Page 11 of VOGUEish

The thought caused a pit in Isabella’s stomach.

“But we should be talking about her,” Isabella insisted. “You fired my boss.” Amanda had said it was Isabella’s fault. The ass wipe squatter insult was the only explanation that made sense.

“Your physical well-being is much more important.”

Was he worried about a lawsuit? The company certainly didn’t need any more of those. “I’m fine…sir.” Funny, she didn’t know his name. He hadn’t offered it in the taxi. “Could you just, maybe, reverse your decision on firing Amanda?” She kept her voice low so the Beautifuls on the other side couldn’t hear. She’d bet her collection of Dear Diary blog entries every one of them was outside the door under the pretense of cleaning up spilled coffee.

“I could, but I won’t.” Although a slight smile accompanied his response, there was a hint of weariness. Did the scene with Amanda bother him? Did firing people gnaw at his gut? That would indicate he had a heart. Not an irredeemable bully. What had he done that earned him the moniker Bully of Corporate Manhattan?

“Isabella, I’ve had a glance at your resume,” he said.

“Oh.” She barely managed to keep her jaw from landing on the pointy toes of her flats. He couldn’t have shocked her more had he said he’d had a glance at her blog posts. “Why?”

He loosened his tie. “Among other reasons, I wanted to know what the P stands for.”

Nothing about him indicated he was being anything but upfront with her. Except for the twinkle she thought she caught in his eyes. Unfortunately, it disappeared too quickly to be fact-checked. “You do know curiosity killed the cat?”

“But he died with such lovely knowledge, Isabella Priscilla Chance.“ Her name rolled off his tongue like he had tried it out for an idea of what she might taste like if he were to kiss her.

Stop thinking like that. She blamed the hussy-like thought on this year’s New Year’s Resolution. Have more one-night stands. A resolution whose roots were grounded in the lessons she’d learned while in Costa Rica at a Holistic Healing and Re-Connecting retreat. She’d been there to gather information for a series of new articles and had walked away with so much more.

While she was there, it had finally sunk in that between the trauma of her mother’s suicide attempts and what had happened to Isabella her senior year, she’d unknowingly constructed barriers to keep others at arm’s length. As a result, for ten years Isabella had lived her life on the extreme safe side. While she’d been busy filling her journey with a ton of experiences, she’d kept people at a distance. She’d been uber-selective, even standoffish, when it came to relationships. Especially sexual ones. All out of fear she’d become attached and thus vulnerable.

So this year’s resolution had been to be more adventurous with herself rather than her travels, and that meant things like one-nighters and letting people into her inner circle…and for the love of fashion, why was she standing here thinking about resolutions when her boss had just been canned?

“If you fired Amanda because—“

“Did Amanda tell you she backdated your hire date to get around a hiring freeze?” Size Elevens demanded.

“Pardon me?”

His expression didn’t change. “The hire date on the paperwork Amanda had you sign this morning doesn’t match today’s date.”

“Oh.” Isabella laced her fingers together in her lap. “I didn’t notice.” That had been to-do number one. A lot had happened since then. Like eighty-nine million other to-dos.

“I see.” He didn’t look pleased.

“Am I about to be fired?” If the answer was yes, she would be pissed.

“When did you and Amanda first meet?”

“In person, this morning. Before that, we’d spoken on the phone during my interview with her.”

“Didn’t you find that odd?”

“Not particularly.” Isabella shifted. “Lots of people conduct online interviews these days. Why are you asking me these questions?”

“I’m trying to decide if your loyalties to Naked Runway have been tainted.”

“With all due respect, the reason I took this job was for an opportunity to work for Amanda Goldstein. She’s a legend in this business. Your firing her has somewhat tainted my current views.” Of course, Isabella would have taken the job if the Easter Bunny had offered it. One simply didn’t turn down a job opportunity at Naked Runway. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Let’s see, I do believe the article I read while in the taxi with you this morning referred to me as both ‘The Grinch with a heart not capable of growth,’ and my favorite, ‘The Bully of Corporate Manhattan.’”

“And are you?”

“Short answer, I’m a corporate fixer for Glamour, Inc. Long answer, I go into our new corporations and analyze what’s wrong with them. As you can imagine, that doesn’t win me many friends. It’s just a guess, but I probably fired the reporter’s best friend, or grandmother, or tarot reader, and the reporter felt the need to strike back at me.”

A fixer. Not a bully. His job required him to make choices that hurt, but he didn’t make them to wound. He made them because they ultimately would cure what ailed a company. The distinction allowed Isabella to sit back in her chair and breathe easier. Every scuffle had two sides. “But why are you here? This magazine is epic. It doesn’t need fixed.”

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