Because Of Love

Talia stared at the screen not sure if she was reading the words right. Her throat tightened and her heart pounded hard against her ribs as she looked in disbelief at the words on the page. After several more seconds of reading and re-reading the email, with the mouse in her right hand, she clicked refresh but nothing changed when she read through it again. The words on the screen remained the same. Her hands grew clammy as she clenched and unclenched them, tension like a circuit ran up and down her body, through her arms and down her legs repeatedly. Surely those words couldn’t mean what they said. She thought to herself seeking comfort as the words settled heavily on her head, the reality too great for her to admit. There must be a mistake, there had to be. No, no, she was reading the words wrong, that had to be it.

“Carrie,” Talia called over her shoulder, a slight tremor in her voice, “come here real quick. Just for a sec.”

“What’s up?”

“Could you read this,” Talia chuckled nervously. “Coz I’m sure I’m not reading this right.”

Talia heard Carrie’s chair swivel and roll as she turned. She then heard the sound of her standing from the chair and finally felt Carrie lean over her shoulder. Talia’s eyes refused to leave the black words on the white page, glued there by surprise and a growing sense of betrayal.

“Damn. Sorry babe,” Carrie said, patting Talia’s shoulder comfortingly.

Talia’s heart dropped to her feet. That was what she was afraid of. Talia’s left hand fisted tightly next to the keyboard, her right had a death grip on the mouse. So there was nothing wrong with her eyesight, but there was definitely a mistake and someone was going to pay for it. Just thinking of all the work that went into researching for her project, convincing the suits to consider it, working and reworking it – months of hard work that took a juvenile turn when she was asked to babysit DeLuca. Her skin stretched over her tightening knuckles. The two hours of cold airport wind she had to endure, and lest to be forgotten, Enzo’s sparkling personality. Someone was definitely going to bleed for this!

Could it be a typo? she wondered with false hope, and yet she knew it wasn’t. She was grasping at straws when what she should be reaching for was a string guillotine.

“I’m not reading that wrong, am I?” she asked for confirmation through gnashed teeth.

Carrie squeezed her shoulder, “No honey, you’re not. Your project proposal got rejected.”

Damn it all to hell! Talia vaulted out of her chair, the yell of surprise Carrie made distant to her ears.

“Those lying -” she sucked in her tongue to keep the rest of the colorful words in.

Talia turned to her right and marched straight to Perez’s office, her anger mounting with each step she took. How could they do this to her? After all the hoops she’d jumped through. Forget courtesy. When she reached Perez’s door, she grabbed the door knob, twisted it and charged in.

“That wasn’t the deal!” she half yelled as she charged him. He was seated behind the desk, each footfall determined, militant.

“It’s rude not to knock.”

Talia scoffed. He hadn’t seen rude yet. She pressed her fists knuckles flat on the desk and leaned forward towards him. “You rejected my project proposal.”

With a smug smile, he leaned back into his chair. “No, I didn’t.”

Talia raised an impatient brow. “How do you explain the email I just got?”

A challenging brow went up. “Did you read the entire email? Including the signature at the bottom?”

Talia felt her brows scrunch together in her confusion. Perez reached for his mouse with one hand, the other turned the monitor around towards her. She looked at the screen, the email she’d received was open. She looked at him in question and he smiled, making her heart leap in apprehension. What was he so smug about? What didn’t she know?

“The moment I got this, I knew you’d come charging in here and blame me for it. So I left it open on the browser. Look,” with his chin he pointed at the screen.

She followed his direction. Her eyes grew wide as the words at the bottom of the page sunk in. It wasn’t Perez’s, or the other bosses’ signature that featured there.

“That son of a -” she bit her tongue, her irritation climbing ten folds.

It was DeLuca. He was the one who rejected her proposal. To think, she had played dumb with the suits just to stay on his good side. He was meant to be her golden ticket, instead, he’d turned out to be a stocking full of coal. She cut her eyes at Perez and caught him just as he was rolling his lips into his mouth to hide his amusement.

Without a word, Talia made her way out of his office and on to her next target. He’d rejected her proposal after days of treating her like a nuisance. Of all the rotten things he could have done, he’d gone and killed the one thing that she had taken all their crap for. Had he even read the proposal? Between the department audits and traumatizing the staff, had he actually had even a minute to go through the fifty page proposal? She doubted it. For some reason, it felt personal to her. She was sure this had to do with why he had been an ass to her recently. What was he trying to do, get her to hate him? Because if that was it, it was working! It was practically magic how fast she’d gone from lusting after him to wanting to kill him.

Talia sped up when DeLuca’s door came into sight. She was going to find out exactly what his problem was. She reached the door and grabbed for the handle, but before she could turn it, someone stopped her.

“He’s not in.”

Talia turned to find Enzo sitting behind the secretary’s desk. This was a first. He was always seated inside DeLuca’s office, working off the table. Why the change?

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“Because he’s not in,” he answered smartly.

‘Where is he then?” she demanded impatiently.

“Gone for the day.”

Quickly she lifted her wrist and with her other hand, pushed the wrist cuff back to look at her wrist watch. You’ve got to be kidding me! she thought, as she choked on a shocked breath. It wasn’t even lunch yet!

“Since when?” she demanded, her voice going up a notch higher.

“Since when what?”

She rolled her lips into her mouth and prayed for patience. “Since when did he clock out early – hell, since when did he take days off?”

“Since today.”

Talia clenched her fists at her sides and glared at him. That wasn’t what she meant and he knew it. Then something dawned on her and she chuckled humorlessly. Of all days, he chose that day, the very same day he’d killed her dreams to knock off work early. No way. He was hiding from her. That yellow bellied ass knew she would be going for him so he ran!

Of all the dirty, low down tricks!

With narrowed eyes she looked at Enzo, “Let me guess. If I go looking for him I probably won’t find him, will I?”

Enzo pulled his lips up in a mocking smile and said nothing. Talia bit her lower lip and nodded. That was as much of a response as she was going to get. But the sad thing for them, they didn’t know her well enough.

“Fine. Two can play this game.”

She turned on her heels and marched back to her desk. She needed her phone. As far as she knew, DeLuca hadn’t gotten his car yet, so Joe would definitely know where he was. And once she found him, he was going to need the week off!