Free Single Sashimi by Camy Tang Page A

could have had Tiffanie email her to set up a meeting today, but she didn’t mention that glaring fact. “What did you want to talk about?”
    “You mentioned you made an appointment—what did you need?” He smoothed his Italian silk tie—burgundy, today.
    “Edgar mentioned he had extra responsibilities from you that didn’t allow him to do the normal functions of his new position.” There, that was somewhat tactful.
    “He does have some new responsibilities, yes.”
    “Then you’re aware he’s forcing me to continue doing everything I did as acting Game Lead, in addition to my old duties as Lead Programmer?” She pinned him with a hard look.
    He shifted in his seat. “I was aware some of his duties were necessarily delegated, yes.”
    “So you’re expecting me to do the job of two positions without an increase in pay, and without a promotion.” She crossed her arms and sat back in her chair, although her heart was pounding in her ears by now. No need to let him know that being so confrontational made her armpits sweat and her legs quiver. Never let them see you as anything but strong .
    Yardley didn’t look away from her, exactly, but he didn’t make direct eye contact with her. More like eye contact with the file drawers directly behind her desk. “We chose Edgar because he’s very good at what he does—”
    “I have yet to see him do anything. I seem to be expected to do his job for him.”
    He continued nodding and smiling at her file drawers. “Edgar’s destined for great things, just like his father—”
    “His father?” She raised her eyebrows.
    “Ah…we’re old college buddies.” Yardley scratched his thinning yellow hair.
    Venus stared him down. “It’s a bit dangerous to foster nepotism in the company.”
    “Oh, it’s not nepotism. We’re not related.”
    Venus couldn’t understand why he was nodding his head. But now she could understand why they’d promoted Edgar. “Regardless of why you gave Edgar Game Lead, is this what you’re asking me to do? I don’t intend to work for peanuts, Yardley.” Whoa, that was strong, even for her. She crossed her legs tight to still her trembling and hoped Yardley couldn’t see.
    “That’s partly why I wanted to talk to you today, Venus.”
    This better be good . “What about?”
    “A h… I heard…It came to me…”
    Telling her CTO to spit it out probably wouldn’t go over well.
    “I found out…you’re working on a software program.”
    The temperature in the office dropped ten degrees. “Where did you hear that from?” She laughed, but it came out sounding brittle even to her ears.
    “Edgar talked to one of your old programmers from your last company, what was his name?”
    Dan .
    “Ben? No… Tom?” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. Venus didn’t trust the light in his eyes. “Anyway, he mentioned he’d seen you working on a certain software that would revolutionize game development. A development tool that was compatible with design software, animation software, motion capture data, programming software.”
    “You can check my computer.” She swiveled her laptop around. “There’s nothing on it like that.”
    He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Venus wondered if he had been about to mention her computer setup on her desk at home—wires and cables, but sans laptop—which he wasn’t supposed to know about.
    “Here’s what I’m offering, Venus.” He touched his hand to her desk. She wanted to reach for her bottle of Lysol and spray his hairy fingers. “That program could help us a lot. You know that. It would take us to our next milestone months ahead of schedule, and the investors would be fighting for the privilege to throw money at us.”
    As acting Game Lead, she had taken them to their previous milestone ahead of schedule without that program, but Yardley had conveniently forgotten that.
    “Venus.” He made eye contact with her again, his baby blues reaching out to her with