I’m already worried about the new hire.
She seems smart and competent, but also a little vulnerable beneath her contained exterior. That’s the kind of person Modern Edge will eat alive.
Oh, and she’s also drop-dead gorgeous.
That’s all I can think about as I spot Maddy at her desk, completely focused on something on her computer. Her eyes are moving, but her lips are pinched together, and her right foot taps continuously.
Poor woman.
I pause near her desk, and I notice her entire body tensing even more. I frown at the fact, taking it as evidence of just how much Adrian has traumatized her already. When she glances my way, there’s a touch of deer-in-headlights in her eyes.
“Hey,” I say, keeping my voice soft so I don’t cause her any more distress.
She sits up straighter. “Hi, Caleb.” The fact that she remembers my name is, for some reason, a thrill. Which is stupid. Of course she knows my name—I’m her boss.
“How’s it going so far?”
Her mouth twitches. “Well, I haven’t deleted any of Adrian’s files so far, so that’s good.”
“You’d be surprised how many people can’t say that,” I reply, letting out a chuckle. “Anyway,” I clear my throat, “Time for the crash course in software. I hope you’re ready for some brute force learning.”
Her smile is wary, but she catches the joke. “Brute force is my preferred learning style.”
I chuckle. “Come on.” I gesture for her to follow, and she does. I notice she brings her own notepad, even though she doesn’t bring a pen.
Imperfect, but the effort is there. I like that.
I lead her to my office and open the door. My desk is a controlled mess with three computer monitors, a jumble of sticky notes that only make sense to me, and my property files that need to be entered into our system. I pull another chair up to my desk, turning it so she can see the main screen.
“Wow,” her brows raise, “This is intense.”
“Kind of, but not in the exciting way,” I tell her. “It’s mostly spreadsheets and a lot of meeting invites.”
She laughs, and it softens her expression. She sits, tucks one leg under the other, and waits for me to start.
“Okay,” I begin, handing her a pen, “here’s the basic layout.” I pull up the custom interface I spent three years developing and show her the dashboard. “I wrote this myself. If you find a bug, don’t tell Adrian.” I mean it as a joke, but she doesn’t laugh.
She leans forward, eyes scanning the screen. “I’m probably not supposed to say this, but I suck at learning new software.”
“Lucky for you, it’s not hard. It’s just a cleverly disguised Excel spreadsheet. Watch.” I run a few macros, bring up the project tracker, then slide the mouse over so she can try.
She touches the mouse with an unsteady hand, and I look away so I won’t make her self-conscious. “Just double-click?” she asks.
“Yep. You’ll get a pop-up.”
She clicks, and nothing happens. She glances up, visibly bracing.
“Try again, but hold shift. It’s a security thing.” I lean in, not close enough to invade her space, but enough that I catch a faint whiff of her perfume. She does as instructed and the pop-up appears.
But I can hardly focus on the screen.
“Magic,” Maddy beams, half-impressed, half-relieved.
I show her how to enter a new project, how to tag priority emails, how to escalate tasks. And honestly? She’s a quick study.
She chews her lip as she accidentally mislabels a contact, and then immediately tries to back out of the window. I reach to correct it, and her hand lands on mine by accident.
“Sorry,” she says, yanking back.
