Break/Open

7. Get You

"I'm listening," Johanna spoke into her ear piece as she took a shortcut through the hallway leading to Cameron's office. She held a paper cup of coffee in each hand, balancing them as she trotted on her heels with ballerina precision.

"I'm running a little late, Jo," Cameron announced, underscored by the faint whirr of his engine. "I need you to start my first meeting without me."
Johanna stopped abruptly, almost skidding across the polished white marble that paved the entirety of the 27th floor where Curated magazine was fashioned from cover to cover. She swiveled on her heels, and marched back down the hallway.

"It's Roman Conway, the photographer. I don't want him changing his mind and walking out of my office without signing that contract," Cameron instructed. "He's in the main conference room."
"We need to get him working on the September issue right away, Jo. We're behind schedule," he was rambling on, but Johanna's panicked thoughts were louder than his voice in her ear.

"Jo?" Cameron paused, anticipating a response. She almost wanted to make a detour to the bathroom, and vomit up her lunch.

"Yeah, I got it," she uttered before tapping the earpiece to end the call. She went through a gradient of emotions that began with rage. She saw a comic-book hero version of her herself in her mind storming the room, and kicking Roman's chair into one of the windows, sending him flying through the glass and into the Manhattan skyline, banishing him from reappearing again. In reality, she stood outside the glass cube encasing the conference room, watching the man sitting at the head of the table engraved with the stylized header of the magazine. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought he owned the place. He was reclined coolly in the chair he occupied, stroking the hair beneath his bottom lip, zoned out in thought.

"Is this the contract?" Johanna turned to Cameron's secretary that sat in her booth. Celeste nodded absentmindedly as she slid a binder toward Johanna without looking at her. Her attention was diverted elsewhere, aimed at the stranger in the room.
Johanna almost muttered her pity out loud. He would probably not even glance in her direction on his way out, because Roman Conway had particular tastes. His fleeting objects of affection didn't look carefully selected; but they were. He only entertained the ones that somehow knew they would be temporary without being told. He never indulged a woman that wasn't prepared for that fate. Johanna only knew of one exception to his pattern.

"How long has he been in there?" she asked, hiking the leather binder up onto her arm and squeezing it against her chest, keeping her coffees balanced.
"About 10 minutes," Celeste responded, not taking her eyes off him in her daydream.
Johanna exhaled a cleansing breath, and pushed through the glass door with her shoulder, gearing up for confrontation.

"How did I know I was going to see you again," she sauntered into the room, channeling her fury into the tips of her heels as they struck the marble underneath her. Roman sat up, smirking with those damned dimples on display as his eyes followed her to the adjacent end of the table. She placed a cup of coffee in front of him, and set her binder down in between them.

"Tell me what you want, Roman," she groused impatiently, lowering herself into a chair, and tapping her purple fingernails against the leather binder cover. The deep shade on her nails matched the lacquer on her her lips - the main attraction on her face with her short hair slicked back for the day. "What is it, exactly? You want to make all of our lives more difficult?"

"I just want the job, Jo," Roman responded in his sedative tone. He took a sip from the cup she'd offered, and she watched him grimace when he swallowed.
"She turned you into a coffee snob," she scoffed, and shook her head. "I guess that never goes away."
"I keep telling them the shit they drink up here is sludge," she added with a chuckle as she pushed away her own cup. "One sip of Nina's stuff and your soul is sold."