At the far end of the space, Bastian’s door is firmly closed, as per usual. That’s for the best. All is right in the world. I have achieved internal Zen.
That lasts for approximately three steps.
No sooner have I reached my cubicle than does Bastian’s door fly open and boom against the far wall. All eyes whip toward him like we’re a colony of meerkats and a leopard just appeared on the horizon.
“Senior team in the conference room, now,” he says. He’s not raising his voice, not really, but everyone flinches like he just bellowed at the top of his lungs.
Thank God I’m not senior team, because he’s got a noticeably deep furrow in his brow today that can only spell trouble.
But still, the sight of him sets those ants to scurrying. I’m once again painfully aware of every inch of my skin. I sense the zipper of my slacks pressed against my belly button and the underwire of my bra squeezing my rib cage.
He looks good today. Even being angry can’t ruin his looks. If anything, the extra intensity sharpens his jawline and pulls his cheekbones into high relief. Did he grow taller overnight? I swear the top of his head didn’t used to graze his doorframe, but today, it does, just enough to tease up a few of those dirty blond strands.
He’s wearing a white shirt, crisp and new, with the cuffs rolled to his elbows like always. I picture those hands shucking an oyster and feeding it to me and something way more visceral than ants goes rippling low in my belly.
Down, girl,I scold myself internally.This is neither the time nor the place. Bastian looks pissed, so just get in your cubicle, let the senior team take the heat, and you can go talk to him later if your schoolgirl crush persists.
Sounds great. Highly doable.
But that plan, just like the Zen I thought I’d found when I first stepped into the office a second ago, does not last long.
“Hunter,” snarls Bastian just as I’m resuming my walk toward my cubicle, “where the hell do you think you’re going?”
I blink. It’s jarring to have the real-life Bastian intrude on my many fantasy versions. Those versions are always kind to me. (Er, well, not always—some of them have particularly filthy mouths and domination kinks that you can’t really call “kind”—but the point is, they’d never bark at me like this.)
“To my, uh, desk?”
He points that broad, tattooed, expert-oyster-shucking hand toward the conference room. “Get in there. Now.”
I frown. I’m not senior team, technically speaking. That belongs to people with a “Chief” in front of their title, and despite the many zeroes on the contract salary I agreed to, no one is calling me “Chief” any time soon.
I glance. My coworkers are all suddenly deeply engrossed in their keyboards and/or cuticles. No help is coming from there.
So, with a resigned sigh, I leave my coffee thermos on my desk and herd myself into the glass-walled conference room along with the rest of the senior team.
It feels like a fish bowl with all of us crammed in here. I take a seat at the far end of the table. If I’m lucky, I’ll blend right into the furniture. No one will even notice me.
Bastian is the last one in. He closes the door with a decisivethump.“We have a problem,” he announces without preamble. “The truffle oil station at Olympus is a fuckingdisaster. The HVAC system can’t handle the heat and ventilation requirements. We need a complete overhaul of the whole thing.”
The CFO, Nylah Gardner, winces. “How much?”
“Two hundred k,” replies Bastian. “Minimum. Plus two weeks added to the timeline.”
A collective groan ripples through the room. Two weeks might not sound like much, but with the investor preview dinner already locked in, every day counts.
“The real problem,” Bastian continues, his eyes finally landing on me, “is that this should have been caught months ago during the design phase. Which means someone fucked up.”
My throat goes dry.Is he implying?—?
“Hunter,” he says, confirming my worst fears, “you’ve been managing the buildout specs. Walk us through how this got missed.”
A dozen pairs of eyes all wheel in my direction. I feel like a bug under a microscope, pinned in place and squirming.
“I, uh…” I sound like a squeaky door hinge, so I clear my throat and try again. “The HVAC specifications were based on the parameters provided by the design team. I’m the one who compiled them into the master document, but the technical review was signed off by?—”
“By you,” Bastian interrupts. “Your name is on the approval sheet.”
“Along with yours and three engineers,” I counter. The initial shock is wearing off, replaced by something hotter. “I flagged concerns about the heat load calculations in my notes from theMarch review meeting. You said—and I quote—‘the engineers know what they’re doing. Stay out of their way.’”
