Page 4 of Most Eligible Boss

I nodded.

“Thought so. Even hotter in person.” She shot me a wink and flashed a toothy grin as she grabbed my cup from the kid mixing drinks behind her and slid it across the counter to me.

“Here you go, hun,” she said, grazing my fingers as I took the cup.

“You’re very unprofessional,” I said gruffly as I turned to the door, wishing I could take back the tip I left her. I jogged down the sidewalk and up the stairs to my office building, then hit a dead run through the hallway to the conference room, where I found everyone already waiting to start our meeting.

I looked at the clock. It was 9 a.m., sharp. I was right on time but late by my own standards. If you weren’t ten minutes early in my world, you were running behind.

“Sorry about that. I got a little hung up on my way here.”

“Not a problem,” Stacey said, smiling. “There’s not much to go over this morning. We have a conference coming up, as you know. There are two new job postings going live today for the PR department. We also have a new girl starting this morning. She’s in HR right now doing paperwork and will meet you in the lobby after the meeting.”

“Sounds great,” I said, turning toward Arnie from finance. “Give me the rundown on the numbers today.”

Arnie started running the math. I looked across the table to be sure Stacey was taking notes, already knowing she would be.

Stacey and her notetaking meant I was free to tune out and relax.

I stared at the cup of coffee, still angry about the behavior of the barista. When I worked for this company from the bottom up, I never intended to gain any celebrity status. I wasn’t used to the way people- women in particular- looked at me. When I was named one of America’s most eligible bachelors in a major publication, it embarrassed me to no end.

I didn’t see myself that way. In my mind, I was damaged goods. My previous relationship with my fiancée had solidified that belief for me years prior.

The split with her was among the ugliest things I’d ever lived through. In many ways, it was even more traumatic than anything I encountered while serving overseas. The fear of physical harm was never there with her, but emotional damage is often worse. She hurt me at an indescribable depth that I, myself, had never been able to understand or rationalize. Instead, I buried those feelings and any desire I once had to share my life with a woman deep down and resolved to a life of work and solitude.

It wasn’t a happy existence but a fail-safe plan I refused to budge from. Stacey had tried a few times to set me up with one female friend or another. Every date ended in disaster. Finally, she stopped trying.

It had been months since I’d even attempted to get to know a woman, and I was beginning to get used to the idea of staying lonely.

I was pulled back when I realized Stacey was staring at me across the table.

“Anything else we need to discuss?” she repeated. I turned my head and noticed all eyes on the table were fixated on me, waiting for me to respond.

“Sorry,” I said, “I must have zoned out. No. There’s nothing else. Everyone have a great day, and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

The crowd funneled through the door, leaving only Stacey and me behind.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, staring at me skeptically.

“Nothing,” I answered with a slight chuckle. “You know me- I just get my head stuck somewhere and can’t pull it back out. I didn’t hear you ask me the first time.”

“The first two times,” she corrected me. “I was about to check for a pulse.”

I laughed. “Cut me a break. It’s Monday. You know I hate Mondays.”

“Well, you better get to loving Mondays. Your new girl is out in the lobby waiting for you. Get your game face on.”

“OK, tell me about her. What am I dealing with this morning?”

“She’s from Ohio. She’s never been to New York City until she moved here yesterday. The whole hiring process was done online. She didn’t apply- she was recruited in that blogger sweep we did a while back. She had a large following and ran a social media account devoted to pop culture gossip and news, but not one of those teeny-bopper ones. Hers was more mature, and it viewed celebrity gossip through a more adult scope. Per her contract, she deactivated the social media accounts the day after she was hired, and she is very excited to be on board with us. She sent a thank you note following up her offer, telling us this was ‘step one of her building her new life,’ whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean. Aside from that, I got nothing else. You’re on your own, cowboy.”

I threw my head back and groaned. “A blogger,” I repeated, feeling defeated. “Remind me again why we did this blogger sweep in the first place?”

“Bloggers are the first line of defense when it comes to protecting an image,” she said. “And bloggers know what bloggers want to hear. We snatched a few up to help us figure out how to plug leaks, remember?”

I nodded. It was a solid plan when it was developed. A few months into bringing bloggers on board with the company, though, I was beginning to regret it.

“Well, this will be fun,” I said. “Bloggers are their own breed, aren’t they?”

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