Say You Still Love Me(2)

“The Waterway project is the crown jewel for this company. That’s where our focus is right now,” Tripp retorts, his chest beginning to puff out as he gathers his confidence back.

“Yes. It’s an enormous project. Too large, some are suggesting.” Architecturally beautiful twin towers of mixed residential and hotel atop the city’s waterfront market. “And we’re still looking for investors for that, which means now is not the time to be dropping the ball on our other projects,” I remind him tersely. “Mark?” I turn to my assistant, who sits beside me, studiously typing out meeting notes on his laptop. “Did Adriane’s assistant call back yet?”

Mark clears his throat, struggling to keep a serious face. “Yes. She has tomorrow morning at nine available.” The same time as Tripp’s standing tee-off time. To be fair, I didn’t specifically ask for a Friday morning meeting when I called Adriane.

“Perfect. We all know Tripp is free then.” I turn back to Tripp, whose cheeks are flushed with red. “Make sure you bring the right people with you when you go in to meet with her. And call me on your way back with an update, which I expect will be favorable. Unless you need me to come with you to the meeting to help get the final sign-offs?” From the corner of my eye, I catch a few smirks around the table. I don’t acknowledge any of them, though, keeping my steady gaze locked on Tripp, my expression flat.

“No. Of course not,” he answers gruffly.

“Good! I think we’re done here, then.” I force a chipper tone. I collect my phone and my notepad and stand, feeling a room of gazes drift downward to my emerald-green dress, the sleeves capped to show off my toned arms, the waist cinched to flatter my curves. Whatever they may think about me running the show, none have ever hidden the fact that they enjoy the view. I don’t particularly relish the attention, but I also refuse to hide my femininity behind wide-leg trousers and bulky blazers because they can’t keep their leering eyes away.

“See everyone at the next meeting.” I stroll out of the boardroom with my head held high, making sure my heels clack extra loud for Tripp, in case he missed the part where the tart just handed him his ass.

“That was deeply satisfying,” Mark murmurs, closing the distance quickly to walk beside me, his laptop tucked under his arm.

“Let’s just hope it works,” I mutter, the wave of adrenaline that spurred me on now giving way to anxiety as I wonder what Tripp’s next move in this power play will be, and how I’ll need to pivot. I swallow against the case of nerves and peer up at Mark, meeting his broad smile. “But yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

Mark is tall—well over six feet—and wiry, which makes every button-down shirt he wears too baggy on his slender frame. I’d love to give him a few pointers in the wardrobe department, but our employer-employee relationship hasn’t reached that stage yet.

We’re quite comfortable in the “plotting together to trounce misogynistic jerks” stage, though.

He reaches around me to pull open the glass door to Calloway’s executive wing—executive alley, we call it—and hold it for me.

“Thank you, kind sir,” I offer dramatically, smiling as I recall the first time he did this, during his interview for the assistant’s position. I had faltered at the threshold, surprised by the gentlemanly gesture. He immediately began backpedaling, promising through stumbled words that the move in no way reflected his beliefs about a woman’s ability to hold her own doors open. He confided later that he was sure he had blown the interview.

Meanwhile I knew right then and there that, while he had zero experience, he was the right person for the job. Polite, considerate, but also in tune with the twenty-first century.

“You’re welcome, milady,” he says without missing a beat and with a terribly fake cockney accent that makes me chuckle. Deep dimples form in his cheeks. He’s attractive, with a full head of blond hair that he runs a gel-coated hand through each morning, at most, earnest blue eyes that lock on yours when you’re in conversation, and a clean-cut jaw that makes him look a decade younger than his thirty-four years. If I were interested in dating, and not his boss, Mark might be a man who’d pique my interest.

But I am his boss, and I’m eons away from heading back down the let’s-get-to-know-each-other path with any man.

Thanks mainly to the jackass in the custom-tailored navy suit lingering straight ahead.

I sigh heavily. If there is one person who can deflate my triumphant high, it’s David Worthington. “When’s my next meeting? Noon?” I ask Mark.

“One P.M.” His gaze narrows on David’s hand as it carelessly flicks the wooden blades of the delicate miniature windmill on Mark’s desk—a gift from Mark’s mom to celebrate his first desk job: a symbol of his Danish roots. A replacement of the one David broke a month ago, doing this very same thing.

Mark dislikes David—with a passion, I’d hazard—but he has yet to say anything openly. That could be on account of David being VP of Sales & Marketing.

Or because David’s missing an assistant and Mark has been helping to fill the gap, catering to David’s demanding and sometimes childish needs.

Or because David’s my ex-fiancé.

“I’m gonna run out to grab sushi. Do you want me to pick you up some?” Mark offers, eager to get away.