Page 25 of Isolated (Harper Security Ops #21)

Iris

I never thought about time travel.

I couldn’t recall a time in my whole life when I’d ever given the topic a second thought.

At least, not until today.

Now that it was just before lunch on Monday, and I was back at work, I was wondering how I could go back.

I’d choose Wednesday evening at dinnertime. Or, perhaps, Saturday evening at The Steel Pub.

Yes. That was it.

Dancing at the pub was my choice. I’d give anything to go back to that night and stay there for eternity if I could.

Because there wasn’t anything about what was happening now that felt good. Though, to be fair, even if I didn’t know precisely how things were going to go, my gut instinct had always been good.

And when I opened my eyes this morning, just a few hours away from returning to work, it hit me .

That ominous feeling. The nerves.

I was a bit rattled by the anxiousness, which only served to leave me even more worried.

After such a wonderful weekend—save for the interaction and resulting tension with Eleni—there hadn’t been any hint that I was concerned about my return to work. Even when I’d crawled into my bed last night, I didn’t give work a second thought.

My mind had been almost entirely consumed by thoughts of Landen. The encounters we’d had over the last several days and the potential for what was ahead.

As much as I looked forward to seeing him at the gym, it was our date later this week that I was most excited about.

And it was those thoughts that had me distracted as I drifted off last night.

But almost as soon as the morning sunlight filtered into my room and my eyes fluttered open, the good vibes from my weekend had vanished. The promise of more time with Landen took a back seat.

Because the memory of being called into Robert’s office last Wednesday morning and being told to take the rest of the week off sprang to the front of my mind.

That incident felt like it had been a lifetime ago instead of mere days, but the feelings it left me with were suddenly just as fresh as they’d been when I was sitting across from him, hearing those words.

I tried to shake it off, tried to stick to my usual routine, but it didn’t work. Not well enough for Landen not to notice when he saw me in the gym this morning.

I hated that, too.

There was nothing I wanted more than to have our time at the gym today to be all about flirtatious conversation, knowing smiles, intense stares, and gentle brushes of our fingertips.

I’d wanted to indulge myself in those looks he’d promised to give me.

Instead, our time together turned out to be more of a therapy session.

Landen sensed my nerves, asked about them, and offered some reassuring words.

“You’ve been working at your job for years now, even if you’ve only been in this specific position for just a few months shy of a year,” he’d said, curling his fingers around the outer cap of my shoulder, “you know what’s expected of you, Iris.

And there’s no question about your ability to do your job.

You had a few glitches with your emails and an issue with your company calendar, but that’s not a testament to the work you’re capable of doing.

If you weren’t great at what you do, they wouldn’t have promoted you twice in less than a year.

Keep that in mind when you walk through those doors today. ”

Hearing that encouragement from him, even when he had no experience with the work I did, was comforting. And effective.

Because there was a part of me that could completely understand the logic behind his words. I was Iris Gibson, and I’d been promoted twice in less than a year. I hadn’t gotten to where I was based on pure luck. I got there because I was extraordinary at my job.

Landen’s words had helped tremendously. It was enough to turn my mood around for my workout session with him and even as I drove back home to shower and get ready for work.

But the minute I walked through the front doors, Landen’s reassurances faded.

The first thing I had to do was meet with Robert, but the walk to my office before heading to his had been eye opening.

It reminded me of those scenes from movies where a high school student is walking down the halls to the whispers and stares of her classmates.

That student knows everyone is talking about her, and there’s nothing she can do about it, because if she does, it’ll only add more fuel to the fire.

It’d give them all a reason to just keep talking.

I inhaled deeply, doing my best to ignore it, and pressed on to my office and, finally, his.

It was safe to say the meeting couldn’t have been any less successful.

While Robert hadn’t sent me home again for the week or, worse, fired me on the spot, he seemed just as irritated to be having the conversation this morning as he’d been to have the one that we did last week.

