Butterflies in Honey (Growing Pains #3)(20)

Whichever it was, Tory, Marcus, or Krista—or maybe all of the above—Jasmine got in with a good salary, and they were all together again.

It was a perfect day of spring in Los Angeles and Krista was trapped indoors looking at some specs. Marcus came in. “Geegee.”

“Marcus,” she said as she leaned back. “What’s today’s news?”

“No news. I came to walk to the meeting with you. Ben said he’d meet us there. He was in the middle of some nerdery or something.”

“Oh crap! Is that today?”

“Yes.” Marcus sighed, extremely put out. “C’mon.”

“What would I do without you?” Krista got a notepad and pen.

“Get fired because you failed to show up to all the meetings.”

“Probably.”

They got to the large meeting hall. There was a hum of conversation as they took their seats. The raised platform in the front of the hall was empty. Krista checked her watch, which was a nasty habit of late. It seemed she was always late for something, or things always took longer than they were supposed to. It was rude to do in presentations—she needed to stop. It was worse than sighing all the time.

Speaking of, she had almost kicked that habit. Jasmine started carrying around a squirt bottle—which Marcus thought was hilarious—and squirted people when they sighed. The one exception was her boss, but it was only a matter of time.

Finally, the speaker came to the podium. It was Tory.

“Did you know about this?” Krista asked Marcus.

Tory usually let Krista know when he would be in the area. He always had things to teach her, or show her, or work for her to do. She was a working intern, if it came right down to it. But she benefited from it, and then so did he. Her department was churning out work better than any other of their counterparts, worldwide. To date, they had never failed to spot a bad egg. Not once.

Another perk was that when he brought Emily with him, Krista got to leave early. They shopped and gossiped and had girl time. Work was not brought up, as a rule. Krista looked forward to those visits. Even though she now had Kate and Jasmine, there was something special about Emily. Somehow, despite their age gap, Emily completely got her. She always picked up what Krista put down, and then ran with it.

Marcus shook his head and looked around. “It probably isn’t all that big. It’s about time for a company update.”

“Good morning L.A. branch. Thank you all for joining us,” Tory started.

“As if we had a choice,” Kate said from behind Krista and Marcus.

Krista looked back to her with a warning. Kate was being rude and it would look poorly on Krista. Kate’s instructions were to save the rudeness for when Krista was not around. And then only go so far that she didn’t get in trouble.

Ben and Jasmine were looking at the stage with bored expressions. Kate noticed Krista looking and grinned.

“Nice of you to show up, boss,” she said snidely.

Krista took the matter firmly in hand by sticking her tongue out.

Before she could turn back around, Jasmine asked, “What are the plans for tonight? I need to get out, quick. My boss is trying to make me stay late. On a Friday!”

It was then that the microphone blast out a deep baritone with a gravel rumble, the words gliding across the airwaves and splintering Krista’s brittle bones. She turned around so quickly she gave herself whiplash.

Sean was standing on the stage, in the same room with her, next to Tory, in an expensive suit and a very handsome smile. He’d cut and styled his hair, was wearing one of Marco’s suits, and had shiny black shoes. He looked like a million bucks.

And he was here. With Tory. In Krista’s company. In Krista’s town.

After rejecting her in San Francisco.

To describe what happened at that point would be impossible. The CliffsNotes were: Krista’s world was tilted in confusion, her stomach dropped ten feet and filled with a sudden swarm of killer bees, her ass clenched, her breath whooshed out of her body, her head went light, her vision went blurry, her body got hot, but broke out in shivers. She couldn’t process. She didn’t understand.

“How did I not know about this?” Marcus asked beside her in exasperation. At least he wasn’t in on it. That was comforting.

“What is going on?” Krista asked from a galaxy away.

They all listened in rapture to Tory telling them that Sean would be the new Senior Vice President of the South-Western Region. It was a new format the company was working—the nation divided into six regions, each Region run by its Senior VP, and Tory would oversee all the regions. Sean McAdams was now boss of them all.

Sean stepped up smoothly, looking like he was born for the role. “Hello, everyone. I look forward to working with all of you, and hopefully together we can achieve great things.”

Everyone murmured. There were a great many female voices whispering excitedly. Tory got back on the mic and explained something or other, but Krista didn’t hear any of it. She was numb.

Sean worked here. He worked in L.A. He sold his house, quit his job, moved down to her neck of the woods, and he never told her. He was going to be her new boss, and he never mentioned it. She surfed with him, hung out with him. He never even hinted.

Why?

There were a few things that were going through her mind. Part of her was beside herself happy and excited. She thought she would never see him again and here he was, half a football field away. She worked with Tory often, and he was essentially taking Tory’s place, so maybe Krista would even get to work with him again. She wanted their team back so much it hurt.