Page 102 of Say You Remember Me
I sighed, setting my phone down and leaning back in my chair. The kitchen was quiet, the faint ticking of the wall clock the only sound. I pressed my fingers against my temples, trying to push away the spiraling thoughts.
I was still trying to sort through my thoughts when my phone buzzed. Ian’s name lit up the screen.
“Hey,” Ian said, his voice steady but with a slight edge of concern. “I saw your text. I’ve got a few minutes between meetings and wanted to check in. How are you doing? Was Marsha rough on you?”
“She wasn’t too bad,” I said, closing the screen on my laptop. “Just asked all the same kinds of questions she probably asked you.”
“Yeah,” he said, his voice tinged with something I couldn’t quite place. “Do you know how long it’ll be before you get any updates?”
I hesitated. “She said they’d follow up in the next couple of days. But…do you really think I’ll still have a job after this?”
“They can’t fire you for this,” he said firmly.
“Can’t they?” I let out a humorless laugh. “I saw a few of the headlines before I deleted my social media apps, Ian. If the board saw any of those suspicions that I conned you into proposing because I had my eyes on your money, don’t you think they’ll be worried about my trustworthiness?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Ian said. “Since the board will know the actual truth—that the engagement was fake. And it wasmewho actually conned you into playing along.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, a headache forming as I tried to keep the different versions of our story straight.
“But what if the board finds out about the part where I kissed you at the club before I knew you were my boss? Someone could’ve taken a video, Ian. If that goes public, it’s going to look like I knew exactly who you were and that I was attempting to seduce you before we even had the whole forced-proximity/forbidden-boss-romance trope going on.”
There was a short pause. Then in a confused tone, he asked, “What do you mean by us having the forced-proximity trope going on? What are you even talking about?”
“Sorry, I forget our social-media algorithms are different.” I chuckled. “I’m not just in the ‘fall enthusiast’ algorithm. I’m deep into ‘Bookstagram’—specifically, the romance-book-lover world. We describe love stories with tropes.”
“Okay…” Ian sounded bemused.
“So I’m guessing that you don’t know what a book trope is?”
“I mean…” He hesitated. “There was a girl who threw a paperback at me during a breakup, yelling that I was nothing like the hero in her billionaire romance novel. Does that count?”
I laughed, the tension in my chest easing. “Not exactly, but close enough.”
“Well, I guess I’ve been stuck in the business non-fiction section too long,” he said. “Not much romance in quarterly earnings reports.”
“That checks out,” I teased.
“Hey,” he said, his tone lightening. “I just made it back to my desk. Can I FaceTime you?”
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror across the room. I’d cleaned up a bit before my interview with Marsha, but if I’d known Ian would be wanting to see me, I probably would have taken the time to add another coat of mascara.
But I should probably care less about how attractive my boss found me since just having a job should be my main concern at the moment. So I smoothed down my hair quickly and said, “Sure.”
His FaceTime request came through a second later, and my heart did a little flip when his face filled the screen. His sharp features and warm brown eyes looked as handsome as ever, and his easy smile made something in my chest flutter.
“Hi,” he said, his voice softening. His gaze flicked down, and his grin widened. “Wearing the green dress again?”
I glanced down, realizing I was wearing the emerald-green dress I’d worn on Friday. “All my other work clothes are at Sloan’s,” I said, suddenly self-conscious.
“I like it,” he interrupted, his tone sincere. “That color looks really good on you.”
A memory of the morning I’d first worn this dress flashed in my mind—the day he gave his big presentation and took me shopping. It had been a good day.
“So,” he said, leaning slightly closer to the screen, “since you’re into book tropes and romance novels, have you read anything good lately?”
I laughed. “I just finished a boss romance I’d started before the summit. It was pretty good.”
“Boss romance, huh?” His grin turned teasing. “Would you say that’s a favorite trope?”
