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Ariel walks out of the office with me. The rest of the office is practically empty, no one is sticking their necks out. I expected to see more people here, trying to impress the boss with staying later than he does.
Guess not.
Interesting.
“Looks like we’re all that’s left for the night,” I say.
“I thought…” Ariel looks around the office before pointing down one of the rows. “Someone’s still here.”
I spot the light coming from a cubicle about midway down and nod my head. Good. At least someone wants to keep their job.
Walking down the path, my breath hitches as I catch sight of the hair that has haunted my dreams. So long and beautiful, so full of life.
“Zoe,” I say quietly as I come to stand behind her.
Jumping with a start, she twists around. “Holy crap! You scared the crap out of me!”
“What are you doing?” I ask as I peer over her shoulder.
She has a bunch of social media platforms opened on her monitors, and it looks like she’s been shuffling through tons of paperwork on her desk.
“I’m trying to regain the public’s trust in us. It’s part of the marketing strategy that I’ve been working on. It went viral when it came out that our system was rigged, so I have to fight back with more viral stuff about us fixing that.”
“Hmm, who assigned you the task?” I ask curiously.
“No one. I’ve been trying to spin this thing into a light we can work with since it happened,” she says and looks at me like she’s daring me to question her judgement.
This is something she’s passionate about, I can tell. I can also tell that management isn’t doing their jobs if she took this on her own.
“Can you take a break from it for the night?” I ask.
Nodding her head, she says, “Yeah, I just need to send out one last media blast for the night. I’m trying to explain that we’re under new management and our algorithm has been fixed to actually do what we promised.”
Grabbing a chair from the cubicle next to her, I pull it close to her. Sitting this close is probably a horrible idea, considering how hard it is for me to keep myself from yanking her into my lap and kissing her so fucking hard she’ll never be able to leave me again.
“Can you do that and talk to me about what happened when all the shit hit the fan at the same time?” I ask as I lean in to look at her screen.
“Um… sure,” she says as she makes room for me to watch.
Damn. She smells too good this close up. It’s like the world’s most powerful aphrodisiac mixed with some light flowery scent. I want to lean over and bite her neck, and I can barely stop myself from doing it.
Shit, I’m not this guy. I have self-control dammit!
Shaking my head, I listen as she describes what happened the moment the insider let out that SpinToLove.com was rigged. Then she goes into how she has been trying to plug all the holes in the sinking ship.
By the time she winds down, she’s already sent out her media blast and is sitting back in her chair, looking at me. The way she describes each day of work, coming in to find yet another fire she has to put out, I feel for her. I really do. She’s going to be tainted from working with this shitshow. She may not know it, but other companies are going to remember SpinToLove.com as an example of what not to do.
That is unless we turn it around.
Nodding my head as she falls silent, I can tell she’s terrified of what her future is, but she’s also proud of how hard she’s working to fix someone else’s fuck up.
Smart, beautiful, hardworking, sexy as can possibly be, and she gives a fuck about her job. If I wouldn’t have met her last night, I would have been firing an amazing employee without ever knowing it. Shit. I know that happens in my line of work, but it makes me think a bit on past takeovers.
What else did I miss when I gutted a company?
Pushing away from her cubicle, I smile at her. “Let’s get dinner.”
“Dinner?” she repeats, and confusion fogs her eyes before she realizes what she agreed to earlier.
I almost feel like we should have a contract written up for the next month…
Or maybe I should put a collar around her neck as a reminder for her that she’s mine, entirely, for the next thirty days.
“Yeah, I’m famished,” I say as I offer her my hand.
She takes it to help her stand up from the chair. Then I feel this zap of something that runs straight up my arm, through my heart, and then ends up somewhere between my crotch and brain. It’s such a stunning moment that I just stand here, looking at her.
