How do you feel about coming to a business meeting?" he asked.

My eyebrows shot up. I helped out a lot around the office, but that hardly qualified me to attend a business meeting—one that seemed increasingly important by the minute.

"A business meeting?" I repeated.

"Things aren't good, Sash," he said, lowering his voice, his eyes showing the slightest hint of unfamiliar vulnerability. "To say the latest board meeting went badly would be an understatement."

The board meeting had taken place a week ago, and I'd guessed that the disappointing figures would be a prominent feature of it. Clearly I'd been right.

"Is this about the numbers?"

He sighed and leaned against the wall, tilting his head upwards as he closed his eyes, one foot propped up against the skirting board.

"I tried to tell them that change would take time, but they just assumed I was being lazy. Apparently I shouldn't have let it get to this stage. You should never get complacent in business."

"Is that what the phone call was about the other day?" I asked.

He nodded. "My father is pissed. The stocks are falling and one of our key investors wants to pull out."