Page 32 of Designed for Disaster

“Just saying…this guy looks great.” He shot me a smug grin. He knew damn well it was him. “The girl too,” he added, making me flush and squirm in my seat. Did he really think—No, bad thoughts,I scolded myself.You absolutely do not care if your boss thinks you look hot naked.

“Can I have it back now?”

He dangled the sketch out in front of me. “You want that badly to keep staring at it?” he teased. “Can’t say I blame you. It’s pretty hot.”

A blush washed across both my cheeks. This was literally the equivalent of him reading my diary. Now webothknew I was thinking about him a lot more than I should be.

I snatched the sketch back. “Can you go annoy someone else? I have work to get done.”

“I believe I was asking a valid, work-related question,” he said, his voice low and rumbling. “But you clearly have more important work tasks to be getting on with. Or should I say getting off?—”

“Don’t even!”

He mimed zipping his lips shut, shaking with laughter as he backed out my door. “Can’t wait for you to present this piece at the next team meeting.”

“Out!” I ordered. He disappeared, but I could hear him laughing all the way across the conference room. Probably all the way back to the elevator. I picked up my water bottle, taking a couple of big swigs. My whole face was on fire. The red could probably be seen from space.

“Hey, Nat, how’s it going?” I turned to find Sheila poking her head through my door. She’d taken to calling me Nat recently. I didn’t love it, but I was rolling with it. “Didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“Oh, you didn’t,” I assured her. “Just chatting with the boss.”

“It sure is nice to hear Trent laugh like that.” She shook her head fondly. “He used to walk around here glowering. Now I catch him smiling to himself in the hallway.”

“Mm-hmm,” I said.

She came in and sat down. “It’s obvious how good you are for him. I still can’t believe he won’t play ball on that PR campaign. Marketing could do so much with the two of you. The public would eat you up.” She leaned toward me, like we were sharing a secret. “In the best way possible, of course.”

“Yeah, I got that.” I forced a smile, not wanting to seem like I wasn’t a good sport. In truth, I was grateful for the way he’d defended me in the meeting, because he was absolutely right: even if wehadbeen dating for real, that kind of campaign would still have made me uncomfortable as hell.

“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that it’s been a rough few years for Saunders. And obviously, Trent’s had to bear the brunt of that—stepping into the role of CEO, managing the transition with his parents. I can’t even tell you how many fires he had to put out when he first took on the job. Managing public affairs took up half his time in the beginning.”

“Right…”

“I guess it’s just nice to know he has someone in his corner. I’ve always thought he takes on too much himself. It’s a lot for one person, and I know it’s hard on him.”

Her words caught me off guard. I’d never considered Trent to be the kind of person to struggle like that. “Can I ask what happened? With his parents?”

Sheila reclined in the chair, crossing her legs. “He hasn’t told you?”

“Only in passing,” I lied. I didn’t want it to seem like Trent didn’t confide in his girlfriend. “I mean, I’ve read the press releases, obviously.” And I had, the moment I’d left Dee’s place after Trent offered me the job. I’d immediately Googled the company,reading up on everything I could. “I know the official narrative, but it’s clear there was a lot more going on.”

Sheila glanced at the door, like she was worried someone might overhear her gossiping. Satisfied that no one was hanging around, she sighed, shaking her head before diving in. “I guess it really boils down to the divorce. When Conrad and Lara announced that they were done, I can’t say anyone was surprised. Anyone in this building with a pulse knew they were having problems in their marriage—and it had started to spill over into their work in a very toxic way.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. There were fights at the board meetings, contradicting email chains, entire furniture lines that had to be shelved because someone wasn’t on board with…whatever.” She waved her hand. “In a way, a lot of us were relieved to see the relationship end. They were so focused on tearing each other down they didn’t care if they tore the company down too.” She winced, like she thought she’d said too much. “I mean, it was an emotional time for them. They weren’t thinking clearly. And it all just kept escalating until it got past the point where it was even an option to try to walk it back. It was very messy by the end.”

“Sounds like it was a tough situation for everyone.”

She nodded. “We weren’t sure who was in charge of what anymore, or who we should be taking orders from, or escalating problems to. They’d run the company together for years, but they reached a point where they couldn’t get on the same page. All of us felt stuck in the middle, unable to do our jobs.” Sheila shrugged. “In the end, the only thing the board could do was bring Trent in. Hehatedthe idea at first. His parents hadn’talways been the most present while he was growing up, and he wasn’t at all impressed with their behavior. He wasn’t part of the business back then—he was off doing his own thing. But he stepped up when Dee asked him to.”

I forced a smile. It sounded like an awkward situation all around. If Trent had never been close to his parents, had been unhappy with the way they’d handled the divorce,andhad resented being dragged into the family business when he’d wanted to do other things, that gave some context to why his interactions with them were so harsh. I could sort of see where he was coming from.

But that didn’t mean I agreed with his choices.

There wasnothingI wouldn’t give for more time with my parents. And even if he didn’t have the same kind of relationship with his that I’d had with mine, I had to think he’d regret it if he kept freezing them out. You can’t take family for granted. Especially not when it seemed like he was judging his parents by unfair standards, blaming them for bad behavior during what had clearly been an incredibly difficult time for them. He could maybe afford to give them a little more grace.

“Anyway,” Sheila continued, “I do think Trent foresaw completely different things for his life. So, the fact that he’s here, running the company, couldn’t have been easy for him. And now with Dee’s diagnosis…I’m just glad he has you.” She winked at me. “I’ll let you get back to work. Talk later?”

---