Page 3 of The Law of Attraction
Nope. Stop.
She needed to pull herself together and quit objectifying him. He was her coworker, and he probably had a gorgeous girlfriend. A model or an actress—maybe even someone famous. That could be why he was such a closed book. Because he was dating, like, Rihanna or Jennifer Lawrence, and didn’t want anyone at work to know so they didn’t act all weird around him.
Weird like Olivia was acting right now.
To keep from gawking at him, she tried to focus on an imaginary point just to the right of his head. But since there was nothing there but empty air, she ended up staring at the CPR poster on the wall behind him, which must have looked odd because he actually threw a glance over his shoulder like he was trying to figure out what she was looking at.
She dragged her eyes back to his, but that was way too much, so she let her gaze fall to his chest, which ought to be safe. Except Adam’s chest was exquisite. His gray polo was made of shiny athletic fabric with a drape that would make Tim Gunn drool. The shirt was thin enough that she could see the square outline of his pecs, with just a hint of his nipples beneath.
Sweet cream-cheesy Jesus, she was staring at his nipples now.
Her eyes jumped higher, settling on his collarbone, which was only marginally better because now she was noticing the strong tendons in his neck and the graceful way they melted into his broad and apparently hairless chest. Or was that a hint of dark chest hair just beneath the open collar of his shirt? It was hard to tell from this distance.
“Did you need something?” Adam asked, appearing only mildly curious to know why she was gawping at him like an imbecile. He was probably used to being stared at. With a face and a body like that, he must get ogled all the time.
Olivia cleared her throat.
Just spit it out before this drags on and gets even weirder.
“Yeah, actually. I—uh—I was hoping you’d write me a reference for the Future Leader Development Course.”
“Ah.” He turned away, but not before she glimpsed his unmistakable expression of distaste.
Her heart sank to the floor, where it lay in a puddle of mortification at her feet. This was why she hated asking people for favors. Because it opened the door for rejection, and as far as her brain was concerned, rejection was a fate worse than death.
He hasn’t even said no yet. Calm down and give him a chance to answer before you panic.
“So, yeah,” she continued, forging ahead with false buoyancy, “I’m putting my name in the hat and you need two references—one of which has to be from someone on another team. And I was hoping you’d be willing to do it, since we’ve worked together for a while.”
Adam stirred almond milk into his coffee without looking at her. “Can you ask someone else?”
“Oh.” Her heart clattered to the floor again and smashed to bits. “Um, sure. I guess.”
If she’d had a time machine, she wouldn’t use it to kill baby Hitler, she’d travel back five minutes and jam a plastic spork into her eye, so she wouldn’t humiliate herself by asking Adam for a fucking reference. And then she’d kill baby Hitler.
“It’s just that I’d rather not,” Adam said, still not looking at her.
So, that was that. That was her answer. He wasn’t willing to write her a reference.
“Can I ask why?” She knew it was a mistake, but the question slipped out before she could stop it. She had to know. It was possible it had nothing to do with her. Maybe he just hated writing references. Or maybe he’d already promised one to somebody else.
He put the almond milk back in the fridge and picked up his coffee cup, regarding her silently as he lifted it to his lips. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said finally. “But I just can’t see you as a manager.”
He might as well have slapped her across the face. Olivia’s cheeks stung with pins and needles as if they’d been struck.
She wanted to argue. She knew she ought to speak up and defend herself, but she couldn’t formulate any kind of retort. “Okay, well, thanks anyway,” she forced out in a voice so small and high it was practically a whistle.
Adam gave her a jerky nod and walked out of the kitchen without another word.
On the bright side, she was no longer distracted by his hot bod.
He wasn’t the least bit attractive to her anymore. He was a cockwaffle. An arrogant, hostile fecalwad who had apparently never liked her and thought she was bad at her job.
Her. The person who had sat with the users and calmed them all down when they’d had that big outage last year. And who’d solved that problem in the trading system a few months ago that no one else had been able to figure out.
How dare he? She was fucking awesome at her job.
Well, screw him. She didn’t need his stupid reference. Plenty of people around here liked her. Because she was nice, and she’d gone out of her way to make allies. She’d have no trouble getting a reference from any number of other people.
