“Sorry.” Even to his own ears, he sounded petulant and condescending.
Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously? Is this what you do to the women at Wyndham? Keep interrupting them when they’re trying to get work done? Is it unimaginable that someone could be in your presence and not be falling over themselves to talk to you? Or can you just not help yourself from mansplaining to them how to do their jobs?”
Ouch. “Are you calling me a sexist?”
Lacey huffed out a breath, blue eyes narrowing like he was trying her last atom of patience. “I’m just saying. If a man was sitting beside you, trying to work, would you be interrupting him like you’re interrupting me?”
Victor realized that the low level of conversation on the bus had died. Everyone was eavesdropping on their argument. One he had stupidly started and had no way of winning. But the competitor in him refused to concede.
“That depends. Are you my boss?”
“I could be.” She snapped out the very words he had said to Simon last night, and blaring alarms sounded in Victor’s head.
He’d never considered they might apply to him. He hadn’t considered anything except his mission. But Lacey was right. She was more senior than him. He could come out of this merger with her as his boss. In fact, the odds of that happening were better than his ridiculous hope that he might be able to pull something out of the bag and leapfrog his way into senior management.
She could be his boss. If a miracle didn’t happen, he’d still need a job. He was good at his job. He liked his job. He needed to keep his job. It was the only thing he had that gave him any credibility in his family’s eyes. He had to try and save this, and he had to do it now.
His mind tumbled over explanations and excuses. Lacey had gone back to her messages, ignoring him, which was exactly what he deserved.
Would he have interrupted her if it had been a guy next to him? Would he have jumped in with unwanted and unneeded advice?
It wasn’t a question he particularly wanted to dwell on. At the front of the bus, a woman was scribbling on a clipboard. He could imagine what she was writing. Victor Carlisle. Sexist. Chauvinist. Uncomfortable with strong women. Wouldn’t be able to handle having a female boss. Cull.
None of which was true. At least, he hoped it wasn’t. Something else to add to the list of things to talk to his sponsor about. “I’m sorry. You were right. I shouldn’t have interrupted you, and I certainly shouldn’t have tried to tell you how to do your job. I apologize.”
Lacey’s fingers paused for a second, then resumed tapping. Another message whooshed off into cyberspace. Then she placed her phone on her khaki-clad leg. “So, why did you?”
She turned her head and looked at him straight on, and he was hit by the full force of her light blue eyes. He had one chance to tell her the truth. No excuses. No spinning a story.
He shrugged, his borderline-too-small shirt tightening across his shoulders. “I guess I was jealous.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“A few weeks ago, that would have been me. But since the corruption thing …” He leaned his head against the window. “Well, it would be fair to say we don’t have many clients at the moment. And the stuff we do have is low-level. You obviously have a lot of people counting on you, people who value what you do. I guess I wished that was me.”
Her icy gaze melted around the edges. Not much. But enough to give him some hope that if he did ever end up as an underling to Lacey O’Connor, her inaugural duty wouldn’t be to fire his sorry butt. “Okay.”
But until that happened, she was his competitor. And he wouldn’t be leaving anything off the field as he attempted to survive this thing at least as her equal.
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That had been what Lacey had been thinking as she had landed herself in the seat next to Victor.
Besides, the only other remaining seats held even less appeal. Two were half seats, two were next to people who would talk to her the whole way, and one was next to a Wyndham guy she’d seen openly eyeing her up the night before. At least she knew what Victor Carlisle brought to the table. And that she would never be fooled