I shook my head. “Not if it gets in the way of my other goal.”
The car stopped in front of my building, and as I hugged my friend, she whispered in my ear, “Maybe your goal sucks if it’s holding you back from happiness.”
I kissed her cheek. “You’re wrong, but I still love you.”
I got out of the car and was halfway up the sidewalk when Justine rolled down the window to shout, “I’m right, and you know it!”
She was wrong. I wanted the CEO position more than anything, and Cole Campion, with his distractingly sexy smirk, stood in my way.
27
THE ONE WITH THE PINK
Favorite movie?
Cole:I rarely waste time watching movies, but I enjoyedMoneyball.
Bridget:I lovedWorking Girl.Sigourney Weaver and Melanie Griffith were both such badasses. I wanted to be both of them when I grew up.
COLE
Sometime after lunch on Friday, Bridget and I sat in the club chairs in our office, reading through the due diligence report I’d requested for the call center deal. Silent reading had never been my thing, so I stood and made coffee. It was blasphemy to adulterate my perfect brew, but after stirring a cube of sugar into Bridget’s mug, I reached into the mini fridge John used to keep his diet sodas in, grabbed the pint of skim milk, and lightened it to her preferred shade.
In what had become our afternoon ritual, I set the mugs on the end table between us and sank back into the chair besideher. With a grateful smile, she cradled the mug in both hands and lifted it to her lips. The moment her shoulders lowered and she savored the drink I’d made for her was what I lived for. I raised my cup in a toast and sipped.
Then, because it had been bothering me, I said, “I didn’t like how everyone assumed this deal was my idea. Hell, you presented it with me in the staff meeting.”
She set down the mug and picked up her tablet. “Honestly, I hate it too. But if I come in now saying it was my idea, I look like a braggart, and people hate self-aggrandizing women. It’s fine. Our focus should be on whether the deal makes sense and has a strong return on investment, not whose idea it was.”
“You can’t be serious. Of course it matters. The board has pitted us against each other. You can’t afford to give me this just because it’s good for the company.”
She set the tablet on her lap. “You don’t mean that. As much as I want the CEO position, the thing that matters most in the long run is the strength of the company.”
Frustration clawed its way into my throat. “You’re like that…that Reese Witherspoon character. The one with the pink.”
“Elle Woods fromLegally Blonde?”She grinned.
“That’s the one. Always looking at the positive. But it’ll matter to you if they dick you over.”
Her smile fell, and she tugged down her black pencil skirt. I sat close enough to her that I could’ve leaned over and touched that barely exposed knee. Run my fingers up the inside of her thigh the way I’d been dying to all week. But she’d said no, and I had to respect that.
She gazed into her mug, then up at my face. “What if we don’t let them dick us over? What if we come up with a better plan?”
I gestured at my copy of the report on the coffee table. “You mean better than that?”
“No, I mean a better plan for the CEO position. What if we kept going like this?”
My heartbeat sped up. Did she really mean for us to keep going with what we’d started the morning after we’d come back from Costa Rica? “Like…what?”
“Co-CEOs. It’s worked for other companies. Why couldn’t we keep sharing responsibilities? We work well together.”
The hopeful bubble that had risen in my chest popped, leaving me cold. She was talking about work, not our relationship. I kept my expression neutral. “You think?”
“I mean, yeah. Ever since Costa Rica.” Color flared in her cheeks. “You have to admit, that retreat was a pretty sweet idea of mine.”
“Grudgingly, yes, I agree. The team seems to be more cohesive. And you and I…we fit pretty well together. Especially my d?—”
“Don’t,” she warned.
