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Out of the corner of her eye, Carys noticed several of her co-workers hurrying down the hallway. “What’s going on?” Carys asked, looking up from her new sketchbook. She was trying to recreate the ideas she’d worked on over the past few weeks since she’d stupidly lost her sketchbook earlier today.

“Mandatory meeting in the conference room,” Marsha called out, passing by Carys’s cubicle.

Marsha paused, her glasses dangling from a beaded string around her neck as she leaned over the edge of Carys’s three-quarter height wall.

“Rumors are that layoffs are coming!” she explained in a mock-whisper.

Carys gasped, her stomach tightening. Layoffs meant that the company was trying to downsize. Was she on the list? Was she going to be cut?

She couldn’t lose her job! She finally earned enough to cover her rent each month, buy food, put a little money away for emergencies, and have a small budget for fun stuff.

For a moment, Carys considered calling Andi, her best friend, who worked in the finance department.

Andi worked for the finance director, but her friend was relatively new in her position as well.

If layoffs were coming, would Andi also be on the list?

Most likely not. Andi was a financial guru, so she was probably safe.

But the people currently on the marketing staff weren’t pulling their weight.

The last several marketing campaigns had been extremely expensive, but absolute duds.

Personally, Carys hadn’t liked the concepts. They’d relied on the old-school methods that had worked ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago. But with social media and the changed attention span due to the shorter video apps, the old marketing concepts didn’t work anymore.

She’d offered her ideas to Dave, her boss.

But he didn’t like them. Carys had suggested a more subconscious marketing concept, something that wasn’t an in-your-face idea.

Pushing a commercial regaling shoppers with the product had worked in the past, but consumers were more sophisticated now and they were too busy for the old-style commercials.

Buyers wanted products that solved a problem.

Looking up, she noticed that everyone in the department was moving toward this mysterious meeting. She looked at her calendar, but she didn’t have any meeting on her schedule. Was she supposed to be in that meeting? Marsha had mentioned that it was mandatory.

“Carys! Aren’t you coming?” another colleague called out.

“To what?” she asked, completely confused. “I didn’t get an email about a meeting.”

Mark waved his hand as he hurried down the beige carpeted hallway, his eyes alert and concerned. “It’s an ‘all-hands’ meeting. We got an email from Dave about twenty minutes ago. Come on,” another person called out.

Nervous now, because she hadn’t received any such message, Carys stood up and followed the line of people heading into the department’s main conference room.

Since Carys had been the only one to not receive a message about the meeting, did that mean that she was about to be laid off?

Her heart thudded against her chest as she followed everyone to the conference room.

It was packed, which was a good thing, because Carys wanted to hide in the back of the room just in case she wasn’t supposed to be here.

While they waited for the meeting to begin, everyone whispered, speculating about what the meeting was about. Layoffs and firings were the main supposition. Suggestions about who would be on the chopping block came next.

Carys crossed her arms and pressed her back against the wall when two people turned to look at her, pity in their eyes. She swallowed hard as her stomach twisted warningly. Did they know something? Had they heard that her name was on the chopping block?

Thankfully, someone walked into the conference room from the opposite end of the room, pulling everyone’s attention in that direction.

Carys still shrank back, wondering if she should slip out and head back to her desk to pack up her belongings.

It would be more dignified if she could just leave without everyone witnessing her “walk of shame”.

“I’d like to thank everyone for coming on such short notice,” a deep, sexy male voice announced. Carys couldn’t see the man because she was shorter than the people in front of her, but that was okay. It was nice to be invisible.

“I’ve called this meeting to talk to all of you. We have some excellent products in this company. However, it doesn’t matter how good something is, if we can’t announce to the world that our product is better than the others out there. Right?”

There was a murmuring of agreement and several of the people in front of her shifted on their feet. Had the energy in the room just intensified? Carys noticed that her coworkers seemed to stand a bit straighter too.

“Since we’re all in agreement, I’m announcing that we need to halt all currently running marketing campaigns.

They’re terrible.” There were a few gasps of shock, but Carys pursed her lips, trying to stifle the “Yeah!” that wanted to burst from her lips.

“The current campaigns aren’t selling the company’s products.

We need to shift to a more dynamic approach.

” Through the gaps in the bodies in front of her, Carys could see a part of the man’s face, but not all of him.

She shifted slightly, bringing the man’s arm and shoulder into view.

