One Night Stand with My Boss novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Clean Slate

Elliot tells her the night never happened and puts her on his biggest pitch; she sets her own terms, then learns the client's brand director is her ex.

I stepped off the stage with ninety people watching and a phone in each hand.

A woman in a headset touched my elbow.

"Mr. Maddox would like to see you in his office," she said. "Now, please."

She said it kindly.

His office took up the whole corner of the floor.

It had a brick wall and one long shelf of awards he had not bothered to dust.

The desk held nothing but a laptop and a glass of tonic water.

I stood in the doorway and did not sit.

Elliot Maddox closed the door behind me and stayed beside it.

Up close, in daylight, he was somehow worse.

The silver at his temples was real.

There was a small scar through his left eyebrow I had missed in the dark.

"Ms. Fairbrother," he said. "Felicity."

"Don't," I said. "How do you know my last name?"

"It was on your phone. Your calendar said first day, Maddox, nine o'clock, Fairbrother onboarding."

"You went through my phone?"

"It lit up in my hand at three in the morning with a reminder," he said. "I didn't unlock it."

That was a reasonable answer.

I filed it and did not believe it all the way.

"And you decided to hold it up in front of the entire company."

"I decided to find out whose it was without a note on the door." His jaw shifted. "I handled it badly. You handled it better."

"I walked the plank so you wouldn't have to say my name."

"You did."

For the first time, he almost smiled.

I wanted to be furious, and I was, but only mostly.

"I'll say this once," Elliot said.

He moved to the window and looked at the street instead of me.

"I don't sleep with people who work for me. You started on Monday. I did not know that when I sat down at that bar."

"Neither did I."

"So the night didn't happen. You're a strategist at my agency. I'm the founder. We start from there."

I stared at his back.

A clean slate, offered like a breakfast order.

"Okay," I said.

He turned.

"Okay?"

"On terms."

He leaned against the window frame and folded his arms.

"Go ahead."

"One. Nothing you do for me is a favor."

"Go on."

"If I get a seat in a room, I earned it, and you say so out loud."

"Done."

"Two. No tone, and no looks across the pit."

"Fine."

"If you want to talk about the night, you use the word night, and you shut the door."

His mouth moved.

"I thought we agreed it didn't happen."

"We agreed to say that."

"Three?"

"You gave me a B+ and docked me for the tonic," I said. "I'd like it on record that I stand by it."

He put a hand over his mouth, and the sound that came out of him was a laugh, a short surprised one, there and gone.

"Noted," he said. "You're also on my pitch team."

The laugh went out of me too.

"Excuse me?"

"Larkin Outdoor. Camping gear, Evanston. The biggest rebrand we've bid on in four years."

He took a folder off the desk and held it out.

"I read your Halvorsen spread for the trail-running line. It was the best thing in the stack, and I need someone who can write it."

"That sounds like a favor."

"It sounds like a hire."

"Say it out loud."

"Felicity Fairbrother is on the Larkin pitch because she's the best strategist I found this year," he said, flat and clear.

"You can have that in writing."

I took the folder.

My hand wasn't quite steady, and I made sure he saw that I didn't hide it.

"The first team meeting is Wednesday," he said. "The client contact will be there. Their brand director."

I opened the folder to the cover sheet.

Larkin Outdoor.

Evanston, Illinois.

Client lead: Brand Director, Trevor Linwood.

I read the name three times, standing in the light of that window, with the man I had slept with watching my face.

"Is something wrong?" Elliot asked.

I closed the folder very gently.

"No," I said. "I just know him."

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