Crossing Hathaway Read Online Free

save it from the rain. I handed her a soggy five and ten dollar bill and told her to pocket the change. She’d saved my ass and deserved every penny.
    Wearing a satisfied smirk, I sprinted back to the office through the cold torrents. Water pooled in my shoes as it drained from the rest of me, but giddiness overrode annoyance. I couldn’t wait to see Hathaway’s face when I plunked his favorite down in front of him. I didn’t care if I wasn’t supposed to look, I was going to do it, anyway.
    I didn’t pause when Brent stood from his desk and made a beeline for me. Holding up the Grindhouse bag for him to see, I opened the door into the small room outside Hathaway’s office. “I have your coffee, Mr. Hathaway.” Rain dripped off my ponytail and pitter-pattered onto the carpet. I tended to agree with Cam’s assessment of it. The way it squished, I imagined it was quite expensive.
    A door squeaked open on the far side of the interrogation room. “Enter.”
    I took a deep breath and headed toward the corner where the voice emanated from. The lighting didn’t improve much beyond the door. The room opened into a large theater layout sloped toward a white wall at the far end. A projector hung from the middle of the ceiling, an Internet browser open to a competitor’s webpage. Some sort of blue pills shone in the upper left corner and a bunch of numbers and scientific jargon dotted the space below it. Sunlight shone around dark blinds along the two side walls of windows. Stairs ascended to the right into complete blackness. A faint hint of cologne lingered in the stale air.
    “Mr. Hathaway?” I shuffled closer to the computer on a desk below the projector, the only piece of equipment I could see in the dim light. Silence pressed on my ears—a soundproof room.
    Oh, balls. Was that so nobody could hear his victims screaming?
    “Set it on the desk.” His voice echoed from the top of the stairs, startling a peep out of me. God, he was a jerk! I shivered, my every instinct begging to search for him and whatever disfigurement he wanted to hide from the world, but I kept them trained on the wall for the time being. I put the bag on the desk, careful to keep the coffee cup upright.
    His footsteps padded down the stairs. My feet carried me back a few steps before I realized what I was doing and stopped. If I gave the guy an inch, he’d never let me work for him. I stared at the giant webpage.
    The bag crinkled, and Mr. Hathaway groaned. Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I could make out dark wavy hair, a white dress shirt, and dark pants. “This isn’t what I asked for.” He slammed a hand down on the desk, the sound jolting through me like a thunderclap. “What use are you if you can’t follow a simple coffee order?”
    A growl burned in my throat and I didn’t do a thing to cover it. “I couldn’t buy what they didn’t—”
    “No excuses, Ms. Russell! Now get out of my office. I have work to do, and you’re dripping all over the carpet.”
    I wanted to unleash on him so badly my jaw quivered, but the memory of Cameron’s voice warned me. Despite his terminal geekiness, he’d given me a chance to work in IT when nobody else had, and I didn’t want to get him in trouble. I spun around and sped back through the door, imagining how satisfying it would be to flip Hathaway the bird. “You’re welcome, asshole,” I muttered once I’d made it out of earshot. He hadn’t even bothered to pay me for his crappy coffee. Not that I’d entertain the idea of going back to ask. I wasn’t completely insane.
    When I made it back to my cubicle after drying out what I could in the bathroom, I slouched forward, elbows propped on the desk. The air conditioner turned my wet shirt to ice. Why did I let him get to me so much? Cameron warned me the guy was a dick, but I still wanted to crawl into a hole and hug myself—a new sensation for me. Thank goodness it was Thursday.
    The iPhone buzzed again. I moaned, fished