Minefield of Mirrors

-21-

The rest of the morning, Iris moved around on autopilot. She threw herself into her to-do list and went from meeting to meeting. A smile was plastered on her lips and she acted like she was feeling fine, even though everything inside her was all mixed up. Every little part of the past four years got questioned. What if Thomas had admitted the truth back then? What would her life even seem like? Would they happily be in a relationship, or would he have fucked up by then as well and would've hurt her even more?

Different texts of Lando and Mick came in, but she ignored it all. If they would ask later on why she didn't reply, she would simply say that she was too busy and couldn't reply. It would be a valid reason anyway.

A lot of faces went by her as the day kept going. It was a day where she would meet a lot of different members of the team and get explained what they exactly did during the day. The first two practices of the seasons happened and she watched everything closely. She even went to the debriefings to see what exactly was discussed during them. Iris kept telling herself that she went there to know more about the sport, but whom was she fooling? She tried everything to stop her mind from wandering off.

When the last meeting after the second practice ended, Iris got up from the chair and headed back to her office.

She was moving all of her notes on top of her desk to see the whole picture of a normal Friday like this. Another sheet with numbers was compared to all the activities and she got a highlighter to put some highlights on moments that caught her attention and maybe could happen more efficiently.

A knock sounded on the door next to her and she replied without even looking, still standing in front of her desk, eager to connect all the dots. 'Yes?'

When she didn't hear a voice answering her, she straightened her back again and saw how Max was standing in the doorway.

'How are you?' He asked.

Iris took the water bottle from her desk. 'I'm fine.' She said before she took a sip of her water.

The Dutch driver moved into the room and got closer to her. 'Quite a show you gave away in the restaurant this morning.'

Her heart skipped a beat when his exact words reached her mind. Did he see all of it? Did he know everything?

'Didn't think you would feel fine after all of that.' His words were calm, almost like a silence before a storm that was about to happen.

A shiver spread across her skin and she uncomfortably crossed her arms as he walked by behind her and stood still on the other side of her desk, looking outside for a few seconds.

When he turned his head towards her again, he spoke up once more. 'So you were in love with this Thomas, huh?'

Iris shut her eyes closed and tried to calm her anger. 'Max, this is still none of your business.'

When she opened her eyes again, she noticed how he had moved some papers and how he had sat down on the side of her desk. He was way too comfortable in this position. It was clear he had the power in this conversation, much to the dislike of Iris.

'Must hurt that he lied to you about something like that.'

The anger was real inside of her. Her eyes scanned the desk for anything that would be worthy enough to throw at him. She wanted to hurt him badly for saying all these things. He was only rubbing it in more, even though she had done everything to forget about it today. He was racking up all the emotions of this morning. Emotions she would rather forget about before she would do something so stupid and would regret for the rest of her life. She had to control herself.

'How much did you exactly hear of that private conversation?'

He laughed for a few seconds, way too content about how uncomfortable Iris was right now. 'Private? You spit your words out so loudly, that it was anything but private darling.'

Iris squeezed her eyes. 'You are terrible, you know that?'

It was well visible that he was enjoying this conversation. 'I'm terrible? I thought that I would be slightly to moderately terrible. I thought Thomas would rank number one after your little meet-up.'

And yet again, he was getting underneath her skin. Every word he said, was itchy and only made her more angry at him. She knew that she was so close to losing her temper. 

'Max, I'm asking politely. Don't mix in my private life. You don't like me, I don't like you. We both know that. Let's keep it strictly professional and we both don't mix in our personal life. Let's do it for the sake of the team.'

'Oh?' That stupid smirk was back once again. 'Then what do you think will happen if I do mix in your personal life? Because let's be honest, yours is pretty entertaining so far.'

Iris immediately stepped closer to him and directed her finger towards him. 'Oh, you...!'

Amusingly, he tapped against her finger with his. 'Ting!' He said, happy as a little child.

The urge to slap him right in the face was tremendous, but she knew she couldn't do that. She worked her ass off to get a promotion on an account like this. She couldn't let that slip away.

'Oh, ting your ass!' Iris said and then she turned around and started to walk away.

A hand wrapped around her lower arm and within a second she was turned around and bumped into Max's body which was suddenly way too close to hers.

The touch of Max's skin against hers made everything tingle inside of her. It was like the match was getting closer to the fuel and one extra move would make sure everything would be lit up. But what that fire would mean? Iris didn't know. She had no fucking clue when it came to this guy. Everything about him made him just unreadable. One moment he was screaming at her for what she had just said, and the other moment the roles were exactly reversed and she was screaming at him. If this wasn't what people called enemies, then she couldn't believe in any of those fairy tales anymore. Then her whole life was a complete lie.

The tension between Max and Iris was there. It was a painful tension that was filled with anger from both sides. Both were ready to bring the other down, whenever the opportunity was there. They hated every little piece of each other.

'There is something about you that irritates me like hell.' The words left his mouth as he kept staring at her with these ice-cold eyes of his.

'Tell me about it. Seeing you makes me want to scratch my eyes out.'

He let go of her arm and started to trace her collarbone which was visible above her blouse. Iris' breath startled and she had no clue what to think at this exact moment. His finger moved up to the side of her neck and stopped underneath her ear. Goosebumps spread all over her body and she felt how her body slowly disconnected from her brain. Her breath was only getting more shallow. What the fuck?

Iris noticed how his head moved closer, which stopped right next to her ear. That's when he whispered: 'You're on the edge miss Jansen. You're on the edge.'

And then he stepped away and left the room without saying anything else. Like she just had run a marathon, Iris tried to catch her breath again, which was more difficult than she could've ever imagined. She leant with her hand on her desk to find some kind of stability.

What the hell was this? What was this thing he did to her?

Did he curse her?