40b1ce81e27faee7f7dcd22da99b93e1

Vesta had wandered into the canteen for a refill. She couldn’t get over the fact that she could drink as much hot chocolate as she liked, and didn’t have to pay for it. Working for the man had its perks, and if she ever went back to working for Tex, the first thing she’d do was ask him to install a decent hot chocolate maker.

Danny was seated at the table when she walked in, and greeted her with a big grin.“Tommy tells me your friend has been trying to teach him how to seduce the ladies?”

“Yeah, Scarlett is good at that kind of stuff,” Vesta admitted. “Though she seems to feel it’s going to be a bust.”

“I’m afraid she’s probably right. I’ve been trying to get Tommy to ask Natalie out for months, and he’s been stalling me.”

“You know Tommy well, do you?”

“He’s my cousin,” said Danny, much to Vesta’s surprise. “In fact we live together. Him and his mom and his little brother.”

“You all live together?”

“Yeah, it’s a long story. My mom and dad died when I was little, and Auntie Mel has been my second mom ever since. So Tom and Harry, that’s Tom’s little brother, are like brothers to me. We all grew up together under the same roof.”

“So you know about his affections for Natalie, huh?”

The mailroom clerk rolled his eyes.“Do I? It’s all he ever talks about!”

“Looks like Natalie’s got a thing for the big boss, though.”

“Yeah, it’s been like that from the day she started here. But Madison is married, and he’s not about to get a divorce so he can make an honest woman out of sweet little Natalie.” He grimaced. “Which is eating Tommy alive, as you can imagine.”

“He does look very unhappy with the whole situation. How did he react when he found out Natalie is pregnant?”

“I just told him this morning. He did not take it well. Especially when I told him Madison is probably the father. He didn’t seem to believe me.”

Vesta, who didn’t like to admit defeat, frowned into her cup. “Okay, so what if you and me and Scarlett—we all make one final effort to get Tom to ask Natalie out. Do you think he’ll do it?”

Danny shrugged.“Honestly? I don’t know.”

“Let’s just give it another shot,” Vesta suggested. “And if it doesn’t work, we’ll drop it.”

“Deal,” said Danny, and held up his fist for a fist bump, which Vesta awkwardly obliged. Young people these days. What was wrong with a simple handshake?

[Êàðòèíêà: img_4]

When Gran returned from the canteen, her eyes were shining, and she looked like a woman with a plan. Danny was trailing in her wake, and I just knew what was about to happen.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“What’s going on?” asked Dooley, who had been napping next to me.

“I think they’re going to try to make Tom ask Natalie out on a date.”

“Oh, so that’s good, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure.” I glanced in Natalie’s direction. The young PA sat ramrod straight at her desk, and was typing on her computer at a relentless pace, her fingers dancing across the keyboard. There were red spots on her cheekbones, and I had the impression she was a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

But Gran and Scarlett and Danny didn’t see it that way. And so we watched the small contingent move over to Tom’s desk. The kid listened, shook his head a few times, looked at Natalie’s back a couple of times more, and finally stood, urged on by the trio. He seemed to gather his courage, and made his way over to Natalie.

For a few moments, he stood chatting to her, then must have popped the question, for Natalie jerked her head around, to give him a look of utter astonishment. Moments later she shook her head, Tom slumped in response, and as he returned to his desk, we could see she’d taken the wind right out of his sails.

“I guess that’s a hard no,” said Dooley.

“Yeah, looks like,” I agreed.

Tom dropped down in his chair like a bag of potatoes, and all the claps on the back and words of advice couldn’t cheer him up. In fact he looked worse now than he had all day. At least before he was holding onto some measure of hope to buoy him. Now there was no more hope. The girl of his dreams had turned him down flat. And that, as they say, was that!

“Oh, well, at least he tried,” I said, as I put my head on my paws again.

“Yeah, at least there’s that,” Dooley said. “Did you know that a magazine likeGlimmer has a circulation of one million copies, Max? That’s one million people reading the magazine every single month. That’s a lot of people, isn’t it? Though not as much asGood Housekeeping, which has a circulation of four million! Four million people reading the magazine every single month. Can you imagine?”

I could, and somehow hearing all these numbers made me tired. And so while Dooley kept droning off names and numbers, I soon drifted off to sleep.

Odd, that. How a busy office can induce such a wonderful nap. Makes you wonder how sleeplessness can exist, in a world filled with offices like that.

CHAPTER 15

[Êàðòèíêà: img_2]