“That was deeply satisfying,” Mark murmurs, closing the distance quickly to walk beside me, his laptop tucked under his arm.

“Let’s just hope it works,” I mutter, the wave of adrenaline that spurred me on now giving way to anxiety as I wonder what Tripp’s next move in this power play will be, and how I’ll need to pivot. I swallow against the case of nerves and peer up at Mark, meeting his broad smile. “But yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

Mark is tall—well over six feet—and wiry, which makes every button-down shirt he wears too baggy on his slender frame. I’d love to give him a few pointers in the wardrobe department, but our employer-employee relationship hasn’t reached that stage yet.

We’re quite comfortable in the “plotting together to trounce misogynistic jerks” stage, though.

He reaches around me to pull open the glass door to Calloway’s executive wing—executive alley, we call it—and hold it for me.

“Thank you, kind sir,” I offer dramatically, smiling as I recall the first time he did this, during his interview for the assistant’s position. I had faltered at the threshold, surprised by the gentlemanly gesture. He immediately began backpedaling, promising through stumbled words that the move in no way reflected his beliefs about a woman’s ability to hold her own doors open. He confided later that he was sure he had blown the interview.

Meanwhile I knew right then and there that, while he had zero experience, he was the right person for the job. Polite, considerate, but also in tune with the twenty-first century.

“You’re welcome, milady,” he says without missing a beat and with a terribly fake cockney accent that makes me chuckle. Deep dimples form in his cheeks. He’s attractive, with a full head of blond hair that he runs a gel-coated hand through each morning, at most, earnest blue eyes that lock on yours when you’re in conversation, and a clean-cut jaw that makes him look a decade younger than his thirty-four years. If I were interested in dating, and not his boss, Mark might be a man who’d pique my interest.

But I am his boss, and I’m eons away from heading back down the let’s-get-to-know-each-other path with any man.

Thanks mainly to the jackass in the custom-tailored navy suit lingering straight ahead.

I sigh heavily. If there is one person who can deflate my triumphant high, it’s David Worthington. “When’s my next meeting? Noon?” I ask Mark.

“One P.M.” His gaze narrows on David’s hand as it carelessly flicks the wooden blades of the delicate miniature windmill on Mark’s desk—a gift from Mark’s mom to celebrate his first desk job: a symbol of his Danish roots. A replacement of the one David broke a month ago, doing this very same thing.

Mark dislikes David—with a passion, I’d hazard—but he has yet to say anything openly. That could be on account of David being VP of Sales & Marketing.

Or because David’s missing an assistant and Mark has been helping to fill the gap, catering to David’s demanding and sometimes childish needs.

Or because David’s my ex-fiancé.

“I’m gonna run out to grab sushi. Do you want me to pick you up some?” Mark offers, eager to get away.

“No, I’m good, thanks. I need to go for a walk soon anyway. I’ll grab lunch then.” Even with all the glass walls and windows, the air turns stifling around here after too long.

“ ’Kay. See you in a bit.” Mark nods politely toward David as he passes through to lock up his things.

I don’t even offer that much, pushing through the door and into my office, knowing David will be right on my heels.

My office, much like every executive office on this floor save for my father’s, is all glass—glass walls, glass door, floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It affords plenty of daylight but no privacy. I’ve attempted to create some with a decorative coat tree strategically placed to the right of the door and a six-foot potted palm to the left. A few key pieces chosen by an interior decorator—a mid-century-style writing desk, camel-colored leather wingback chair, and a Persian rug bursting with shades of fuchsia, gold, and navy—add panache to an otherwise bland space.

Entering my small corner of this vast building brings me comfort during the hectic, long days.

Except when David is in it.

“Running out to grab a quickie with his boyfriend again?” he murmurs as soon as the soft click of the door sounds.

I drop my notebook onto my desk with a loud thud. “Mark is not gay. You just want him to be, because you feel threatened by him.”

David snorts, as if the very idea of him feeling threatened by a guy who doesn’t own a Maserati and lives in a rented bachelor pad on the outskirts of the city is preposterous. “Oh, come on, Piper. The guy spends his weekends running around the park in tights. For fun.”

“He’s an actor!” Mark was a theater major in college; not exactly a good fit for CG. When Carla from Human Resources passed along his résumé, she did it in jest, thinking I’d catch on quickly and toss it aside. It was my sheer curiosity that got him through my door for an interview.

“Exactly my point.”

I shake my head. “You’re an idiot. Besides, that Shakespeare in the Park production is renowned. Maybe you should go and see it before you judge. We built the entire place, after all.” A city contract that we bid on and won, along with several awards in the years following. It was the first development project I ever worked on during my summer internship here.

David folds his thick arms across his chest and smiles knowingly at me. “So you’ve seen him perform?”

“I’m going this weekend.”

“What time? I’ll come with you.”

“Shouldn’t you be interviewing some poor fool for your assistant’s position? And, by the way, Mark is not picking up your dry cleaning, so stop asking him to.” David knows I’m lying about going to see the play, that I enjoy theater about as much as I enjoy golf, which is exponentially less than, say, sitting on hold with the tech help desk or waiting for my nail lacquer to dry.

“Not for another hour.” He grabs my apple off my desk and settles into the chair across from me, legs splayed.

“Try not to scare this one into early retirement, too,” I mutter, focusing on my computer screen as I scroll through my calendar and then my emails, opening one up to read.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll make sure this one is much younger.” He bites into my apple, and I do my best to ignore his penetrating gaze.

How I fell under the spell of David Worthington, I’ll never understand. I guess it was for the same reason most women fall for him at first: the thick, coiffed blond hair, the playful azure-blue eyes, the square jaw, the straight white teeth, the muscular body that he treats like a temple with daily workouts and zero refined sugar. Physically, he’s an Adonis, and from the first day he strolled through the doors of CG three years ago as the new executive, he had my attention.

Add the fact that he’s Ivy League educated, whip-sharp, charming, born into the right pedigree, and highly successful, and you have a man who always gets what he wants. For a time, that was me. For almost two years, in fact. But then he slipped that gaudy two-carat diamond bauble—that spoke more to his taste than mine—on my finger and the polished veneer gave way to the ugly reality that David is a classic narcissist.