He chuckled. “Queen of the sugar snap peas, five years in a row, the longest reign in town.”
The gagging noises covered her shudder, making Ben chuckle.
“Thanks again for the hot chocolate. And for stopping by. I’ll text you when I land, let you know how it goes. Better jump in the shower so I’m not late.”
“The day you’re late is the day the world ends.”
“Funny.” She kissed him, tasting the cinnamon on his lips. “Go have fun stitching up the players.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way. We’ll grab dinner when you get back. Celebrate your promotion.”
While she finished getting ready, she’d been thinking about what Ben had said. Had she become too hard? Pushed aside her femininity so she could get ahead and be one of the guys? Mitch accused her of being as frozen as the snow blanketing the ground. At the time, she’d laughed and said better frozen than a puddle to be stomped in, but now she had to wonder. Where was the line between ambition and ball breaker?
During her commute this morning she used the precious time to read a few chapters of the novel she’d been reading for a month. Before college she’d read several books a week; now she was lucky if she read twelve in a year. A guy smelling like old cheese and cheap cologne passed by, making her throat close up. Gotta love the subway.
Over the past week she’d started jumping rope again after seeing a class at her gym using the rope to warm up. During college, it was like meditation, calming her mind from its normal state of flitting about like a butterfly on cocaine, but not today. She was really out of practice. After she got back in the groove, maybe the meditative feeling would return.
Blinking at the contrast between the dark subway and the stark brightness reflecting off the snow, she searched for a pair of sunnies in her bag as she stepped off the curb, jumping back as the swish of tires filled the air. A group of women on bicycles cycledpast, wearing black leggings and nothing else but brightly colored paint. They looked like an abstract painting of a rainbow as they passed by, too quickly for her to read the protest signs they had tied to the bikes. Whatever. She’d seen women wearing less in nightclubs, and there was always some kind of protest going on, though the poor girls must be freezing.
Almost to the office, the shriek made her turn, but it was the accent that made her wince.
“Why I never. Harlan, did you see those gals? Wait till I tell Darlene. She’ll never believe it. Tell me you got a picture. They must be colder than the devil in Siberia.”
The man mumbled something Ashley couldn’t hear as the woman’s voice rang out across the street.
“Come on, let’s get goin’, I wanna be first in line.”
The lilt, the dropped Gs. No matter how hard she tried, the past broke through the locked doors within and flooded her brain. Like a movie on fast forward, one blinking streetlight, cows in a pasture, empty shelves, and laundry flapping on the line in the sticky heat flashed in front of her eyes. Scowling at the tourists, Ashley huffed, weaving through the masses of people as if she’d been doing it her entire life instead of three short years.
“I can’t escape. What is going on? Some kind of Southern special on visiting New York in the fall?” she grumbled under her breath as tourists stood in the middle of the escalator instead of standing to the right, so those on the left could actually walk past them and get to their offices on time. How could anyone in the civilized world not know that unwritten rule?
Maybe she needed to book a massage, because she was in a snit that even hot chocolate couldn’t cure. The carpeted hallway muffled her steps, a few early risers working away. On the way to her office, she stopped to pick up her messages from the assistant she shared with two others. Of course the girl wasn’t in yet; she usually rolled in around nine and took two hours for lunch.
The hedge fund was Ashley’s first job out of college, and in thethree years she’d been here, she’d worked her way up from an entry-level position to a junior executive at the age of twenty-three. She’d busted her butt, graduating both high school and college a year early, taking a full course load and ending with a double major in finance and economics. By the time she hit twenty-five, she planned to be a face on the org chart. But now the company was merging with a firm based in London so they could go global and be more competitive. With changes in leadership and her job on the line, there was no way she’d lose out to Mitch. She’d rather eat dirt and go crawling back to Georgia.
Her boss was older, still had the mentality that women should stay home and take care of the kids. Made it plain he thought she didn’t belong, and she’d had to work twice as hard to prove otherwise.
Of course Mitch was already seated in Harry’s office, the two of them laughing and joking. She pasted on a friendly smile as she strode into the immense corner office decorated in old-world elegance and oozing money.
“Ashley, nice of you to join us this morning.” Mitch ran a hand through his hair. The kiss-up had obviously been here since dawn, beaten her in yet again. She’d have to step up her game; that was three times this month.
“Harry was telling me the news.”
“News?”
He smirked at her. “Leadership has to tighten budgets. One junior executive has to go. Our little trip to London will decide who gets promoted and who gets canned.”
She nodded at them both and lied through her teeth. “That’s a great idea. Though wouldn’t it make more sense to find something else for the loser? The firm puts a great deal of resources into training. Seems a shame to lose the knowledge.”
Harry smiled at her as if she wasn’t especially bright. “Women never want to make the hard choices. No, the loser will be packingup their desk and finding another job. I have goals to meet and I intend to exceed them. Leadership is watching.”
“Works for me,” Mitch said.
As Harry’s assistant interrupted to tell him he had a call, Mitch and Ashley walked out together. In the hallway, he moved into her personal space. His breath was hot against her neck and she caught the scent of coffee and doughnuts.
“No one likes a manly woman. Don’t you know by now? Harry likes the dumb model type. Look at all the assistants. Guess we both know who’s going to be packing up when we get back.”
Ashley stepped on his foot with her heel, pressing down hard.
