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She opened a box and dumped a set of gold and black aprons onto the counter. “As you all know, the best way to market your product is to make sure you know it inside and out.”
I didn’t put on an apron. I just watched.
“Today, I want us to experience the store from the barista side.” She picked up an apron and tossed it to me. “You don’t think you’re above doing this, do you, Mr. Holmes?”
“Don’t worry about him.” Raven, the board member I liked the most, said. “He’s not much of a team player.”
“The apron doesn’t match my suit.”
Kate bit her bottom lip and instructed us to stand behind the counter, as if we were about to serve coffee.
“I’d like to do a mockup interaction since we’re weeks away from rolling out the new luxury menu for higher paying clientele. I’m certain your team is going to encounter a few questions. We need to make sure our five-star marketing matches the service.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, interrupting. “Are you the Chief of Marketing, or the Chief of Customer Service? I’m getting confused…”
“We’ll let you go first, Mr. Holmes.” She ignored my comment and walked to the other side of the counter. “Treat me like you would treat any other customer.”
I stared at her.
“Do you not know the welcome spiel for your own company?”
“I wrote the welcome spiel.” I rolled my eyes, “Welcome to Pier Autumn Coffee—the best place in the country to get coffee. How may I serve you today?”
“I’m not sure.” She smiled. “I saw that you just added some new luxury drinks to the menu. Can you recommend one to me?”
“I can recommend you google it for yourself and let me help the next customer who already has their mind made up.”
She blinked. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a perfect example of what not to do.” She opened a box and pulled out a stack of sleek grey and gold cards. “I took the liberty of designing these invitations that we’ll personally mail to your top tier customers, and we’ll email a version of this to your casual customers. I suggest a training day to make every employee memorize every one of those. Now, let’s try something else—” She looked into my eyes. “I don’t really like the way you made my drink. Can you remake it for me?”
“Yes,” I said. “As soon as you re-pay for it.”
“I need you to take this seriously, James.” She cleared her throat. “I mean, I need you to take this seriously, Mr. Holmes.”
“I’ll take it as seriously as you took ‘us.’”
“What?”
“I’ve never been known to stutter.”
Her face reddened and she let out a breath. “Can you all excuse me and our beloved CEO for a few minutes, please?”
She waited until they moved to the far side of the counter, then she glared at me.
“Look,” she said, pointing her finger. “For the record, I just want to do my job and I’m trying my best to be professional and act like you never existed.”
“You’ve been doing one hell of a job all these years so far.” I glared right back at her. “Shouldn’t be too difficult for you to keep your track record going.”
“Only one of us has a reason to be upset about what happened back then,” she said. “And that person is me. You seem to have moved on and engaged in tons of high profile affairs.”
“None of them resulted in a marriage.”
Silence.
I looked down at her bare ring finger again. “I could’ve told you that you and him weren’t going to work out. Did you leave him, or did he leave you? Oh, wait. Let me guess. You made him a promise you couldn’t keep, too.”
“Fuck you.” She hissed, her chest heaved up and down. “You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about, James Garrett.”
“Did you just curse at your boss?”
“No,” she said. “I just kindly asked him to leave this meeting and go fuck himself.”
“Kate—”
“I’m Kate now?”
“You always will be,” I said. “And because of that, there will be no more attempts at being one hundred percent professional with you.”
“There was never even one attempt.”
like you never were
A few days later…
SEAN HOLMES WAS NOTHING like the man I fell in love with years ago. The old version of him—my “James,” was cocky and dominant for sure, but there was an underlying sweetness and care that made me fall for him. A kind and caring layer that lingered beneath every dirty kiss and breathless orgasm.
But this new version of him? This arrogant, petty as fuck, and devastatingly sexy man was all new. Nonetheless, this was the version that starred in all my recent fantasies, the muse I needed when I rubbed my fingers against my clit at night.
He was far more tolerable in my dreams, so for the next few days, I did my best to limit seeing him so much at work. I didn’t show up to the general staff meetings that he hosted at noon, left all of his emails untouched and unanswered, and if I saw him coming in my direction, I immediately turned around and walked the other way.
