Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,76
in his life. The boundary-crossing between us was out of control, and, in various ways, we were both guilty of badly blurring the lines of professional conduct, and our personal and work lives.
Even still, it gave me no right to push him about private medical matters. I’d known all of that when I’d questioned him. Of course, I had, but that knowledge hadn’t quashed the burning desire to help him, or to want him to help himself
This wasn’t a new thing. I knew this about myself, and I also knew that it was part of the reason that the previous two years had taken such a toll on me. I’d always been the one to try to help everyone else, to try to fix people when they were broken. And even though I’d failed miserably at it with Lono and Kai, the desire still remained. Stronger than ever, even.
But when the time came that I was the one who was broken and needed fixing, I had no idea how to. They always said that in case of emergency we should make sure we were okay before we tried to help others. But that just wasn’t the way I was wired, and besides, when it came to it, I couldn’t help myself when it mattered most.
When Raine returned to the office over an hour later, I kept my head down and acted engrossed in my work. The fact was, I actually did need to bury myself in it—that wasn’t just play acting—I had an absolute mountain of things to get on with.
It seemed that we’d done almost too well with the initial meeting with Carlisle, and they’d loved what we presented so much that they wanted to go ahead and get the campaign up and running sooner rather than later.
So, whereas with Kick It To The Curb, they’d apparently dragged their heels with meeting after meeting, research, focus groups, and red tape for miles, this time around they were fast-tracking everything and wanted to be in market sooner, rather than later.
As the client had wanted to meet the ‘creative genius’ behind the new campaign, I’d been to several meetings with them, and was on board to see the campaign through to the end.
The whole thing had been an epic rollercoaster—I was so excited and grateful at the turn a simple temping job had taken, but also terrified that the bubble was going to burst any moment, and everyone was going to realize I was seriously out of my depth. Imposter Syndrome had nothing on the way I felt every time I made it through another day without being fired.
The whole ‘thing’ with Raine was an extra layer on top of the daily work stress that I just didn’t need. After that Friday night and Saturday morning together, there had been nothing inappropriate between us, but it was still a shadow in the back of my mind, and an unnecessary complication in what was, by nature, a pretty complicated situation already. When it was all over, I was going to chalk the whole thing up to “you live and learn,” and vow never to make the same mistake again.
Meanwhile, I’d heard on the office grapevine that BR&ND was going to launch a full-on lawsuit against the creatives who had stolen the Kick It To The Curb idea, and Free PE were going to do the same. That fit with the tiny bits and pieces I heard when the GOTFF came in and out of Raine’s office for meetings, and from the emails I saw going back and forth between them. Though, despite having full access to Raine’s inbox, I had less than zero time to take real note of what went in and out. Plus, it felt snoopy to read anything apart from the messages that pertained to things I truly needed to know.
“Niall, a minute in my office please. Close the door behind you.” He’d walked past without even looking my way, so I’d assumed I would be getting the silent treatment for at least the rest of the day, if not longer. My relief at not being frozen out was short-lived, as it occurred to me that it could mean that Raine had finally come to his senses and was about to fire me.
I did as I was told, closing the door and leaning hard against it. When I didn’t make my way across the room, he looked up from his tablet. “What are you doing over there? Sit down.”