Bidding For Her Curves - Flora Ferrari Page 0,8

me, I must have a fever nearing delirium if I really believe he’d want me from anything. And now I’ve messed up the one job I had all over again.

Somehow, I make it to the elevators and out of the building, back to the street but I decide to walk this time.

I’m pretty sure the last cab ride took all the money I had on me anyway.

After about a block I start to calm down a little, having to stop only once because I still feeling so dizzy. But hey, I haven’t thrown up yet, so maybe I’m getting better.

Sighing loudly, I resign myself to returning to the office, not expecting Karen to be their anyway.

I may as well get started on the rest of the stuff she put on my to-do list anyway. I can always just say I dropped off those programs like she asked, which I did.

Kind of.

She wouldn’t believe me if I told her Mason Thorne was there anyway. The man is an enigma, rarely seen by anyone, and only briefly when he does make an appearance.

It’s not as if he’s gonna call her up and tell her there was a problem, we’re a small department. A cog in the Thorne machine.

Nobodies.

Getting back to the office a lot quicker than I thought I would, I feel the pit of my stomach lurch all over again and the room sway from side to side once I step inside.

I can hear Karen’s voice, and it fills me with dread.

Worse than that, once I step past her office door, I can overhear what she’s saying… who she must be speaking to.

It can’t be. It isn’t.

“Yeah? Well, I’m tellin’ you, whoever you are, we had the proofs checked twice during editing and once more before they went to print…oh really…? Is that a fact…?”

She sees me out the corner of her eye and starts snapping her fingers, looking mad, and ordering me inside her office with a wave of her skinny finger.

I gulp down hard and feel a painful lump at the back of my throat.

It’s not Mason. He’d never call, not over something so…

“Well, she’s just walked in, so maybe you’d like to ask her yourself,” she says, pressing the phone to her chest and rolling her eyes, hissing at me in a whisper.

“Whatever you did. You fucked it up, idiot! Now I’ve got some bug from Thorne’s office crawling up my ass. He’s trying to say you sent the wrong programs over. That there’s something wrong with them. Deal with it!” she spits, thrusting the phone into my hand. She sits back for a moment with her hands to her temples, then gets up and storms into her bathroom.

Holding the phone to my ear, I feel like the floor’s about to swallow me up. I kind of wish it would.

But as soon as I hear his voice, that deep, commanding tone with a degree of concern still, I feel myself melting all over again.

Mason Thorne is calling and he wants to speak to me!

“Is she gone? Jules, don’t let on it’s me. It’s Mason.”

I stifle a squeal as my heart leaps into my throat, it’s like someone up there has finally decided some good needs to happen to Jules McPherson for once.

“This is Jules McPherson,” I say, hoping I sound normal but my voice sounds like a wobbly recording trying to play itself.

He exhales loudly, and I can hear a chair creaking on the other end of the line.

“I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. You ran off before I could…”

And there it is again. He stops himself.

“Before you could what?” I ask, trying not to sound deflated again, but it must be a reflex of mine, making sure I always come out bottom of the pile. Every time.

“Before I could go over these programs,” he adds, creaking forward in his chair along with the sound of pages turning, sounding more businesslike.

It actually sets me at ease.

“Well, I think Ms. Perkins… Uh… Karen might’ve already said… we had them all proofed before printing.”

I hear him breathing through his nose and making a low sound. Dissatisfied.

“Well, and this is just an example,” he starts, sounding as nice as he can about correcting me, “Next to your photo, your starting bid…” he says, and I screw my face up. Rolling my eyes and kicking myself for signing up for this stupid auction in the first place.

“Are you telling me those numbers are correct? Next to Karen’s. I mean, Ms.