Suddenly, that arm lifted a notebook in the air and Carys recognized her sketchbook.

She gasped and someone in front of her turned, looking at her curiously.

“Sorry!” she whispered, pressing harder against the wall behind her.

“I’m looking for Carys?” the deep, sexy voice called out.

Carys froze. Should she speak up?

“Carys Remington?” The sexy-voice person clarified. “The owner of this sketchbook.”

Before Carys had a chance to brace herself, the people in front of her stepped aside, revealing her hiding place to the man with the deep voice.

Looking up, she locked eyes with the man from the park.

He was even more breathtaking here in the office where he towered over the others.

The tallest person in the marketing department was Dave, the director, who was only about five feet, nine inches tall.

The man standing there staring at her was nearly a head taller than Dave.

Carys’s mind fizzled as she stared into the dark depths of the gorgeous man’s eyes she remembered from the park.

But instead of the soft, fascinating smile he’d given her earlier today, the man’s expression was tight and determined. Triumphant almost.

Why triumphant? Was he about to fire her? Now? In front of everyone?

Carys straightened up, lifting her chin slightly. If she was going to be fired, then so be it! She’d leave with her head high!

“These drawings,” he began, then pulled his eyes away from her. Carys felt as if she’d suddenly been released. She was like a life raft floating in the roiling ocean, adrift and vulnerable, the waves of uncertainty crashing around her. Exposed and bereft, she felt a sudden cold of disconnection.

His eyes lifted, locking onto hers again, and it felt like a lighthouse had pierced through the storm.

The turbulent sea calmed, and Carys felt anchored and secure.

The warmth and intensity in his gaze made her feel safe, like she was no longer alone in the vast, chaotic ocean.

He was a lifeline, pulling her from the depths of uncertainty back to solid ground, leaving her breathless with the sheer relief of it.

No, relief wasn’t the right word. Because this man was dangerous. Not malicious, she thought, but…definitely dangerous.

“Your ideas are brilliant,” he announced. “We’re going to implement them for the next campaign.”

It took her a pregnant moment to understand his words, then Carys’s jaw dropped and she heard gasps of surprise throughout the room.

Dave cleared his throat and Carys was vaguely aware of the marketing director trying to appear as if he were still in charge of his department, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the taller man.

She was his prisoner and Carys didn’t care that he had her tethered to him in such a sensuous hold.

Someone patted her arm and said, “Congrats.” For some reason, that touch seemed to break the spell and Carys glanced around, suddenly feeling her face flame with color.

Thankfully, the man on the opposite side of the room pulled everyone’s attention back to him.

“The ideas in these sketches are the best I’ve seen in a long time.

” He turned to Dave, handing him the sketchbook.

Dave flipped through the sketchbook and Carys shrank back again when Dave finally looked up to glare at her.

She’d shown him those ideas several months ago and he’d laughed her out of his office, telling her that she needed to go back to marketing school.

He’d hated her ideas and she hadn’t had the courage to bring anything else to him since that horrible meeting.

The man continued, pulling Dave’s gaze back to him.

“But this is just one product. I’m looking for new and interesting ideas, people.

We have more than one hundred products that need new and innovative ideas to get the consumers’ attention.

I want something interesting. I want something that no one has tried before.

Give me new and daring ideas.” He offered a general nod to the group.

“We’ll have daily inspiration meetings. I’m open to anything and everything.

Give me your weirdest, stupidest, most bizarre ideas.

The original concept might not work, but your idea might spark something that can be built upon.

” He looked around. “I want this group to start acting like a team. If you think that sharing ideas and collaborating to build a brilliant marketing idea isn’t a good idea, then submit your resignation.

I want new ideas. I want crazy, wild, off the wall ideas.

” Carys was entranced. This…this is what a leader should be, she thought with admiration.

“That’s all,” he announced with another nod to the group, then his eyes lasered in on her. “Carys, could I speak with you in my office please?”

There were two sets of doors to this conference room and everyone immediately started slinking out through the back door, near where she was standing.

Some of the younger team members looked excited, even eager.

But Carys knew that Dave and his assistant director, Tanya, had suppressed so many ideas over the years.

The older team members had been beaten down.

Dave and Tanya didn’t want to cede power by accepting new ideas for fear that they’d be phased out by younger, more vibrant marketing concepts.

So now, the new guy was eliminating the gatekeepers.