Page 2 of Hot Summer

The office was quiet for eight in the morning—most of the events team tended to arrive around eleven or even later if they were out on location organizing some details for whatever they had going on that evening, but the day staff were numerous, about a half dozen other departments in all. It was still a little before eight, so Cas supposed most people would be rolling in over the next hour or so, but it was almost apocalyptic, how silent the office was at the moment. The few people she did see were wearing large over-ear headphones and typing quietly on their keyboards, and honestly, Cas was jealous of them, in spite of the early hour.

She’d do anything to hide in her music and clack away on her keyboard every day and get paid for it. Her eardrums would certainly thank her if she started spending less time a meter away from pub speakers, and it would be nice, for once, to switch off. To work without having to plaster some big smile on her face and act like the sun shone out her arse.

Where most everyone at Friday worked at long, open tables, the executive offices were private, tucked away in the corner and lined with gorgeous windows. A few years back, they’d built a partial brick wall to separate the executive suites from the main floor, and it deadened whatever sound there was as Cas walked into the assistant bay outside the offices.

Robert’s assistant, Colby, was sitting, as he always was, at his desk, and he smiled perfunctorily as he finished typing. “Go on through. I’ve let Robert know you’re here.”

“Thanks.” Cas took another long, bracing sip of her iced coffee and opened Robert’s door. And promptly squinted into the too-bright sunlight shining through his windows. It felt like someone was pointing a laser directly into her retinas.

“Ah, Cas.” Robert was smiling, but there was no trace of warmth in his voice. “Good morning. I hope the hour isn’t too early for you.”

“No, not at all.” They both knew Cas was lying through her teeth but neither of them challenged it.

“Well, good,” Robert said, his eyes still on his computer screen as Cas sat down on the hard purple chair opposite his desk. “Because there are some big things I’d like to talk with you about.”

That couldn’t be good.

“Oh?”

Robert turned in his chair so he was finally facing her. “I have a proposition for you.”

Robert tented his long fingers in front of his face, his glasses halfway down his nose so he could stare at Cas over the rims, the way he always did when he was trying to be particularly scary at their all-team marketing meetings.

It was an expression that was, unfortunately, highly effective. Robert’s blue eyes were famously like ice. Sharp and unfeeling and deadly, like those meter-long icicles that fell off roofs in Norway and impaled people.

“Okay?” Cas had long since learned not to try to anticipate where things were going where Robert was concerned. He often had very different ideas about what was reasonable or, hell, even feasible.

“You may have already heard, but the exec team has recently been talking about developing... closer ties with some big media properties.”

She had heard, funnily enough. Not a lot, just a passing comment one of the higher-up assistants made in the break room, about how much work scheduling was “now that we’re trying to get TV execs on board.” Cas hadn’t really thought anything about it at the time; these things hardly ever mattered to events. They were much lower in the office hierarchy despite the fact that their work was what kept the lights on.

“I’ve heard whispers,” Cas admitted.

Robert nodded sagely. “I figured. Though I’m sure those whispers were far from thorough, so for clarity’s sake...” Robert grabbed a stack of papers from the corner of his desk and flipped it around with a flourish. There was a flow chart—no, an organizational chart—for some new marketing integration division and... holy hell.

“I’m on here.” Cas pointed at her name, there at the top of the page. With more than a dozen people reporting to her.

“You are.” Robert sounded like he might’ve been talking to a child, but Cas couldn’t bring herself to be bothered about his tone. “We’ve seen the work you’ve been doing in events and we’ve been impressed. We all agreed that it’s about time we give you a new challenge.”

In a million years, Cas would never have expected to hear these words out of Robert’s mouth. She knew that she was working hard—she advertised the hell out of every single dating event she ran—but it was always thankless. Something she was expected to do, not something she was going to be celebrated for. And certainly not rewarded.

All the rejected internal job applications she’d put through over the years were more than enough evidence of that.

“So, I—” She felt like her brain was short-circuiting. “I would report to you?”

“As CMO, yes. You’d be the direct line to the executive level from this new office along with Kaya—it’s not quite reflected here, but we’re merging print with digital, so Kaya will still have control of that side of things.” Robert was studying her carefully, reading every micro-reaction on Cas’s face. She should probably try to contain her excitement—she was certain this offer must have a thousand strings tied to it—but she was too tired. Too hungover.

“We’re still working on the final org chart, so if you’ve got feedback on that, we’d love to hear it.”

“Of course.” Cas unzipped her bag and extracted a pen from the depths, and wrote a small note, feedback, with a tick box at the very top of the page.

“Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, we should talk about one more thing.”

Cas’s pen froze. “Okay.”

“Broadcast is an entirely new venture for us. We want to make sure that we move seamlessly into that space.” Robert grabbed another packet of papers off his desk and handed it to Cas. “And we thought it would make perfect sense to start with one of the most popular properties on television.”

Hot Summer was scrawled across the top of the packet in big bold letters, and Cas’s brows furrowed.

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