Page 180 of His Good Girl

My heart stopped.

“What do you suspect?” I didn’t mean to whisper, but I’m pretty sure I did.

“That Mr. Rowe has finally decided subtlety has run its course.”

“Ben.”

His mouth curved by one millimeter. “Also, wear waterproof mascara.”

I walked away before my face could become a corporate incident.

At my desk, I opened my phone again and read the messages. For the next ten minutes, I accomplished nothing. Then I did the only sensible thing.

I texted Jules.

Me:He said dinner tonight. He’s going to ask me something. He told me to wear a pencil skirt.

Her response came so quickly I suspected she had been waiting somewhere in the atmosphere for exactly this crisis.

Jules:Oh!

Me:Oh?

Jules:Oh.

Me:Use language.

Jules:That man is proposing or firing you and I choose proposing.

Me:Don’t say that.

Jules:Why? Because you already thought it and now you want to throw your phone?

I set my phone face down on the desk. Then I picked it up again because I was weak.

Me:What do I doooo?

Jules:Are you asking as a feminist, an employee, a girlfriend, or a woman?

I looked across the operations floor toward one of the conference rooms. The door was closed. The blinds were half drawn. Through the sliver of glass, I could see him standing near the center table with Dana, both of them bent over a set of Hartwell plans. He wore a dark suit today, but the jacket was draped over a chair. His white shirt was crisp, top button undone, no tie, sleeves rolled to his forearms.

I guess no one in this company cared about my long-term survival. His head was lowered, his expression serious, one hand braced on the edge of the table. As if he felt me looking, heglanced up and from across the floor, through glass and work and all the public respectability we had fought like hell to earn, his eyes found mine and I forgot what oxygen was for. He looked at me for one second. Then his gaze dropped, not to my body, not obviously, but to the phone in my hand, then back to my face. One eyebrow lifted. I turned around so fast my chair squeaked.

Me:He knows I’m panicking.

Jules:Of course he does. That man built a career reading load stress.

Me:I am load stress.

Jules:You are load-bearing chaos.

Me:Should I wear the skirt?

Jules:Do you want the command or the choice?

That gave me pause. Jules had developed an irritating habit of becoming wise when I most needed her to remain ridiculous.

I stared at the message.