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It’s a no go. A hard pass. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t text him the second he messaged me. Those giddy little feelings are my kryptonite. I suppose there’s always an exception to every rule and Adrian Bradford is just that: exempt from every boundary I’ve spent years defining. Even as I sit at my desk, the tapping of keys and hushed chatter around me, I can barely keep from looking toward the elevator. All I want to know is if he’s up there. I want to know if he can’t stop thinking about what happened on his desk either.
Hours pass slowly through the day until I get a text message from him at four. His name on my phone makes the temperature of my body kick up a notch. I swallow hard, trying to subdue it all.
Adrian:Meet me at the elevator at six.
The hours went by slowly before but now they drag on and on, each tick of the clock taking forever. I stare at my computer screen, rereading every email twice. Triple-checking my responses to clients and sending back nearly every design I’m given from the graphics department. Not because they need changing or that they don’t fit the branding for said clients. But simply because I can’t focus and there’s no way in hell I’m approving anything when all I keep imagining is my boss’s expression when he calls me good girl.
At four fifteen there’s a meeting in one of the smaller conference rooms downstairs. It’s all I can do not to stare at Adrian through the large paned windows. In the glances I do steal, he appears less than thrilled. Every expression is dour as they leave one by one, Adrian leaving last and not looking back.
At ten to five, half a dozen executive assistants and senior executive assistants, some of whom I know but most I don’t,move through the office in a clump. It’s a relief that something has happened to break up the routine of the day.
“Fired,” Gail whispers to me. I nearly spill my coffee when she does. I didn’t realize she was standing so close, also spying.
“What?” I question. I’ve known Gail for years now. She’s a damn good resource for client retention, but also the lead watercooler gossip. “Did you say fired? Are you sure?”
Nodding, she sweeps her curly dark brown hair back over one shoulder and then holds her coffee cup with both hands. In heels and leaning against the wall, the modelesque Latina in her late twenties towers over me. “I bet there will be an email going out soon.”
All of them? Fired?She leaves me with a sick feeling stirring in the pit of my stomach as she bids her farewell. “It’s what he does. No one should be surprised.”
I know he has a reputation, but how the hell can a company run if every executive is severed?
Not long after that, an assistant director, Daniel Prath, who I spotted in the conference room earlier, has a screaming fit at the elevators with another man I don’t know. Including the phrases, “this company would have gone under without me” and “good luck staying in business.”
They must be fired, then.
Although the whispers that spread, in part largely to Gail, include fears of the company running with so many leads laid off at once, most don’t mind seeing them leave. I’m certain a few who were under the executive assistant in finance will cheer in celebration to that prick’s departure. All I ever heard about him were complaints.
It doesn’t take more than an hour to pass before there’s a conclusion among the majority of whispers: Those men encompass all that is wrong with the corporate world. They let people go rather than compensating them in the mannerthey should have been paid. They hired new employees and paid them less, pushing more onto everyone else’s plate. They demanded more and more from all of us, wanting everyone to take one for the team while increasing their bonuses every year.
It’s not good for a business to run that way, and it’s not good for people to live that way. The management here uses up employees until they break, then fires them and starts over. They’ve never acknowledged or paid their respects to the employees who made the company what it is.
And now they’re walking out the door.
Five o’clock comes and nearly everyone is gone already. Most taking the day off to “readjust” to new procedures from their higher-ups. I stay, like I always do. The last hour, when everyone’s left and it’s quiet, when the emails stop and calls go to voicemail, are my most productive. Judging by Adrian’s statement yesterday, and his message from today, six is when the clock strikes midnight for him as well.
Somehow, that makes those giddy, girly feelings all the headier.
It’s six on the dot when I press the silver button with the arrow icon pointing downward for the elevator. I don’t know how I’m able to stand upright, with the nervousness that runs through me.
It isn’t like me, none of this is. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t thrilling.
When the doors open, my heart races at the sight in front of me. Adrian is already there waiting for me. Forcing myself to move slowly so he doesn’t see my anxiousness, I move to his side and turn to face the doors. “I expect there will be a company-wide email shortly,” I say to him as if it’s casual conversation. We both stare straight ahead, the doors still open, making each second pass by at an achingly slow rate.
“Why is that?” He moves to press the button for the foyer and I note the way his bespoke suit wraps around his broad shoulders. And the way he fills the not-so-small cabin with his presence alone.
“I hear heads will be rolling.”
As the elevator door closes, he smirks at me, a devilish look that brings an overwhelming heat to my cheeks. The elevator begins its descent and he asks, “Is that the talk at the watercooler?”
“More like the profanity Prath screamed on his way out.”
He chuckles, then reaches for the button again. One strong knuckle pushes in the emergency stop button.
Tick,tick,tick, my heart rages in my chest. Desire fills me, moving over my skin and pinning me in place. I should know better than to do this but I don’t. He’s a fantasy come to life and I won’t deny myself. How could a lowly sinner say no when the devil himself tempts her?
Confined in a small space together with no way out unless he decides and presses that button … all I feel is want and desire.
With one decisive stride, Adrian towers over me and personal space is nonexistent. My heel slips back half a step before I think better of it. He was calm and collected when I stepped onto the elevator, but now his eyes burn with a hunger I know all too well. With my next breath, the scent of his cologne fills my lungs.