Page 83 of A Ticking Time Boss

“I’ll pop one in the fridge for you.”

I pretend to wipe sweat from my forehead. “Whew.”

He snorts and reaches across the table for a croissant, like he hasn’t just asked me to meet his friends. Maybe it’s a huge party and I’d barely get two seconds alone with him… but it means a lot, regardless. I wish I wasn’t double-booked.

“We’ll celebrate before,” I say. “On the day.”

He smiles. “We don’t have to do anything special.”

“Of course we do. I’ll think of something,” I say brightly. “What do you usually do on Sundays?”

“Catch up on work,” he says. “It’s a good day to clear the decks before the week.”

I shake my head at him. “That’s a terrible view of the best day of the week.”

“Using it productively?”

“Yes. You should lounge on the couch or go to a museum. Eat a breakfast like this for a few hours.”

“That’s what you usually do?”

“Well, you’ve seen my kitchen. I rarely have this kind of spread.”

“Kitchen,” he says with a snort.

“Hey,” I warn him. “Be kind.”

Carter rolls his eyes, but he’s amused. “Fine, fine. Your apartment is a palace.”

“That’s right.” I wrap my arms around my raised knee, watching him. My hair is wet down my back and I can feel it leaving damp circles on his fine shirt. “What are we going to do at work?”

His lips twist into a half-smile. “Work, I imagine.”

“It’ll be weird to see you,” I say, “walking down a corridor with Wesley and your other retainers, and not be able to say hi. To know you’re just a few floors above me.”

“My retainers? I’m not a king.”

“You wield about as much power at the Globe, you know. You can make oceans rise and fall with your buyouts, layoffs and re-organizations.”

Carter meets my gaze, and he doesn’t look troubled by my words. But faint color rises on his cheeks. “I suppose, yeah.”

“Does it bother you? Having to make decisions that affect so many people?” I’m genuinely curious about this one. I sometimes spend thirty minutes agonizing over the opening sentence of an article I’m writing. I can’t imagine having to consider firing someone.

He takes a moment to answer. “Yes,” he says finally. “It shouldn’t, perhaps. I know it doesn’t bother my business partners. Two of them, anyway. But it’s still an awful day when you have to look someone in the eye and tell them they’re out of a job.”

I dig my nails into my palm, thinking of the line of people who had been let go during the first few weeks. I’d been so angry, then. Everyone had been angry.

“People understand, of course,” he says. “That you have to cut costs. Sacrifice a limb to save the body. But that doesn’t mean people enjoy being the limb in question.”

I shake my head. “Not to mention there are plenty of hedge funds who don’t have the same ambitions you do.”

He raises an eyebrow. “That I do?”

“Yes. To save the paper, I mean. You genuinely believe in the importance of newspapers, of local reporting. But there are others—you’ve heard of them, haven’t you? They buy newspapers and bleed them dry, emptying the newsroom journalist by journalist, and rack up prices for subscribers.”

“I’m aware,” Carter says. “I’ve met some of them.”

My fork drops. “Really?”

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