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“Kens? Kensley? What's wrong?” Marcy dropped her salad and came around the desk to peek at Kensley’s laptop. Her gasp echoed around the office.
Kensley’s whole body froze solidly.
Based on Hunter McLeod’s email track record, she knew what was going to happen to her the instant she read his invitation to come to his office at 2 o'clock that afternoon.
In twenty minutes, she was going to be fired.
She sprang from the chair again and started pacing the floor. Several times her mouth would open as if her brain had something to say but then back out at the last minute, leaving her mute. Marcy kept trying to intercept her, coming up with possible reasons he wanted to see her, but she knew none of them really fit.
She was going to be fired.
“He could want to see you because he wants to promote you, Kensley. Yes, that's it. It's a promotion email,” Marcy said, but even she wasn’t convinced.
Kensley stopped and shook her head. She wanted to tell Marcy that it was because he had overheard them talking about her virginity. He was going to fire her because he thought she was being unprofessional by discussing her love life at work.
But she could no longer muster any energy to use her words and voice her reasons, what with having a complete meltdown.
Marcy stuffed her back into her chair and handed her a bottle of water.
All she could think about was being fired.
She had never been fired before.
That was going to look horrendous on her résumé.
Nineteen minutes later, every second of it spent in a comatose state, her lunch uneaten, she hobbled her way to stand in front of Ellis Callahan’s office, which now belonged to Hunter McLeod, who would be permanently dismissing her from High Cloud for reasons she didn’t yet know.
Marcy hadn’t left her side and vowed to walk if Kensley was fired, but she also promised to wait outside the office door in case Kensley needed her. She refused to go back to her desk when Sandra ordered her to get back to work.
Then the worst thing that could have happened, happened. Sandra patted Kensley on her shoulder, and then offered her a sympathetic look as she opened the door, and steered Kensley in.
She wassogetting fired.
As soon as she stepped into the office, her body turned into a furnace, her heart into an obstacle course for monkeys high on laughing gas, and she couldn't get one whole proper breath in.
Hunter McLeod stood up immediately to his towering height. And all over again, she was sent spiraling, out of control.
“Ms. Reid,” he said. “This is Charles Smith, my legal adviser.”
Only then did she become aware of the third person in the office. Charles Smith shook her hand warmly.
“It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Reid.”
In the face of danger, also known as Hunter McLeod, she immediately gravitated toward Charles Smith with his graying temples, comforting blue eyes, and easy smile. She shook his hand a little longer than was necessary, almost hanging onto him in fear. She found, in this absolute mild-manner stranger, a lifeline against the other man who owned all the power in the world and could annihilate her in a blink.
“Please, sit.” Charles offered her a seat next to him on the opposite side of Hunter McLeod. She dropped herself into the chair immediately or risked crumbling to the floor.
“Are you going to fire me?” she asked, focusing her attention on the new boss before she had time to rethink her strategy, which really was to stay silent and see what happened.
“What makes you think that?” he asked, leaning back in his chair like some kind of gorgeous, sleek predator. But then that would make her his prey. She wasn’t anyone’s prey.
Forcing herself to tighten her jaw and purse her lips together to hide the way they trembled, she looked him square in the eye in all her Ice-Maiden glory.
He wasn’t going to win. He wasn’t going to beat her. She was going to fight him with all she had. Her level of commitment to the company and her work ethic would stand up to any kind of scrutiny.
Go ahead, buster, take me on.
She was ready.
