The Other Side of Greed (The Seven Sins #5) - Lily Zante Page 0,26

now.”

“There’s more. Follow me.” She walks away, leaving me no choice but to follow her. She shows me to another larger storeroom off the hallway. I am starving. I need my lunch. Suddenly I’m craving a pastrami sandwich.

“If you could clean up in here. With Fredrich away, I’m not going to get a chance to sort this out until the weekend. This is where we store the deliveries for our product line.”

“You want…” I choke internally. My stomach goes into lockdown at the thought of no food. “You want me to clean this now?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

I do. I’m about to die of hunger. “No.”

“Good, because we have a delivery of supplies coming in this afternoon. We get it every few weeks and I’m going to need your help bringing things in here.”

“I was about to have my lunch,” I announce, my brain furiously looking for ways to get out of doing this. “Do you suffer from OCD?” I lean against the doorframe and rub my hands together as if I’m getting rid of the imaginary dust.

“My mom was convinced I was.”

“And now? Does she think you’re over it?”

She moves her lips but no words come out, then. “She died a while ago …”

Oh, shit.

She walks over to a shelf and lines up a box that is already neatly lined up. I follow her.

“I’m sorry.” I place a hand on her shoulder but she shrugs it away. That’s when I notice it; a small tattoo on the rounded part of her shoulder. It’s in the shape of a sun, and I’m suddenly curious about it. But before I can comment on it, she hurls an order at me.

“This room is messy. If you can manage to hold off your hunger, do you think you could tidy this before the deliveries arrive?”

“Sure. I mean, I was going to go to lunch but, whatever.”

She hangs her head as if she’s having problems coming to terms with what I’ve said. “You need to eat. Of course you do. Go ahead.”

She turns her back to me again and starts to move things around on the shelf. The urge to walk away and get the hell out of this place is strong, but I have a reason I’ve put myself through this. I can’t wimp out now.

“I’ll do it. You don’t have to. I’m hungry, that’s all.” She’s doing this to test me. I’m sure she would allow Fredrich to have a break, or god forbid, eat, if he was about to die from starvation. Kyra Lewis doesn’t bring out the best in me; I turn into a monster when I haven’t eaten for a while.

“I’ve got this, Hartley. You go and eat something before you faint.”

Two strikes. She says my name as if it’s snake poison, deadly and vitriolic.

If she only knew who I am. What I have. What I own.

“There’s no need to get so riled up.” I start moving things around. “Do you want everything lined up neatly along the walls?”

“Yes, and make room there,” she points to another wall, “for the delivery that’s coming this afternoon.” She slaps her hands along her slacks. “Can you handle it?”

“I can handle it, Lewis. Don’t you worry about a thing.” Satisfaction warms my insides to see the hard set of her jaw. She’s the boss, but I don’t treat her like one, and she hates me for it.

That’s what I call a result.

Chapter Thirteen

KYRA

Simona thinks I’m being cruel and she could be right.

She says I’m being hard on Brad just because I’ve had him working in the storerooms for most of the day. He had barely finished in the factory storeroom when our new deliveries arrived. Now I’ve asked him to move everything and to make it all neat and tidy.

“You don’t know how to be around someone who is young and good-looking and of the opposite sex!”

I almost choked on the bite of my sandwich when she said that. “I’m cool around Fredrich, and I’d say he ticks all those boxes.”

She scowls. “Fredrich is like a brother.”

I make a face. “To me or to you?”

“Don’t try to change the subject, Kyra.”

“Please don’t play matchmaker.” Simona likes to meddle in these matters. As much as I love her, Simona has been trying to push me into getting back onto the dating scene. I haven’t been in a relationship for over eighteen months, ever since I split up with my boyfriend. He said I was more interested in Redhill than I was