Free The Company We Keep by Mary Monroe Page A

woman.” Teri shot Nicole a look that was so hot, it made her flinch.
    “Okay, I won’t.” Nicole dipped her head and gave Teri a contrite look. “Happy?”
    Teri nodded. “Like I was saying, there’s got to be more to life than work.”
    “That’s what I keep trying to tell you. But if you want more out of life, nobody can do anything about that but you, Teri. You choose to work your fingers to the bone, so don’t complain to me about it.”
    “I’m not complaining. I’m just making conversation,” Teri whined, which was something she rarely did. “Despite all the bullshit, I still love my job. And I want to give it everything I’ve got.” Teri tilted her head and sniffed.
    “And God knows you’re doing that. Please tell me you didn’t come here after I left you last night and slept here,” Nicole pleaded, glancing at her watch.
    “I didn’t sleep here last night,” Teri replied, looking at her watch, too. “I’ve only been here for a few hours. I couldn’t sleep…”
    Nicole shook her head and looked at Teri with pity.
    “Did you have company again last night?” Teri asked, looking at Nicole out of the corner of her eye. She removed the pencil from behind her ear and started tapping it on the top of her desk.
    “No. Why do you ask?”
    “Because you look a little tired to me, Nicole.”
    “I could have had some company again last night, but I chose not to. I did take a rain check, though.” There was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Did you have company last night?”
    “Now, don’t you even go there,” Teri hissed, shaking her finger in Nicole’s face. She drank from a large green coffee mug with a bullfighter taunting a snorting bull on one side and I PUERTO VALLARTA on the other. It was a gift from the maid she’d treated to dinner during her last south of the border visit. “Now get your butt to work before I…before I write you up, or fire you, or something.”
     
    Nine o’clock crept up on Teri and Nicole like a mugger. But Teri would not have even noticed the time if Nicole had not buzzed her.
    “I’m on my way,” Teri said in a hurried voice. She suddenly wished that she had eaten more of her grandmother’s black-eyed peas yesterday.
    The conference room that often served as a battleground was a little too warm, but it was going to get even warmer. Victor Oliansky was the only person in the room who looked like he was there because he wanted to be. Everybody else looked like they were constipated and had been dragged to the meeting kicking and screaming. The attendees were shuffling papers, clearing throats, clinking coffee cups, checking BlackBerrys, and snapping cell phones shut. In addition to a few noticeable sighs and yawns, there were a few muffled comments about who had done what to ring in the New Year.
    Had Victor attempted to play the part of a recording studio executive in a movie, every casting director in Hollywood would have said that he was too much of a stereotype. He was at least sixty, probably older. But it was obvious that he was doing everything his money could buy to look younger. Some of his employees knew that to be a fact, especially his secretary. John, a busybody of a secretary if there ever was one, snooped through Victor’s BlackBerry and e-mail on a regular basis. He always knew when Victor had an appointment for a Botox treatment, and John made regular trips to a nearby pharmacy to pick up Victor’s Grecian Formula hair dye and refills for his Viagra prescriptions. Every time Victor pissed off John, he blabbed Victor’s most intimate business to Nicole, his unofficial confidante. They’d been thick as thieves ever since they’d attempted to set Teri up with a male prostitute.
    Despite Victor’s sixty-something years, he was in fairly good shape for a man his age. But his long, flat, black ponytail didn’t do much to improve his appearance. In spite of his position and wealth, he looked more like the type you’d expect to see