Page 23 of Think Outside the Boss

My blush burns. “I have, Mr. Conway.”

A tense few seconds of silence pass, neither of us looking away. I’m the one who breaks first. “The other trainees should be here soon.”

He nods. “In a few minutes. I gave instructions that Freddie should be the first one here.”

The way he says my name makes it clear he hasn’t forgiven me for the sin of not being a man. I want to roll my eyes at him, but the difference in power between us stops me. We’re not strangers in the darkness anymore.

We never will be again.

Any faint hope I’d had that I’d receive another wrongly delivered invitation, that I’d sneak away to a party and meet him… it dies and withers in my chest.

“You asked for me to be here so you could tell me off?”

“Something along those lines.” He pulls out one of the chairs and sits, stretching long legs out in front of him. The thick watch glitters at his wrist, the same one I’d felt against my skin as he ran his hands over me.

I swallow. “Go ahead, then. I’m ready.”

His lips quirk in unexpected humor, fingers tapping against the table. “Well, since you disagreed with just about everything the company had planned for next month, I’m putting the trainees in charge of Exciteur’s Thanksgiving celebration.”

I stare at him.

He stares right back at me.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The three of you,” he says, voice smooth, “will get a chance to practice your project management skills. You’re to pitch your ideas to me and the event organizers. Consider us, consider me, a client. As the Strategy trainee, you’ll naturally be the team leader.”

“Naturally,” I murmur.

“You’ll report back to management in a week with your suggestions for how we should show some Thanksgiving appreciation to the employees. I want timelines, projected outcomes, budgets.” His grin is wicked, the same one that had sent shivers over my skin just a few days ago. “You clearly think you know better than me, Freddie, and I know you like a challenge.”

The bastard.

He stares at me like he’s daring me to object, like he knows he’s being tough, but letting me know he won’t back down just because of last weekend. Nor should he. Then was then, and now is now, and I don’t want Tristan Conway’s special treatment.

I pitch my voice to professional curtness. “Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Conway. I won’t disappoint.”

He raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure you won’t, Miss Bilson.”

7

Tristan

What are the odds?

Very fucking low, that’s what. Not once had I met anyone at the Gilded Room at work, and only a few times had I done so in a private setting. But Frederica Bilson is my company’s trainee, so off-limits she’s practically wearing a neon traffic cone on her head. The perfect memory of Saturday night is tarnished forever now, knowing she’s met me, the real me. And I’m not a mafia boss.

I lean back in my chair and press the heels of my hands against my eyes. The insolent young trainee writing those emails had been Strait-laced.

I can’t get the two images of her to merge into one in my head.

The dark-haired vixen, coy and seductive on Saturday.

The proper, pencil-skirted young woman meeting my gaze across the conference table.

The whole point of going to the Gilded Room is to provide anonymity—to ensure I stay in control. I’d erected a ten-foot concrete fucking wall between my private and my professional life, and somehow she’d managed to claw her away across like a beautiful but deadly weed.

And of course she’s in Strategy of all departments, the one place I’m convinced is bleeding information to our competitors. Our business moves had been anticipated by other consulting firms too often for it to simply be a coincidence. I’d been keeping a close eye on the department for the past month… and now my view will involve a woman I know the taste of but who I can’t go back to for seconds.

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