Page 1 of Bride Bargain

One

Claire

“The internet hates me again.”

It’s first thing on a Monday morning, I just walked eight blocks to this skyscraper in the pouring rain, and my boss is waiting for me in the lobby when I arrive. He’s dressed in dark pants and a crisp gray shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows and the collar unbuttoned. No tie. There’s a pained expression on his handsome face.

Standard Monday morning, really.

“Oh dear.” My umbrella drips a trail of raindrops across the marble lobby floor as I march to the elevators, and the boss falls into stride beside me, despite his legs being so much longer than mine. His clothes are bone-dry and his dark hair is rumpled from where he’s been tugging at it. “What happened this time?”

Prickly silence. No other response.

Hiding a smile, I prod the button to call the elevator, glancing up to watch the lit-up numbers count down the floors. All around us, snatches of conversation echo across the lobby and the sounds of traffic rumble in from the street. It’s a busymorning in this sky-high building, and you can tell who hasn’t been caught in the rain by their smug, dry faces.

As we wait for the elevator, a million thoughts churn in my head. Thoughts like: I need to call that supplier back. And make travel arrangements for that visiting scientist next week. And call a meeting with the R&D department. And push that new contract through HR. And, and, and…

And: okay. I know what you’re thinking.Worst assistant ever.Where’s my sense of panic; why don’t I care that my boss has a digital mob with pitchforks baying for his blood? Don’t I know that getting canceled ruins lives?

But, see: Elliot Ramsay gets canceled like the rest of us get haircuts. It’s a regular appointment for him, and I’ve been his right-hand woman since the day he founded his company, so…

This is not my first rodeo. And Elliot always gets through the scandal, albeit with a tiny dent in his pride.

“Well?” The elevator doors swoop open, and a small crowd floods past us into the lobby. A few of the workers look up from their phones and do a double-take, staring openly at my boss before hurrying away and whispering to each other.

Shoot. This one must be a doozy.

Elliot waits until the elevator is empty, then ushers me on. He turns and glares at the other people waiting out in the lobby, pointedly jabbing at the close-doors button, and I sigh as we’re shut in together. It’s like he doesn’t evenwantto fix his reputation.

Only once we’re alone do the boss’s shoulders relax beneath his shirt. It’s cool in the elevator, with shiny mirrored walls and the lingering scent of someone else’s coffee.

My stomach flutters, like it always does when the two of us are alone, but I ignore it like the pro I am. Believe me: I’ve had a lot of practice by now.

“I can’t help until I know what happened, Elliot.” When I wring out my blonde hair, raindrops patter on the floor, because despite huddling under an umbrella for the whole walk here, my clothes are sodden and my shoes squelch whenever I move. Gross. Hope Elliot’s ready to see his assistant in her gym clothes all day.

My boss mumbles something, scratching the side of his neck. He gets like this sometimes: weirdly bashful, despite being six-foot-something of solid man, with more brain power than the rest of this company combined.

“I didn’t catch that.”

“I pushed an old lady,” he says, louder this time. He scowls down at the floor and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “Not hard. But someone caught it on video.”

Ooooh shit.

Forget that To Do list. This is not what I want to hear on a Monday morning.

My tongue runs over my minty-fresh teeth, and I think carefully before I say: “And why did you push an old lady, exactly?”

Because Elliot Ramsay never does anything uncalculated. He never says or does anything without a precise reason, without examining all the angles of a situation, and if he pushed some old bat… well,somethingmust have happened. The internet at large may not believe that, but I do. I’ve known this man since high school math class, and my faith in him is rock solid.

“It’s not important,” he says.

“You could not be more wrong.” My wet shoes make a tiny fart sound when I shift my weight. I glare up at Elliot in the mirror, but here’s the thing—it doesn’t even occur to him to make fun of me for something like that. It never does.

This man beside me is noble to a fault. Most people don’t realize that, because he won’t smile at strangers and he avoidssmall talk like the plague, but I happen to know that Elliot Ramsay donates more to charity each month than most tech bros do in their whole lifetimes.

“She wouldn’t stop touching me,” he says. There’s that pained expression again, his handsome face so mournful in the mirror, and my chest squeezes in response. Suddenly we’re back in high school together, whispering next to the lockers as he asks me, baffled, how he offended someone this time. How he read yet another situation so wrong. “I asked her to stop twice, but she kept squeezing my arm and touching my chest. So I moved her away from me.Gently.” He sighs, agitated. “But on the video it looks… bad.”

I bet it does.

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