In the end, he’d made it clear that he intended to keep a close eye on everything I was doing over the next few weeks, and if things got out of hand again, he’d have to reconsider some of his recent decisions, possibly rescinding the promotion he’d given me in the process.

Obviously, I’d assured him that he had nothing to worry about, that I was fully prepared to prove to him that he hadn’t made a mistake in choosing me to be the one to move up the ladder.

But now that I’d spent the morning working in my own office and hadn’t so much as had a single colleague stop in even once, I had to face the facts.

The things that had happened over the last few weeks—particularly me being forced to take the second half of last week off—had spread throughout the agency.

Were members of my team now afraid to associate with me? I hadn’t gotten into this position by not being qualified. I was excellent at what I did, and they didn’t have any reason to be fearful.

What I thought, what I truly believed, didn’t matter, though. If everyone had the wrong impression, the only thing I could do was prove to them that they didn’t need to be concerned.

Pretending to be oblivious to what was happening around me would have been impossible, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t wishing it was the case.

That was the reason I’d been thinking about time travel, about how wonderful it would be to go back to the moments I’d shared with Landen over the last few days.

Right now, I would have given anything to be with him, if only because I knew that whenever he was around, I was generally too preoccupied by him to feel anything but happy.

But since that wasn’t an option, and it was now lunchtime, I was hoping I’d be able to get some normalcy back into my life with Steph and Kasey.

Before I walked out of my office, I picked up my phone and called my sister.

Things were still unsettled with Eleni, and I wanted to be sure to put the effort into making things right between us.

Unfortunately, she must have been busy at work, because she didn’t answer.

So, I left her a voicemail and asked her to return my call when she had a minute to talk.

When I walked into the lunchroom, I was relieved to see my friends.

They were precisely where I expected them to be, but they weren’t alone.

Tanner was standing beside Steph, leaning over, with his palms pressed against the top of the table.

Warren and Brett were looking on from their usual spots several seats away.

My brows pulled together as I made my approach, and the second I walked up to the table, the conversation came to a grinding halt.

Tanner stood up straight, shifted his attention between my friends and me several times before settling on them. “Yeah, we’re done for now. We’ll talk about this later.”

Steph didn’t seem the least bit fazed as she offered him a nod in return. “Sure, Tanner.”

He gave me one last cutting look before he walked off to join Warren and Brett at the opposite end of the table.

As I lowered myself onto my usual seat across from my friends, I asked, “What was that all about?”

Steph waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Oh, it’s nothing. He was just talking about an ad project we’re all working on. I’d given him some suggestions, and he wanted to confirm a few details. Anyway, what’s going on with you? I’m glad you’re back.”

“Yeah, we’ve missed you,” Kasey added. “Lunch just hasn’t been the same.”

“Well, that’s about the warmest welcome I’ve gotten since stepping foot back in this place,” I muttered.

Kasey’s brows pulled together. “What do you mean? Did something happen?”

I jerked my chin down the table toward Tanner, Warren, and Brett.

“Nothing specific, but it’s been like that.

Nobody wants to talk to me, and every time I walk by, all I get are disgusted looks and whispers right in front of my face.

Nobody is even trying to hide that they have a problem with me right now. ”

“I’m sorry, Iris.” Steph drove her fork into her salad and lifted it to her mouth. “Did you talk to Robert this morning? ”

Sighing, I answered, “Yeah. And the best I can say is that it feels like I’m on some kind of probation.”

“What?!” Kasey’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

I glanced around the room to see how many people had looked in our direction.

There were several, but I couldn’t be sure if it was related to Kasey’s outburst, or if it was merely because I was here.

“Relax, Kasey. He didn’t exactly use those words, but I can feel it.

He intends to watch and see how things go over the next couple of weeks. ”

“Well, that’s not so bad.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s not much I can do about it at this point. All I can do is continue fulfilling my role as I always have and hope that everything was just a technical glitch that won’t ever happen again. Did anything happen while I was gone?”

“Not really,” Steph said at the same time Kasey answered, “So much.”