As if reading my mind, Gina tries to pep me up. “Come on, clothes don’t make the girl. Hey, at least you’re not naked.”

I’ve tried to twist my hair this way and that, and no, my appearance hardly improves. I’m passionately hating on this entire situation while riding in the back of the cab, sitting sideways because I suspect that, when Gina washed her hands after me, she got some paint on my back. Just seconds ago I felt it sticking to the cab vinyl, and now I’m hating on this situation so bad, my stomach hurts. I ask the driver to drop the passenger mirror, and I stare at my face.

“Ohmigod,” I say.

And there I am. My long blonde hair twisted into messy pigtails, a slash of paint on the side of my neck, stark like blood against my pale skin. “Ohmigod,” I moan.

This is the woman the renowned Malcolm Saint is going to see?

And, if I thought in the back of the cab that I really loathed this situation, I had no idea how much more I would hate it when I got to the M4 corporate building.

The building itself looms with its fancy mirrored windows piled up almost as high as the Sears—supposedly-called-Willis-now-but-screw-that-name—Tower. Inside the lobby, from one end to the other, marble and granite floors spread out beneath my feet. Steel structures hold glass staircases leading to a second lobby floor, while see-through elevators zoom up and down.

M4 is about as edgy as a nightclub but as quiet as a museum. I feel like a balloon delivery girl who forgot the balloons as I walk past the revolving doors and deeper toward reception. Oh fuck me, this is so not optimal right now. Everybody in the lobby is looking at me.

I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this.

Livingston! Focus. YES. You can.

I thrust my chin out and proudly walk up to the receptionist. “Rachel Livingston for Malcolm Saint.”

She eyes me quietly. Inspects my ID card. Frowns a little.

At five foot seven, I’m not short by any means. But I feel smaller and smaller. I am shrinking, right here, as I wait. Humiliated quietly.

“Top floor,” she says, eyeing me down to my Converse sneakers.

Fuck. Me.

I head to the elevator with as much pride as I can muster.

The elevator zips up to the top floor, dropping my companions—all of them in sharp black-and-white exec suits—along the way until it’s just me. And a knot of nerves tightening more and more. I bet Victoria wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this. Not even if she were paid to do it.

But Victoria isn’t here, Rachel. You are.

The elevator tings, and I step out.

There are four desks, two to the right, two to the left, and huge frosted-glass doors leading to . . . his lair. I know it’s his because of how the frosted doors give the impression of a glass fortress that is both bold and strangely understated. It signals accessibility while being completely out of reach from the world.

A woman comes around a desk and gestures for me to take a seat in a section to the left.

Thanking her under my breath, I perch on the edge of a chair for a few minutes, watching all four of his assistants—all of them sharp and attractive in different ways—take continual calls. They work in absolute perfect synchronicity.

An elevator opens and a glimpse of a tall, striking man hits me with a jolt of pure feminine awareness as he steps out with a trail of businessmen behind him. Shoulders a mile wide, jet-black hair, crisp designer suit, snowy white shirt, and a stride to eat up the universe. He’s taking the folder that one of the other men extends and, after issuing some sort of command that sends his followers dispersing out with bullet speed, he charges forward. He passes me with the simmering force of a hurricane and disappears into the glass cave, leaving me dizzy and frantically absorbing my last sight of the dark hair, broad back, and the hottest male ass I’ve ever seen walking Chicago.

For a second I feel like the world moved faster, that somehow ten seconds were all crammed into the space of one—the one where this man went past me. Like a lightning bolt.

One of the assistants leaps to her feet and goes into the glass office where he vanished, while the other three stare at the door as if they wish the lightning bolt had hit a little bit closer to home.

Then it hits me.

That the storm was Malcolm Saint.

Yes, the hurricane was Saint.

I feel a prick of dread.

I glance at my sneakers. And yep. They’re still sneakers. Urgh.

I notice the assistant left the door slightly ajar, and I can’t help but lean forward, straining to hear her whispers.

“Your twelve o’clock is here. You have ten minutes.”

I can’t hear the reply through the nervous pounding of my heart.

“Oh, and Mr. Saint, this . . . reporter . . . she’s dressed a little bit unconventionally.”

God, I still can’t hear.

“From Edge, a low-circulation magazine. Dean thought it important we use whatever outlets we could to push the new Facebook.”

My skin pebbles when I hear a low, excruciatingly deep male voice murmur something unintelligible.

“Rachel Livingston,” the assistant answers.

I feel shivers when the indiscernible but deep sound of his voice reaches me again. The shivers race from the top of my spine down to my tailbone.

I’ve never shivered like this before, not even when I’ve been freezing my ass outside. Is this from nerves?

“Yes, Mr. Saint . . .” the assistant finally says.

She comes out and can’t quite manage to conceal the fact that she’s flustered. Shit, and I’m the one going in next. Looking like I was just tossed into a blender with a can of paint and I’m the result of that fun little expedition.

She calls me over to the door. “Mr. Saint is truly pressed for time today. Enjoy your ten minutes,” she says as she pushes it open.

I try to reply, but I’m so nervous only a little croak of a “thank you” comes out as I step inside. Stock tickers scroll on one wall on dozens of different screens. There are no live plants, nothing but technology and natural stone floors, and a lot of space, as if this man needs it.

The windows have an open view of the city of Chicago, but I can’t absorb it for long because I see him—quiet, storm-like intensity in Armani—walk toward me in that hurricane force that is almost otherworldly.

Wow. Wow on every part of him. His face, his presence, his shoulders, his eyes. His eyes are glowing, alive—green and deep, like moving rivers, but there’s no missing the little shards of ice glinting inside, almost screaming for me to warm them.