Page 27 of Babies for the Big Shot

Sara

I might be hangingon by a thread.

A thin, fraying, caffeine-soaked thread that’s doing its absolute best to hold me together while the rest of me spirals into corporate crush hell.

After Elevator Moment 2.0, aka the sequel no one asked for but everyone with a libido is still thinking about, I’ve been useless. My skin still buzzes from the way he looked at me. Not just looked.Devoured. He memorized me molecule by molecule. One more second and we’d have been back where we started, pressed against a wall, forgetting how to breathe.

But then he walked away.

Which… fine. Great. Perfect. Walk away, Mr. Brooding Morality Clause. I can walk away, too. I can be just as cool and collected and professionally aloof as he is.

Spoiler alert: I cannot.

Because now it’s 6:48 p.m., the office is empty, the lights are on that weird motion-sensor dim, and I’m still here. Not because I’m trying to impress anyone. Not because I’m dying for another chance to bump into Nick Ashford and his rolled-up sleeves and deadly forearms and unfair jawline.

No. I’m here because the client revisions on the fall campaign are a flaming dumpster fire, and someone has to fix it. And apparently, that someone is me.

I groan and rub my eyes, blinking at the last slide on my screen. The font’s off. The tagline’s flat. And I’m ninety percent sure the stock photo we used of a woman holding a pumpkin latte is the same one I used on a meme in college titled “White Girl Autumn.”

I save, close the laptop, and head down the hall toward the print room, because of course I need to grab the backup copy I forgot about.

That’s when I see it—his office light is still on.

Drawn forward, powerless, I drift closer to the world’s hottest flame.

I don’t go home, to my own apartment that I’vefinallymoved into. No, I edge nearer to him.

He’s alone. Leaning over his desk. Tie gone. Top two buttons undone. Sleeves rolled up, forearms flexing as he scribbles something in the margins of a printed report.

And there goes my last functioning brain cell.

“Seriously?” I say, because apparently I’ve lost the ability to walk away silently, normally.

He glances up, surprised. “Sara.”

“Do you sleep here now, or is that just a CEO thing?”

He straightens, setting the pen down with an exaggerated calm that doesnotmatch the heat in his eyes. “Late night. Lots of moving parts.”

I cross my arms. “Right. Like ignoring all my edits and sending the deck back to creative without telling me?”

His brow lifts. “Because your edits pushed us twenty percent over budget.”

“They also added structure and narrative flow. But sure, let’s nickel and dime the one thing the board is actually excited about.”

He walks around the desk slowly, careful not to spook me. “You think this is about the board?”

I blink. “Isn’t it?”

“No.” His voice is quiet. Too quiet. “It’s about you.”

My pulse stumbles. “Excuse me?”

“You’re amazing at this,” he says, stepping closer. “Smart. Sharp. You’ve taken a campaign on life support and made it compelling. But when you steamroll a budget, I have to rein it in.”

“Oh,” I snap. “So now I’m impulsive and reckless?”

“I didn’t say that.”