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She cocks her head with a frown. “You’ve only known him for like three weeks. How can you think you’re in love?”
That’s the question that I’ve asked myself since the beginning. The way I’ve felt has been so impossible that I have to question it. No one falls in love so quickly. I don’t know anything about him, and he doesn’t know anything about me either.
But the way I burn for him? I can’t ignore it.
“I don’t know. For the past week, I’ve gotten annoyed with every book I’ve picked up. Not because they were bad books, but because the guys didn’t compare.”
She chuckles and lays back on the couch just like she used to. “You’re just getting laid for the first time in too long, and you’re confusing lust and love. Don’t get me wrong. He seems pretty perfect. Rich, hot, and gives a crap about what you like? Almost seems like a fantasy.”
For a moment, I think she’s going to say that she understands how I could fall in love with him. Instead, she says, “But why hasn’t some other woman caught him yet? What’s wrong with him? You’re awesome, but that guy’s dated half of New York. Why is it you’re the first one that’s caught his attention for more than a night?”
Now I’m frowning. “I don’t know. He says it’s because I don’t fall for his charm. He has to work for it.”
Tessa gives me that “are you serious” look. “You don’t think any other women have made him work for anything? I’m telling you, there’s something behind those pretty green eyes that’s broken. You just haven’t been together long enough for you to find it.”
It makes me question things. He does have secrets, but he’s told me about them. Or are there more? I don’t want to talk to Tessa about them, though. Even though she’s my best friend, and I trust her more than anyone else, I don’t feel like she’d understand.
“So, how does it feel to be an official management consultant?”
She sees through the subject change, but she knows me well enough to accept it. “It feels freaking stressful. These companies give us like four days to come up with a plan that magically fixes their problems. It’s not like they’re simple problems either. The last company we worked for just had their VP of technology arrested on bribery charges.”
As the conversation turns away from Em, I loosen up a little. I don’t know why I’m so scared of talking to Tessa about him, but it feels like no one will understand us. Either they’ll think I’m with him for the money, or they’ll think we’re just a couple of idiots.
“What’d you do?” I want to be involved in the conversation with her, but it’s just so far from what I’m focused on. I have to do something no one else has ever done starting tomorrow, and I have to do it on my own.
She sighs and stretches out on the couch even more as though she’s exhausted. “We had to set up a bunch of business ethics seminars and created an open-door policy and really push it through the entire company. None of that was hard, though. It was just work. The shitty thing was when people started coming forward.”
She sighs. “I’m so glad that I’ve never had to work for a company like that. There was so much internal corruption that the only people that got anywhere were the ones who ignored the blatant mismanagement of funds.”
She gives me a grin. “But then we got to clean house. We went through every department and anywhere we found even the slightest accounting error, we dove in deep. So many people got fired.”
“The board of directors was okay with that?”
She nods. “They used it to bring their image from the negative into a positive light. They publicly admitted that they recognized a major problem and dealt with it. It was crazy to watch a company go from terrible to something that might work in a week.”
I chuckle at how excited she is. This is exactly what she dreamed of when she was in college. “I bet that there were a lot of complaints.”
“The board didn’t care. It was deal with the problems or watch their stock sink like the Titanic.”
It’s strange how different our jobs are. I’m about to go spend my days with housewives and stay at home moms while Tessa is telling the heads of corporations how to rebuild an entire culture. Surprisingly, I’m very glad that I have my job and not hers. The last thing I want is to walk into a fight every day.
“I mean, I didn’t do very much since I’m still new. Mostly, I crunched numbers for costs, but I got to watch all of it. It was still the most awe-inspiring thing I’ve ever seen.”
She grins at me. “But tell me about this trip you’ve got. You’re selling a cleaner now instead of that tanner?”
I nod. “Yep. I’m doing a tour across the country over the next month where I get CleanChat stars to try out the product. It’s just me and a camera crew.”
“They didn’t want to let you have anyone else?” She seems confused.
“I told them I didn’t need anyone else. They kind of just let me do whatever I want, and I didn’t really want to argue with people. All I’m doing is coordinating it and letting the CleanChat stars and camera crew do their thing.”
She frowns. “That’s going to be tough with you and Emery being so new, isn’t it?”
That’s the one thing I’ve worried about. We’ve become very close very quickly. “It’s only three days a week, and then I fly home for the weekend. I think it’ll be okay. Plus, the bonus should be nearly six-figures for a month of work.”
Tessa’s jaw drops. “You’re just an intern. How are they going to give you that kind of bonus?”
I had the same question. “Emery says that I’m doing something that will bring Aspire into a new world of advertising. I’m supposed to be the reason that they dominate the ChitChat market.”
