Collateral Damage |+18|

3. This damn hair. [Part 1]

3. This damn hair.

Defne.

This can’t get any more embarrassing.

I lower my head so the computer can hide my face, but just like it’s happened over the last three days, it’s completely useless.

I can still feel his eyes dug into me like daggers.

“That’s not working,” Levi says, loud enough for me to hear.

I control my breathing, making sure not to move unintentionally, in case I trigger a catastrophe… exactly what I suspect he’s been waiting for.

Matheo Slade comes every single day, without fail, to check the design area. He walks between the cubicles like a commander, making sure everyone is at their station and doing their job. But no one is stupid. Everyone knows he does it because of me.

It can’t be a coincidence that, ever since I started working here, he, the company’s CEO, has begun to monitor an area that, according to rumors, he had never set foot in before.

All of this could sound romantic… if it weren’t for the hateful look he throws at me every time he sees me.

I swear, that man makes me nervous. And that, inevitably, turns me into an even bigger disaster than I already am.

Whether he knows it or not, his attitude has sparked rumors. There are even bets on when I’ll get myself into trouble again and he’ll finally get what he wants: firing me.

The man hates me, and everyone knows it.

“Is he gone?” I ask Levi when I no longer feel the weight of his stare on me.

“Clear.”

I sigh, letting out a long breath.

“I’ve never seen anyone look at someone with the intensity he looks at you. What the hell happened in that office for him to hate you that much?”

No one really knows what happened in that office, although rumors are everywhere. At first, on the first day, they were romantic in nature: people said I was the boss’s lover. However, after his first visit to the design area, those rumors disappeared under the weight of his gaze. Everyone realized that the fire he reserved for me wasn’t the good kind. No, it was the bad kind. The really bad kind.

Kacey feels so guilty about everything that happened that, if she was kind to me before, now she goes overboard. She blames herself for not telling me that when she said “the second door at the end of the hallway,” she meant the one on the right, not the left. She was actually sending me to her own office so I could use her bathroom, not straight to the edge of our boss’s hatred.

I sigh again and focus back on my work, trying to ignore Levi’s relentless questions.

I’m not usually a talkative person, but these past three days I’ve been quieter than ever. I’m afraid of saying something that’ll get me into even more trouble, and I seriously doubt my father would approve. When he explicitly told me to keep a low profile, I don’t think that included appearing naked in Matheo Slade’s office.

God, what a mess.

“Oh no,” I murmur as I read the email that just came in. “No, no, no.”

Scarlett needs me in her office.

Now.

No, no, no.

I’m getting fired.

I know it.

I’m getting fired.

Controlling my nerves, I stand up at the same time as Levi, and we stare at each other, both equally surprised.

“The boss summoned me to Scarlett’s office. What about you?”

“Scarlett summoned me to her office,” I reply.

We look at each other, confused, neither of us fully understanding what’s going on, and I wonder internally what the hell I’ve done now.

We walk in silence toward our supervisor’s office and stop when she says authoritatively, “Come in, Defne,” but when she sees who I’m with, she adds, confused, “What are you doing here, Levi?”

“Mr. Slade summoned me here.”

I watch the exchange, baffled, not understanding what’s happening, and it seems like they don’t either.

But I know it can’t be good. I’m in trouble again.

When the door opens once more, Matheo Slade walks in with his imposing presence, but he comes to a dead stop when he sees me.

“What the f**k are you doing here?”

I flinch at the tone of his voice, and at the same time shame washes over me at the shocked looks Levi and Scarlett give him for the way he treats me.

Can this get any more humiliating?

“I called her in,” Scarlett intervenes. “What I don’t understand is what Levi is doing here.”

“It was her?” Matheo asks incredulously, staring at Scarlett in disbelief.

She sighs, as if understanding something that escapes me, and with a simple wave of her hand signals Levi to leave.

“Was it really her?” he asks again when only the three of us remain.

“Can someone explain what’s going on?” I speak up. “If you’re going to fire me, can you just say it already?”

Scarlett looks at me with cold anger in her eyes, while Matheo Slade looks at me with the hatred I’m already used to.

“We’re not firing you, Defne,” she finally says. “You handled the aviation company’s website project, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I nod slowly.

“The client was very pleased with your design and wants you to also take charge of the aesthetic of their app, so it’s consistent with the work you already did for them. You’ll have help, of course. In addition, based on everything you’ve done so far, they want you to design a new logo and other advertising material they expect to start circulating in the coming months, right in high season.”

I stay silent, still trying to process what just happened.

“I can’t believe it was her,” Matheo says, his jaw set like granite as he avoids looking at me. And honestly, that’s fine by me; I’d rather he not look at me than do it with that heavy resentment burning in his eyes.

Little by little, I understand that Levi was here because Matheo thought he was the one in charge of the project. I’ve worked at this company long enough to know that Levi is the best and stands out above everyone else. Still, that disbelief from Matheo Slade stings, because it’s humiliating. I understand that he hates me for what happened, but questioning my abilities and showing that kind of surprise over something I worked so hard on is simply… disgusting. Not to mention discriminatory.

“Is it because I’m a woman that you’re so incredulous?” I ask, no longer able to take it.

“No, my incredulity comes from the kind of disaster of a person you are,” he says, turning to Scarlett this time as he asks, “Are you sure it was her?”

“Yes,” she answers, though I can even see her doubting herself, as if the force of his question throws her off. “Yes, I’m sure,” she says more firmly.

“I can’t give a project this big to her, Scarlett.”

“Excuse me?”

“She’ll ruin it.”

I grind my teeth, filled with rage.

“They asked for her, Matheo,” Scarlett reminds him almost submissively.

“I’m not giving her that project,” he repeats more forcefully, then looks at me and says, “Impossible.”

And he leaves, slamming the door hard.

Someone please pull the stick out of his ass.

“Defne, I don’t know what happened between the two of you for him to act this way, and I don’t care,” Scarlett says, staring straight at me. “But I should add that I don’t like you either, not after the coffee incident, which you didn’t even apologize for.”

She pauses briefly before continuing.

“However, this is my job, and the client asked for you. And here, the client gets what they want. I’ll talk to Matheo and try to calm him down, but get ready, because this project will be yours. You may go.”

I leave with so much anger inside me that I have to go to the bathroom to try to calm down.

I can’t believe that asshole.

He doesn’t even know me, doesn’t know anything about my abilities, and yet he already seems to have decided what kind of person I am and how deficient he believes my work is.

I growl when I feel the sting of tears in my eyes and curse under my breath when one of them falls.

If I didn’t want to be here before meeting him… now, even less.