The Design(36)

Alan slapped his hand down on his desk, jarring me. “Cammie, I think you’re confused about your role in this competition. I want you here as more of a silent participant. Maybe you should direct this misguided enthusiasm toward the work I’ve given you, since you’ve had so much time to consider this competition design.”

My face burned with embarrassment. Peter tried to catch my eye, to ease the pain of being reprimanded in front of all of my table-mates, but I kept my eyes trained on my notebook. I had pages and pages of ideas for the park project. Some of them were wild and much too costly, but a lot of them would enhance the park and fit well with what the design committee had asked for in the first place. Despite all that, if Alan didn’t think my ideas were worth mentioning, then fine, I’d stay silent.

I bit my tongue for the rest of the meeting—if you could even call it a meeting. It was mostly Alan blabbering on and on to himself.

What gave him the right to treat me like that? I would have assumed he was a misogynist, but he wasn’t any nicer to Peter or Mark either. No, I think he was just a crotchety old man, stuck in the old way of doing things. He thought that his title as a senior associate meant that his word was law. I was all for respecting authority and learning from those with more experience, but Alan wasn’t a teacher. He was a dictator without a throne, and I was sick of putting up with him.

By the time our “meeting” was over, I’d decided to do something wild. No, actually, something insane. The decision would jeopardize my relationship with Alan, my career at Cole Designs, and potentially my future in the architecture world.

Despite all that, if Alan didn’t want my help with the proposal, then I really only had one choice. I’d just break the rules and enter the competition on my own.





Chapter Fourteen


“Hurry!” I yelled back at Hannah as I took the stairs two at a time.

“Oh my god! I can’t believe you’re actually getting to leave work on time. This is the best. We should go grab dinner for once,” Hannah said as I pushed through the doors of the Sterling Bank Building. Alan had a meeting with Grayson just before 5:00 pm, which meant he hadn’t had time to assign me extra work before the day ended. As soon as the clock struck five, I’d bolted out of the office with Hannah in tow.

“Yes! Let’s go, we deserve it,” I said.

We ended up finding a little bistro on the way home from the office. It was packed to the brim—as all good restaurants are in LA—but we managed to find two seats at the bar.

“Y’know I lied to Grayson the other day,” Hannah said with a little smile as we perused the menu. “Alan is the worst.”

I laughed. “Um, duh. I’m glad we can agree on that now. I thought Alan had hypnotized you for a while.”

She laughed and I went back to browsing the menu. The restaurant had everything from pasta to hamburgers so I knew I’d have a hard time picking just one entree. I glanced over to see if Hannah was having the same problem, but she was fidgeting on her seat and glancing around the restaurant. Either she was nervous about something or really hungry.

“You okay?” I asked with a chuckle.

Her eyes lit up. Clearly, she’d been waiting for me to ask.

“You’ll never guess what happened at work today,” she said, dropping her menu and glancing over at me with dreamy eyes. She looked like she’d just been struck by Cupid’s arrow.

“What?” I asked while simultaneously wondering if I was hungry enough for an appetizer or not.

“Grayson invited me to go to happy hour with him,” she said, her voice brimming over with excitement.

I slapped my menu onto the bar.

What?

“Excuse me?”

That lying bastard.

…



I barged into Grayson’s office on Thursday morning like a bat out of hell. I pushed his door open so hard that it slammed back against the wall and shook the books on his shelf. Everyone in the office would have been able to hear the racket, but no one was in yet. I’d purposely arrived early to kill Grayson in peace.

“Looks like I chose the perfect day to install a new deadbolt on that door,” he remarked, keeping his focus down on his work.

I ignored him and shoved the door closed behind me.

“You realize that I’m trying to work, right?” he asked.

I scowled, crossed my arms, and waited for him to acknowledge me.

“The least you could do is bring me a cup of coffee when you interrupt me.”

“I’m not your secretary,” I snapped.

He rolled his eyes and pressed the intercom on his phone.

“Beatrice?” he asked. Silence.

She hadn’t arrived yet, which meant he was on his own with the coffee. He stared up at me expectantly, but I arched a brow and held my ground.

It was his move.

With an annoyed groan, he pushed his chair back and stood, his full height threatening my confidence for a moment.

“God. Fine, I’ll go get your damn coffee,” I hissed, turning on my heels and heading toward the kitchen. I ran through every ingredient that I could sprinkle into a mug inconspicuously enough so that Grayson wouldn’t notice. Did we keep cayenne pepper stocked in the cabinets?

“Get out of my way, Cammie,” Grayson hissed as soon as I opened the kitchen cabinet to reach for a mug. He moved up right behind me and reached over my head to get to the cabinet.