THE PRESENTATION CONSUMED MOST of my evening and I’ve only gotten two hours of sleep when it’s time to wake the twins the next morning. I felt sorry for Caleb when I saw his truck pull up late last night—I assume, based on his stress level, he was just getting home from work—but I feel sorrier for myself. When Sophie cries about how unfair it is that we have to get up so early, I want to agree.
I get through the school drop-off then rush past scowling Kayleigh the receptionist and work frantically until it’s time to go to the conference room.
When I arrive, it’s Caleb I notice first, sitting at the end of the table like a king. A lovely king, his tie askew, jaw still in need of a shave, offering me a forced, reluctant smile.
No, not a lovely king. A married one who wants to fire me and who may be furious in a minute.
And yet, even now, I can’t shake this lingering feeling from childhood, this certainty that he’s mine. I’d better figure out how to shake it soon.
“Welcome, Lucie,” Mark says, gesturing to a guy my age and an older female. “You’ve met Caleb, of course. Debbie is the head of HR and Hunter is our VP of sales. Our board members will be watching your presentation online, so we’re ready whenever you are.”
I take a deep breath as I move to the front of the room, doing my best to ignore the random sounds coming from the video attendees I can’t see. Sweat trickles down my back as they watch me fumble, trying to get my laptop to connect. I entered every beauty pageant that offered scholarship money as a teen, so parading in front of three people should be no big deal, but my dress feels too tight, my heels too high, and I’ve only used a smart board once in my life. The odds of this going well are diminishing by the second.
“It’s not…” I mumble, flushing, clicking the connect button again and again.
Hunter walks over to help, thank God.
“Ah,” he says after a second. “Not your fault. The conference room is on a different network and this laptop they gave you is ancient. Here—”
With two clicks of the mouse, my presentation goes up on the board and I beam at him like he’s a nurse handing me my newborns for the first time. “Thanks.”
“Can we get going?” Caleb asks. “We have a whole lot to discuss today.”
I stare at him. What the hell happened to that infinitely sweet boy who was so kind to me as a kid, so patient? Because there’s no sign of him now.
“My idea is a walking challenge,” I begin, and Caleb’s eyes narrow. “Employees would divide into teams and compete to get the most miles. It’s healthy, obviously, but it would also foster some fun, friendly competition between departments.”
A disembodied voice—one of the board members, I assume—says, “What a fabulous idea.”
Caleb clearly does not agree. “I don’t understand why anyone would choose to participate in this,” he says, his eyes dark.
I forward to the next slide. If he hated the idea before, he’s about to hate it even more. “Prizes. The winning team would get a party and an extra day off, but there’d also be tiered incentives like a grand prize to the person with the most miles. A trip for two, with TSG paying the hotel and airfare.”
“Jesus,” he groans. “Do you have any idea how much that would cost?”
I’m sure if I got more sleep, I’d handle his criticism better. But I didn’t get more sleep and he’s kind of being a dick. My aunt was a brutal critic of any plan presented to her and even she wasn’t this bad. “Well, according to your corporate travel policy,” I reply tartly, “the company is keeping the miles accrued when people travel for work, so you could use those to cover both travel and hotel.”
Caleb rattles a pen against the table. “What are these other tiers?”
I flip to the next screen, fighting the mounting sense that I’ve failed miserably. “Restaurant gift cards—that kind of thing. Overall, there’s very little cost to the company for these prizes compared to the amount of goodwill they’ll generate.”
Caleb pushes away from the table. “Listen, the whole purpose of this is to retain employees, not generate goodwill—you really think you can keep everyone at their job because they have a quarter of a percent chance at winning a prize?”
I’m too irritated for diplomacy. “Everyone? No. I figure at least five people in the building have already accepted positions elsewhere and just haven’t given notice. But if you’re asking me to prove it works, all I really need to show is that fewer people have left, don’t I?”
There’s quiet laughter from the video participants, but all my attention is focused on Caleb, staring at me balefully from beneath those dark brows. Such a lovely face, wasted on such an irritating man.
His gaze shifts from me to the smart board. “There’s no way you came up with this so fast on your own.”
“BP oil did something similar.” Really, really similar. I offer him a saccharine smile. “I can be more creative, but not when I’ve only had twenty-four-hours’ notice.”
“Wonderful work, Lucie,” says a video attendee somewhere. “You’re exactly what we needed.”
“Yes, Miss Monroe,” Caleb growls. “Thanks for being so helpful.”
I stare at him. This is the man about whom I crafted elaborate fantasies for a decade of my life, fantasies in which I somehow proved my worth. I wanted to save him—like Belle saved the Beast, like Mulan saved Shang—because how else does a girl no one wants win over the boy beloved by everyone?
I should have focused more on how I’d save myself.
4
CALEB
The look Mark gives me as he walks into my office is asking the same question it often does: Why?
Why did you cancel the holiday party?
Why can’t employees keep their airline miles?
Why did you close the seventh floor?
He sinks into the chair across from my desk. “Why were you so rude to her this morning?”
Because I thought she understood the assignment, and she clearly didn’t.
I slam my laptop shut with a sigh. “I asked a handful of entirely reasonable questions about a program that will cost way more than she’s indicating it will. The better question is why you hired her in the first place. She didn’t even know how to work a fucking smart board.”
“I liked her enthusiasm.”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah. I bet a lot of men like her ‘enthusiasm.’ Hunter was so smitten by her enthusiasm he could hardly function today.” Fucking MBA from Harvard and she reduced him to a lovesick teenager in a matter of seconds. If he’d seen her Saturday night—miles of bare skin, nipples pebbled tight under a soaking wet tank top—he’d have written her a blank check.
Mark runs his tongue over his teeth, struggling to remain patient. “Caleb, she did an amazing job, and you were borderline rude the entire time.”
“I don’t especially enjoy getting to know people who will soon be former employees, especially when they live next door to me. And we both know she isn’t going to last. I told you I was only keeping this person on for three months and you led her to believe it was permanent. That’s on you.”
“I hired her for a permanent position because this should be a permanent position and I assumed you’d come to your senses.” He climbs to his feet. “Based on what she just did today, you already should have.”
I can’t even argue. She knocked it out of the park, but that changes nothing. She still can’t stay.
I head to my friend’s bar a short time later. I’d prefer to skip the weekly get-together, but I’ve been out of town for weeks and it’s easier to get it over with than having my friends harass me by phone for the rest of the week.