36. Nat

The sounds of clacking keyboards and conversations ripple over me like gentle waves. I'm locked inside my head and have been for a couple of hours now. Outside, the sky is gradually darkening. Pink ribbons of cloud reflect the light from a dying sun.

Far below, people scurry around like busy ants. From up here on the 9th floor of our building, they look tiny.

"Fancy a drink this evening?" I look up to see Dylan staring at me, his eyes bright with hope. Inside, I die a little.

Dylan is a sweet guy but I feel nothing for him. He writes obituaries and lives with his mother and her 11 cats. Everything he wears is threaded with fifty shades of cat fluff.

I do like cats but I'm allergic, so spending more than fifteen minutes with Dylan makes my eyes and nose run like fountains. How do I know this? Because he always tries to sit next to me at the weekly staff meeting.

"Erm, I think I'm meeting the girls," I say, too distracted to make my pathetic excuse convincing. He latches on to the vague suggestion that I might not be meeting my friends, and could possibly be free to spend the evening with him.

"I don't mind tagging along!"

Dear sweet baby Jesus, how do I get out of this? Please send me a sign.

The photocopier nearby spews out a pile of paper seemingly on a whim. Is that my sign from above? I look over at it hopefully. Then Dana appears and scowls in my direction because she's jealous the editor likes my work more than hers. With a toss of her hair, she grabs the documents from the printer bed and flounces off.

I don't miss the way Dylan eyes her with blatant interest. Hmm. Maybe I can work with this.

"Dana likes cats, did she tell you?"

"Oh?" Dylan perks up as I quickly pack my shit up, hoping to make a swift exit. Despite being here all afternoon, other than filing my article just ahead of the deadline, I haven't been productive at all.

Fucking Max.

I still haven't listened to his voicemail. I'm sure he has a great excuse for why an attractive woman jumped on him in public, acting like they were lovers or something. Men like him usually do have an excuse. Only I'm not interested in hearing it.

Seeing him with another woman is a good thing. Or so I tell myself. It reminds me he's way out of my league and I'm much better off walking away now before I fall for him any more than I already have done.

Dylan's patiently waiting for a Dana update. I lower my voice so she doesn't hear me. If she did, she'd hate me even more.

"She adopted a rescue cat last week." No clue if that's true but if it saves me from having to come up with a legitimate reason why I don't want to go for a drink with him, I'm willing to lie for the sake of my mental health.

White lies aren't so bad.

"Aww that's amazing!" Dylan looks like he might cry genuine tears of joy, but he's still trailing after me like a little lost puppy, so perhaps Dana's charms aren't as alluring as mine, even with a fictional cat thrown into the mix.

We step into the elevator together.

I look at Dylan for a moment, against my better judgment because looking can often be construed as wanting. And I don't want. At all.

"Don't you need your coat or laptop case?"

He looks confused then breaks out into a smile. "Oh, it's fine, I can do without them tonight. Mom's at home so I don't need my key, and I have my phone!"

"Great." My teeth hurt from clenching my jaw. There's no way out of this unless I say something brutally honest and hurt his feelings. And I can't do it. No matter how much I want to.

Jane always tells me my boundaries have more holes in them than a fishing net. Fuck, she's so right. I must call that therapist I bookmarked a few months back.

"Do you like cats?" Dylan smiles hopefully as the elevator hums its way down to the ground-floor lobby.

"I'm allergic."

For a moment, his happy little smile slips and he nervously plucks at a loose thread on his canary yellow sweater.

Dylan's favorite color is yellow. He wears it a lot. I heard him tell Gareth, a colleague in the advertising department, that yellow is a positive color and we all need more positivity in our lives.

Given the guy writes obits for a living, it makes sense.

After a few beats of awkward silence, he brightens.

"My cousin is allergic!" He steps closer to me, on a mission to convert me into a cat lady, and I fight the urge to sneeze. "She takes antihistamines and it keeps her allergies under control when she visits us. I could get you some if you like?"

Just as I'm about to scream, the elevator pings to let us know we have reached the ground floor. The doors slide open and I dash out, desperate for some fresh air free from cat dander.

Dylan jogs after me, still extolling the virtues of antihistamines, just as a tall man stalks in through the glass doors that face the street. Barry on the security desk looks up with interest.

I grind to an abrupt halt and Dylan bumps into me with a soft oomph.

"Natalya…I don't like being ignored," the man says in a threatening manner.

The low growl of his voice does something to me. Something I can't ignore. Dylan speaks behind me but I don't hear him. One hundred percent of my focus is on Max.

He strides toward me like a dark avenging Angel of Death. Silence descends on the lobby. Barry watches us, chewing gum, ignoring the phone ringing on his desk. Dylan steps back, some innate sense of self-preservation kicking in.

Not that Max pays any attention to him. Why would he? Max is an apex predator and Dylan is… not even a blip on his periphery.

"Is he with you?" Dylan whispers stage left.

"No," I hiss. "Never met him before."

Max hears me and scowls. "We both know that's not true, malyshka." He smirks just as he reaches me. "I know you very well."

I don't like the direction this conversation is taking. There are too many people in the lobby, including my editor, who has just emerged from the elevator looking between me and the Grim Reaper with a mixture of interest and concern.

His concern is warranted. There's a strong chance I might kill Max in the next five seconds.

"Go away!" I hiss.

Max folds his arms across his bulky chest, grin widening when he spots me eye-fucking him. As any red-blooded female would do under the same circumstances. Just because I hate him right now doesn't mean I'm dead from the waist down.

"No. You refused to answer my calls or reply to my messages."

"Maybe I don't give a fuck what you have to say, eh?"

Barry is thoroughly engrossed in the drama. It is the most exciting thing to happen in this place in years.

"Is everything OK?" Jakob, my editor, asks. "Need me to call security?"

Pretty sure Barry is security, but whatever.

"Everything is fine, please fuck off," Max growls. From the way he glares at Jakob, I'm concerned bloodshed is imminent. I can't be responsible for anything dire happening to my editor. Aside from the fact he's my boss and I quite like him, he has a family.

I'm pretty sure Max isn't a homicidal maniac with anger issues, but he is riled up and as much as I would like him to fuck right off and leave me the fuck alone, it's obvious he won't go until I've given him a chance to explain whatever the scene I saw was all about.

How did he even know I was there anyway?

I glance sideways at Jakob, who's pulled his phone out and is probably calling security. "I'm good, thanks for asking. This man is someone I know. Kind of."

Max growls at the suggestion we barely know each other.

"Want me to ask him to leave?" Dylan pipes up, flexing his non-existent muscles.

There's an amused snort from Max's direction and I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

"No, please don't. The cleaners aren't paid enough to wipe up blood stains." I can tell Dylan wants to argue because he's watched too many rom-coms where the hero saves the heroine from an asshole and they fall madly in love. He thinks he can woo me with some grand gesture.

Spoiler alert: he's shit out of luck.

"The asshole and I need to have a chat about… something. I'll catch you at work tomorrow." Ignoring Dylan's look of disappointment and Jakob's expression of alarm, I walk out of the lobby.

There's a black SUV idling on the street outside with Max's driver standing next to it, waiting. He throws me a sympathetic smile and opens the door.

With a sigh of deep frustration, I climb in.