Page 16 of Serving the CEO

Somehow, I thought, with Jessica Ellis, it might.

As the water washed away the evidence, I stared through the steam-resistant glass at my reflection in the mirror across the bathroom.

I had to have her.

That’s just all there was to it.

SEVEN

JESSICA

Several hours had passedsince my disastrous meeting with Derrick Thomas, and I was still unsettled and angry. I’d hadn’t dared to let myself hope for any specific outcome but if I had imagined one, what’d happened in that office wouldn’t have been it.

The man didn’t care aboutanything.

Somebody makes a mistake, and they get written off.

An older couple, established in their life in a bookstore that’s part of a community, about to get uprooted and…so what? Dozens of people’s lives upended and ruined all because one man was an asshole.

What made some people so…cold? More importantly, what made Derrick Thomas that way?

Yet, I wasn’t mistaken that I’d seen a glimpse of…somethingin his green eyes. It’d been fleeting, but still…

I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about that orMr. I Don’t Care About the Worldone minute longer.

“I’m heading out for lunch with Bristol,” I told Lola.

She nodded, looking more frazzled than I’d ever seen her. My division shared her as an administrative assistant with the imprint that did biographies. That department was in an uproar since Derrick Thomas had fired Jami. The Danbridge project was the most important book coming out of the imprint this year and they were now several weeks behind.

Would he fire me too? I mean, I had made no mistakes, but I called him a bully…among other things. Definitely fireable offenses in most places of employment, let alone with a boss like Derrick Thomas.

I will take it under advisement.

What exactly had he meant by that?

His coolly worded statement irritated me all over again.

Alone in the elevator, I muttered, “I’m going to enjoy the damn lunch.”

I headed to the restaurant with a determined smile.

For the next hour, I wouldnotthink about my asshole boss.

And I didn’t. All of my attention was on Bristol and her book. In her early forties, Bristol Hayden’s book on dating advice might’ve been dismissed as a single woman’s mid-life crisis, but I’d seen much more in it and in her. After a successful meeting, I left the restaurant full of hope, but when I returned to the office that afternoon, everybody was on edge.

All I wanted to do was go home, soak in the tub, and read. A fun book that didn’t make me think about anything but passionate sex with a damaged but sweet firefighter.

But that would not happen. My mom had set me up on a blind date. A ‘very nice guy’ and we hadso much in common, she’d told me.

The life experience translation? Likely not.

* * *

“Your mother toldme you were beautiful, Jessica, but I still wasn’t prepared,” my date said as we settled into the corner booth. Carl Hughes was blond with blue eyes and a smile that might have been charming if it wasn’t for the sleaze behind it. He slid closer to me than I would have liked, and I was glad I’d taken the space on the outside. As the server came to take our drink orders, I smoothly slid a couple of inches to the right and put my purse in the space between us. Carl noticed, but I gave an innocent, bland smile.

I’d picked a place close to the subway so I would have a quick exit if needed.

“I hear you work in publishing,” he said as the server walked off. “Hoping to be an editor?”

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