The Billionaire's Assistant

Chapter 64

Kat felt her heart drop to her feet as she attempted to work words from her moisture robbed tongue.

"Did, did you get my message?" she asked in a wary warble that manifested as a bit of a rasp. She cleared her throat to try again. "I left a message at Rises."

Emma shook her head, still unspeaking.

"We were waiting for you," said Andy measuredly. "You got the badge?"

Kat turned to her, digging her fingernails deeper into her shredded cuticles to steady herself.

"No," she said quickly. "We worked on the memoir, I...I couldn't. I didn't have time."

"Memoir?" said Andy. "You said it was a speech."

"It is, it is a speech," Kat corrected quickly, cursing the board for their lack of specificity that had led her and Jove to utilize the terms speech and memoir interchangeably.

"It is, but, it's like, memoir style. That's why it's so long," she offered after a pause.

The room remained silent, Jack's eyes falling from her to the floor.

"Um," she began. "Can I," she pointed to the miniscule gap between Emma and Andy's bodies. "Can I just? I was gonna put my stuff down and,"

"So you worked on the speech all day today?" Andy interrupted, cutting her off.

Kat, silenced, nodded.

"And you couldn't have slipped away at any point of the day? You couldn't have said you needed a bathroom break and taken the elevator down to Courtney's?"

"Well," Kat stammered. "I mean, no, not really."

"Why not?"

"I didn't. I mean I wouldn't, there wouldn't have been time." Kat forced out.

She couldn't make eye contact with anyone but particularly avoided Emma, who was still staring her down and standing closely enough for a whisper to be audible.

"Really?" asked Emma in a voice Kat had never heard directed to her, Emma's defiant voice, her angry one. "It wasn't cause you weren't there?" She took another half step towards Kat, the volume of her voice increasing. "It wasn't cause you're a goddamn liar?"

The color drained from Kat's face as she felt her blood turn cold.

"I," she attempted, but was able to produce no more.

"Huh?" Emma asked. "Cause I don't know exactly what the fucks been going on," she said shooting Andy an equally biting glare. "But the two of you are apparently hiding something."

Kat began to feel claustrophobic, the pressure of the cramped room closing in on her.

"Admit it. You were never at the office. You met him at Rises this morning, didn't you?"

"No," Kat protested. "No."

"Kat, I saw you," Emma insisted through gritted teeth, emotion bursting through the cracks of her voice. "With my own eyes, dude. Conner and I were checking on the community garden plot and those sisters who grow all the weird tomatoes were talking about all the drama at Rises this morning, going on and on. She said a guy there paid for a bunch of people's food for a year. She was like, 'oh my god he was so hot, and Vicky said she knew the girl'. Emma's eyes began to smolder. She said Vicky said it was one of the FES girls."

"Emma, no," Kat began. "No it's not,"

"And I'm thinking," Emma continued unperturbed as if Kat had never spoken. "I'm thinking, 'there's absolutely no way that an FES girl is at Rises with a hot guy that's buying things'.Unless Andy has some secret sugar daddy, the only girl that could possibly fit that description is you.