Plenty of time.
***
I’m killing it in this interview. I’ve spent well over an hour with the hiring manager—the person I’d be reporting to directly if I got hired. We had an instant rapport and the more we talk the better it gets.
I love the vibe in the office too. Professional, yet comfortable. The building itself has an energy to it that makes me happy. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. It’s a lot like house-hunting. Sometimes you walk into a place and it just feels right.
This building feels right. The people feel right.
The hiring manager—Elouise—even asked me to grab a coffee with her before she introduced me to the rest of her team. We walked next door to a local coffee shop and ordered it to take away when we walked back to the office. People don’t ask you to walk with them for coffee if the interview isn’t going well.
I had this moment inside the coffee shop where I thought I saw Jennings and my heart stopped, but it wasn’t him. Just a random hot-as-fuck British guy.
I love London.
And now I’m in the conference room with Elouise and three members of her team. We’re reviewing a property they’re currently renovating and they’re asking my opinion. I’m not naïve, it’s definitely part of the interview. But I’m in my element with this stuff, so it’s fine. We’re reviewing CAD drawings on an oversized wall monitor when the door opens.
It opens quickly, that’s the first thing I notice. It’s not a timid opening of a door, one you’d expect when the room is occupied and the door closed. It’s the opposite of that. Abrupt, as if the person is expected, but late.
The next thing I notice is the reactions from the table. Elouise is unfazed at the interruption, but the others all sit up straighter, the mood gone from relaxed to intent in a heartbeat.
“We’re using the room,” Elouise says after a pregnant pause. My back is to the door and I hear it shut behind me, but all of the energy in the room is still on that door so I assume whomever has arrived has stayed, not left. Across from me a man named Aaron adjusts the pen and pad in front of him so it’s perfectly square.
“I wanted to sit in on this one,” a voice says and it takes my entire body half a second to freeze. In fact, I’m fairly certain I could pass for one of those street performers who pretends to be a statue. Then I exhale. This is like the coffee shop, I’m sure. My imagination run rampant.
“You wanted to sit in on an interview for a designer?” Elouise asks, her tone unimpressed.
“Yes,” comes the reply as he walks into view.
He looks just like Jennings.
Because it is Jennings.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Violet
Holy fuck. He’s here. In London. In this conference room. My mind is spinning faster than I can process the thoughts, my heart racing as if I’m running a marathon.
He looks like shit. Tired and rumpled. Unshaven. Like he might have slept in what he’s wearing. Yet somehow still perfect. Being in the same room with him feels as if a net of butterflies has been unleashed in my stomach. He’s here. He’s really here.
I remind myself that I’m having a perfect hair day. The kind of hair day every woman wants to have when she runs into her ex. It’s possibly the dumbest possible thing I can think of right now but people react strangely in times of stress.
“Very well,” Elouise says. “This is Violet Hayden. She’s interviewing for the open design associate position on my team.”
Wait.
Hold up.
If he’s sitting in on an interview that means… that he works here.
See, those are the dots I should have been connecting when I was thinking about my hair. He works here. At the place where I’m interviewing. And last week he was on a tour where I told him I was the tour guide and my name was Daisy.
“Violet, this is Jennings Anderson. Our CEO.”
I’m dead.
He’s moved to the other end of the table across from Elouise and leaned over, extending his hand as if we’ve never met before. As if I’m a living, breathing person expected to shake his hand and say hello when clearly I. Am. Dead.
“Violet,” he says, his eyes amused. I shake his hand. I don’t even stand. I just shake it quickly and snatch my hand back, my skin tingling where we touched. What the hell is happening right now?
“I’ve had the opportunity to review Violet’s CV,” he says, looking directly at me. “Very impressive.”
He knows.
He knows I’m Violet. He knows I impersonated Daisy.
A quick glance at Elouise as he tells her to continue with the interview and then he’s back to watching me. Someone at the table coughs. There’s a shuffling of papers and a click of a pen but Jennings simply sits with his eyes on me.