“It won’t work, Amelia.” He took a few steps toward me.
“Whatever you say, Zackary.” Fucking with him might be my new favorite pastime.
“It won’t take me very long to come up with another excuse to have you fired.” He was onto me now, a smile threatening the corners of his mouth as he continued to walk closer.
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“How long do you think you’ll last this time? A week? A month, maybe, tops?” He stopped a foot away, looking down at me.
God, he smelled good.
“Oooh, a whole month? Now you’re giving me too much credit, Mr. Evans.” I had to crane my neck to maintain eye contact. Even though I was in heels, he was still a few inches taller than me.
Seriously, he smelled so good. It was actually becoming harder to concentrate.
“I’m a generous person, Ms. Bloom.” A dimple.
Ignore. And whatever you do, don’t look at his mouth.
“You always have been.” Sarcasm drenched my words.
Do not look at his mouth.
“Glad you think so. It’s always nice when you like your boss,” he teased.
Do. Not. Look. At. His. Mouth.
“Mmhm.” I nodded. I didn’t know why we were talking so quietly now. “It’s so crucial. I’m very lucky.”
Don’t do it.
“The luckiest,” he agreed as our staring contest continued. He was standing so close now…
Milly, I’ll kill you if you break and look a—
A knock on the door startled both of us, making my heart rocket into another orbit. Zac took a step away from me before it opened.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” Margaret walked in. “Here’s the file you’d asked for. All of the current contacts have been updated.” She handed a blue folder to Zac.
“Great, thank you.”
“Oh, and Milly, could you do me a favor and get me a rundown of all of your current open accounts and any leads you’re working on? The more detailed the better.”
“Yes, absolutely.” I felt a little dizzy.
“Thanks. Next week is fine. Have a good evening,” she said and left with a wave, her heels clicking all the way down the hall.
“You can go too. It’s late,” Zac said as he casually walked back to his desk, his attention now on reviewing the file that was handed to him. “We’ll review the details of the account on Monday.”
Dismissive.
“Uh, yes, okay. See you then.” The words sounded a little rushed out of my mouth as I turned around to leave.
“And Amelia—” He was still looking down. “—we’re expected in New York in two weeks to meet some of the Yuval and Emerson people and discuss strategy. You’ll need to be all caught up on the account details by then. We’ll be there for a week, and I’ll have Andrew book your flight and hotel. Just make sure you get together with him and confirm the details.”
“Sure, will do. Thanks.”
I grabbed my things, left the building, got into a cab, made it into my apartment, flopped onto the couch, and my stupid heart was still acting like I’d just finished a spin class.
Who had really been fucking with who? You are such an idiot.
I didn’t have a ton of time to beat myself up over it, now knowing that I needed to prepare for New York. I grabbed my laptop and spent the better portion of the weekend doing research on our new client. It was the perfect distraction.
Plus, I could always just win the next round.
8
I got to the office at a quarter to six on Monday morning, getting a head start on the summary of accounts I had promised Margaret. Zac had put a four-hour meeting in my calendar starting at 9:00 a.m. so that he could start to catch me up on the Emerson account details. By the time I’d finished putting together the document, my five-minute meeting reminder popped up.
Perfect timing.
I quickly typed out the email to Margaret and sent everything over, then looked up and through the glass wall into Zac’s office to see if he was ready.
For the last three months, I’d pretended that wall didn’t exist. Not only had I actively refused to look through it, but I’d strategically placed several plants to obstruct a good portion of my view into the room without making it seem obvious that’s what I was doing.
He was currently seated at his desk, typing on his computer. I watched him for a few seconds, debating whether to interrupt or not. He was wearing his glasses…
Zackary Evans
Stop staring and come here
The IM popped up on my screen before I could make a decision. He hadn’t taken his eyes off his computer the entire time I’d been looking, which had been a maximum of five seconds, I swear.
Amelia Bloom
I wasn’t staring
* * *
Zackary Evans
Not subtly you weren’t
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my notebook and made my way over.
“Good morning,” I said politely, taking a seat in one of the black leather chairs in front of his desk, facing him.
He pointed to a chair that he’d pulled beside him. “You’ll need to be able to see my screens.”
“Right.” I got up and made my way around the desk, sitting as far away from him as possible while still being able to read what was on his monitors.
He smelled like soap mixed with his signature cologne.
I pushed my chair back a little farther.
For the next few hours, he talked me through the details of the proposal and the campaign, everything he’d worked on so far, what had been promised, what we were responsible for, and what we would be working together with Yuval on.
It was a lot.
The amount of work he’d put into this thing would have taken the average person well over a year to do; he’d managed it in four months. It was really hard not to be impressed.
Believe me, I tried.
I took extensive notes and asked questions until I was confident I had all of the information needed. I hadn’t noticed it was already past one o’clock until Andrew knocked on the door, asking us if we’d like lunch delivered.
“I actually have to leave for a client event shortly,” Zac said as he took a quick look at his watch. Apparently, he’d also lost track of time.
“I’m good too. I’ll just grab something quick from downstairs. Thank you, Andrew.”
“I’ll send you copies of all of this right now so you can get started,” Zac said once his assistant had left.
“Can’t you just add me to the shared folder?” It seemed like the obvious thing to do.
He gave me a look, his eyebrows slightly raised.
“Oh my God. You cannot actually still think I’m going to screw you over on this whole thing. Zac, I didn’t know.” I emphasized the last bit, speaking slowly as if to a toddler.
“Guilty until proven innocent when it comes to you, Amelia,” he said, dragging the files into an email and sending them to me.
“You are so cynical.” I gathered my notes and stood up. “But fine. It’ll be a pain in your ass, not mine, to have to then save all my work in there.”