Page 21 of Think Outside the Boss

“You’re to go to conference room six on the thirty-fourth floor.”

Thirty-fourth floor is the top floor. The management floor. The one where Quentin and Toby warned me we go for project descriptions, where we don’t speak, talk or look at management.

“Right away?”

“Right away,” she confirms. “I’d join you, but it seems like it’s trainees only.”

I grab my notepad, my handbag, and push my chair back. “I’ll head up now, then. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Of course,” Eleanor says. “Let me know what it’s all about when you return.”

“Will do.”

Toby shoots me a thumbs-up and a good luck as I walk toward the elevators. I give him a confident grin, ignoring the doomsday look in Quentin’s eyes. I’m also ignoring the pit of nerves in my stomach, put there by words like management.

Will I come face to face with Tristan Conway?

I smooth my hands over my pencil skirt and fight the familiar nerves that comes with riding elevators, courtesy of my fear of heights. The mirror confirms what I already know. Hair in a neat, low ponytail. Simple makeup. Navy pencil skirt and lavender-colored blouse. Dress to impress, my mother always likes to say.

I stop outside of conference room six with my shoulders straight, ready for battle, and knock.

“Come on in.” A man’s voice.

I step inside the brightly lit space. On one end of a table is a man in his mid-forties, hair lightly graying at his temples, glasses on his nose.

“Hello, Ms.…” he looks down at his list. “Frederica Bilson?”

“That’s me.”

“My name is Clive Wheeler and I’m the Chief Operating Officer at Exciteur. We’re expecting your two colleagues here as well, and then I’ll brief you all. It shouldn’t take long.” He glances down at his paper and mutters, “At least I hope not.”

I take a seat on the other side of the table and make my voice professional. “Sounds great. This is for a cross-departmental project? My supervisor wasn’t fully briefed.”

“Yes, of a sorts. It was the CEO’s idea, really.” He’s not saying it, but it’s there in the pitch of his voice. He hadn’t approved.

The pit of nerves in my stomach grows. “Sounds interesting.”

“Interesting is the right way to describe it,” he agrees, looking down at his phone. “‘Create some holiday spirit.’ Those were his exact words.”

Shit. Holiday spirit?

The odds of this being about Thanksgiving and my emails spikes dramatically. The door by Clive opens and I turn my gaze to the notebook. If it’s Tristan Conway, I’m not ready yet. Not if he’d really called a meeting about Thanksgiving and invited the trainees.

“I’ll handle this meeting, Clive.” The voice is smooth and dark, a baritone as suited to dark alcoves in parties as it is to boardrooms.

It’s familiar.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. It was my idea, after all.”

I keep my eyes on the notebook. It can’t be.

“Can’t say I’m disappointed,” Clive admits.

Glancing up, I catch sight of the COO disappearing out the adjoining door, leaving me alone with the man leaning against the opposite wall. He’s tall and suit-clad, arms crossed over a broad chest.

But it’s his eyes my gaze locks on.

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