Rule No. 1: No Romance (GirlxGirl WlW)

Chapter 14

"Joane, I'm starting to believe your source was wrong," I groan, sitting down behind my desk. We're half past the day and no sight of Caleb. "You can't take Patricia's word for these things, she's an airhead."

"They might have postponed the visit," Joane says, sitting in front of me. "While it is true that she's our worst source of gossip in the company."

"Quite ironically so, given she's head of the Journalism team," I murmur, letting myself fall back on my chair. "Or not, you know how journalists love to add dots to the plot."

"Do you mean add tails to the tale?"

"Have you never heard of the Portuguese saying 'quem conta um conto, acrescenta um ponto'?"

"Not really, I took the Spanish classes..." she says, amusedly raising her eyebrows. "Just admit you forgot."

"Whatever."

There's a moment of silence in the room, and even though I rarely find them uncomfortable or awkward, the events of yesterday came crashing in. I can't believe I nearly kissed her, it sounds surreal to me, as if it was a dream and never happened... but it did, and it's taking everything in me not to avoid her eyes every time we talk.

"Do you want me to bring you some coffee?" she asks out of the blue, breaking the silence.

"I'm fine," I answer simply.

"You've been a bit off today."

"I thought we agreed on not talking about yesterday, so do you really want an answer to that?"

Thankfully, there's a knock on the door, breaking the awkwardness of the situation. John hastily opens the door, looking at us with terrified eyes. "Mr. Ovadia is here." Joane shoots me a glance as I get up, walking quickly alongside me. "He's not on our floor yet, we got a heads up from the editorial department," he continues, trying to pick up our pace as we stride up to the main working space, the elevator doors opening right when we make it.

His eyes land on me the moment he steps out of it. "Ms. Agassi, it's been so long," he says, walking up to us with another man that I feel looks familiar but in an 'I think I've seen his face in a boring business magazine' kind of way.

"Not long enough," I say under my breath, extending my hand to greet both of them.

"This is my right hand, Mr. Garcia, he's in charge of checking what your team is working on while we talk," he says, only then noticing Joane. "Mrs. AlHadid."

"It's Kassab now," she answers simply, ignoring his attempt at a handshake.

Caleb and Joane never really got along, and it definitely didn't get any better after we split, I'm pretty sure Joane has at some point plotted to murder him in my honor. This hatred obviously didn't come out of the blue, while Joane has absolutely no reason to despise my proximity with Louise — other than maybe a little bit of jealousy — she has every right to hate Caleb, especially as seen from her eyes.

I never told her why we split up so suddenly, and I'm guessing she assumes he was abusive towards me and that I'm too ashamed to talk about it... But also because he's a cunt.

"Let's get to work then," I clear my throat. "Joane, please accompany Mr. Garcia."

She gives Caleb one last glare before nodding her head and strutting away with the man. "What did you tell her? That woman looks at me as if she wants me dead," Caleb whispers, leaning into me.

"I didn't tell her anything," I answer simply. "She never liked you, to be honest."

"That I know," he groans. "We never even spoke properly though."