Page 3 of Emil

“Are you seriously questioning me?”

“No, no, no. I’m sure you told me and I forgot to handle it.”

Bile rose in my throat as the fury twisted John’s face into something frightening. It felt like he hated me. The dizziness and nausea I’d managed to tamp down returned full force. The buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead screamed in my head, threatening to overwhelm me.

“Get the fuck out of my office. Fucking incompetent bullshit. If you were anyone else, I’d have fired their ass by now. I asked Magnuson about dinner, and he looked at me like I was shit under his shoe. You better get it fucking handled, or you won’t need to worry about fucking up anything else around here.”

“John, I’m sorry. Yes, I’ll get it taken care of, and I’ll apologize to Mr. Magnuson myself.”

“No, you fucking won’t. He doesn’t need to know about some asshole clerk’s goddamn mistake.”

If I tried to speak, I knew my voice wouldn’t be able to talk without cracking. Instead, I nodded mutely and tried to keep myself from swaying.

“Get the hell out of my office!”

John yelled the last bit, so I was sure everyone on the floor heard me getting reamed out. Once again, Lacey caught my eye, but this time, I couldn’t find it in me to smooth the moment over. I gave a curt nod instead and headed back to my desk. My first priority was to call Mr. Magnuson’s assistant and arrange for a reservation at Quill. Once that was handled, John would forgive me, and everything would be all right again.

I stumbled into the hallway and did my best to get in a breath. My head felt like it was going to explode, and my heart was racing. Dizziness overwhelmed me as the room began to spin. I weakly leaned against the wall, trying to brace myself so I didn’t make a fool of myself and embarrass John. But the longer I stood there, the worse it became. My empty stomach and the nausea threatened to overtake me. It was sheer force of willpower that kept me upright, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold on. I felt my knees beginning to shake as my resolve weakened.

“Anders, what’s wrong?”

Once again, Mr. Magnuson had seen me at my worst today. At the rate I was going, I wouldn’t need to worry about John firing me because his boss’s boss would take care of it for him. I opened my mouth to answer, but no words came out. My eyes were still closed, trying to keep my headache at bay, and when I opened them to look at him, the room spun like a kaleidoscope, going faster and faster until I had no choice but to close my eyes again. Unfortunately, that also meant the dizziness increased. My heart felt like it was going to pound out of my chest. The last thing I remembered was Mr. Magnuson putting a protective arm under my head, right before I hit the ground.

I was getting fired for sure.

CHAPTER TWO

EMIL

“Am I fired?”

“Why would you think that?”

Impossible as it seemed, Anders actually looked small lying in the hospital bed. The gown stretched across his broad shoulders, and his hair, usually in neat braids and a bun, had come partially undone and stuck out at odd angles. The bags under his eyes looked like he’d gone a few rounds in the ring and not come out as the winner. He looked nothing like the supremely competent clerk with a quiet, tidy style I had gotten accustomed to seeing at the office.

“Because I caused a disturbance at the office today.” The beep of the machine monitoring Anders’s saline drip echoed in the small cubicle.

“That wasn’t a disturbance, Anders. That was you becoming ill. It’s not like you fainted on purpose.”

Anders found something fascinating to study on the wall opposite me. “Why are you here?”

“Because the health and well-being of my employees is a priority,” I answered.

The answer I gave wasn’t much of one, but it was the best I could come up with on the way over. It made no damn sense why I was here, but I wasn’t going to admit that to him. After he fainted, Lacey was ready to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, but when Anders regained consciousness, he panicked at the idea of going out on a stretcher. It was obvious that a drive to the hospital would be the better choice. But the million-dollar question wasn’t clear even to me. Why was I here? I couldn’t give myself a reasonable justification to explain it.

Luckily, a commotion at the door interrupted my attempt to come up with a plausible explanation. “Because my gut said I needed to” invited more questions than I had answers for, so the truth wasn’t an option.

“You about gave me a heart attack, Anders. As soon as I saw your name up on the board— Oh, hello?” The doctor burst into the room in such a familiar way that I knew it wasn’t a strictly professional visit. “I’m Reed.” The doctor held out his hand with a friendly, open smile as he introduced himself.

“Emil Magnuson. Are you Anders’s doctor?”

“No, that’s Dr. Greer. He’s great, by the way. I’m a friend, that’s all.”

“Reed, I appreciate you coming to see me, but it’s nothing. I’ve just been feeling a little under the weather and got a little dramatic at the office,” Anders offered with an apologetic laugh. On the surface, his tone was deliberately nonchalant, but I heard the fatigue underneath. “I’m sorry I interrupted your day.”

“Interrupted my day? You didn’t interrupt anything,” Reed responded gently. Anders seemed to have better taste in friends than he did lovers. How he’d ended up with a fuckwit like John was beyond me. “Before you ask, I didn’t tell Jakob you were here, but do you want me to call him to come down?”

“Absolutely not. He’s working on a journal paper this week. He needs every minute to finalize it.”