Page 9 of Babies for the Big Shot

CHAPTER TWO

Nick

ONE WEEK LATER

The board meetingwrapped fifteen minutes ago, leaving behind the stench of burnt coffee, overstretched cologne, and the unmistakable sweat of men who mistake volume for authority.

Half the room spent an hour dismantling my acquisition proposal with the kind of shallow analysis that makes me question the recruitment standards I signed off on. The rest sat in passive agreement, nodding with the mechanical rhythm of people more concerned with protecting their inbox than saying anything useful.

I’ve had three coffees strong enough to etch glass, no lunch unless half a protein bar qualifies, and my patience is thinning by the second, unspooling under the weight of incompetence I no longer find surprising.

And yet, none of it holds my attention.

Not the half-billion-dollar acquisition stalled in legal, not the brewing turf war between my CFO and R&D over Q3 capital, not the stack of budget amendments I should have signed off on before noon.

No. My mind is elsewhere.

Still caught in a loop.

Her.

The woman from the elevator.

The one with the sharp tongue and sharper eyes, eyes that looked straight through the veneer I’ve cultivated over decades and left me exposed. She didn’t flinch, didn’t defer, didn’t care. She just watched, evaluated, cut straight to the bone without saying a word.

And her body, Christ, her body didn’t just tempt. It undid. Twenty years of restraint fell under her gaze, not with effort, but inevitability. I wasn’t a man in control. I was wreckage, peeled open with the taste of blood and surrender already in my mouth.

I never got her last name. She didn’t offer, and I didn’t ask. We both understood the nature of that encounter. It was meant to be anonymous. Forgettable. A moment of heat in a city designed to make human connection impossible.

But her first name, justSara, landed in my mind and embedded itself with the precision of a branding iron. Every time I try to redirect my attention, it resurfaces. And her laugh has haunted every room I’ve walked into since.

It meant nothing. A lapse in control I don’t allow myself. Ever. My life runs on discipline, on boundaries, on a refusal to let impulse win.

But I haven’t stopped thinking about her.

The way she looked at me… assessing risk, not romance. That flash of uncertainty when she whispered my name, strangled by need and something she clearly resented.

Nick.

No one says my name that way anymore. Not with surprise. Not with disbelief.

I drag a hand across my jaw. Two days’ worth of stubble catches against my palm. I should have shaved this morning, butsleep’s been elusive. Again. I spent the better part of the night staring at the ceiling, replaying that elevator ride in forensic detail. Every glance. Every movement.

Every fractured second when her defenses slipped and something real surfaced beneath the bravado.

There’ve been plenty of women. Their names blur. Their faces dissolve before the valet brings the car around. I keep it simple: discreet, clean exits. No mess. No entanglements.

But her, wild hair, stubborn chin, eyes that saw too much—she’s stayed.

She’s lodged somewhere I can’t ignore.

“Mr. Ashford?” My assistant’s voice cuts through the intercom, brittle around the edges. Emily’s been managing my schedule for years, her exhaustion today tells me the parade of interviewees hasn’t impressed. “Last interview of the day is here. Sara Brooks, a late addition. Bit of a scramble in HR. Tina’s still cursing about the paperwork.”

Tina. Of course. She runs this floor as if it’s a battalion and doesn’t get rattled unless someone else has created a mess beyond her control. If she’s cursing, there’s been a breakdown somewhere upstream.

“Send her in,” I say, leaning back into the leather chair, gaze flicking toward the skyline outside my office. One minute to reset.

I already know I’m not hiring anyone else today. The applicants have been uninspiring. Ambitious on paper, forgettable in person. All bright smiles, hollow answers, eager to please. I’ve seen it a thousand times. None of them have it.