Twelve Days The Beginning - By Jade Reyner Page 0,73

Vaughn asked, as he reached her desk. It was the first time she had seen or spoken to him since she had slammed out of his office and the sound of his voice had its usual effect, the tingling beginning to radiate from the nape of her neck.

“Yes sure, I just need grab my bag from my car if that’s okay?” She asked, busying herself with her handbag and keys in an effort to hide her now trembling hands. She really needed to get a handle on her reaction to this man. Before he had a chance to reply Olivia spoke, taking them both by surprise.

“Er... Vaughn – sorry, Mr Granger - I just wondered...would we be able to talk about me joining the off site team at some point? I really think it’s where my strengths lie and that I would be an excellent addition.”

Vaughn glanced across at her, a slightly irritated expression on his face.

“How long have you worked for Andrews & Andrews, Olivia?” he asked.

“Er... just under a month” she replied.

“Right. And how much experience do you have in the field?”

“Well, none really since I only just graduated from university. But I came top of my class and I’m a quick learner – I really would love the opportunity to work in all areas of the company.”

“I’m sure you would.” Stephen muttered under his breath and Elise had to stifle a giggle. She had been unaware that he had also been listening to every word.

“I think, Olivia,” said Vaughn patiently, “that you have probably just answered your own question. Employees that work off site are usually our more experienced staff as you can be asked any number of awkward questions and are expected to think on your feet. At present, you need to finish your core training period. Then I am sure that we can think about reviewing the situation.”

End of conversation.

Unfortunately for Olivia though, she didn’t recognise the tone in Vaughn’s voice and instead carried on speaking and trying to press home her point.

“But Roger....he’s going with you and he’s only just started as well. How is that fair?”

Her tone of voice and choice of words made her sound like a petulant child and Elise almost felt sorry for her as she watched Vaughn struggle to keep his patience.

“It is not my place to discuss other employee’s careers with you or anyone else for that matter. Now if you’ll excuse us, we really need to get on the road. Continue to work hard Olivia and I am sure that you will find yourself rewarded in due course. Stephen.” he nodded to his friend and grasped Elise lightly by her upper arm, steering her out of the door and down the stairs to the basement car park.

As soon as they were safely out of earshot, Elise burst into laughter effectively breaking any leftover tension between them and causing Vaughn to stop and regard her quizzically.

“You do realise that you’ve just shattered that poor girl’s illusions, don’t you?” she said in-between splutters.

When Vaughn continued to regard her in total confusion, she punched him lightly on the arm - again. This was becoming a bad habit.

“Ow! Will you stop hitting me?!”

“Man, you’re so dense!” she said, “If that wasn’t an invitation to jump back into your bed then I don’t know what it was!”

“What do you mean, ‘back into my bed’?” he queried, following her to her car where she proceeded to unlock the boot and retrieve her overnight duffle bag.

“Duh! After the Christmas party of course, when you all headed off home together. She was definitely rough around the edges the following morning.”

“You think I slept with Olivia that night?” he asked incredulously. “You must think a lot of me if you think I did that and then began pursuing you the day after.” He shook his head at her in total confusion, his hair flopping adorably over his eyes as he deposited her bag into the boot of his car.

“Is that what you’re doing then? Pursuing me?” She decided to focus on the second part of his statement. The first, questioning what he had or hadn’t done with Olivia that night was somewhere that she didn’t think she was ready to go. She knew that he had left the party with Olivia that night and in her own mind had decided what that meant but to hear him confirm it would be too hard. Besides, she didn’t want him to think she was jealous. Because she definitely