That said, I do not forgive Ryan Hayes for cheating on me with my former best friend. I probably never will and I’m perfectly okay with that.

I don’t want to hear any bullshit about how “forgiveness helps you sleep better at night,” because that’s not true. (My seven layer mattress is amazing)

Anyway, I received my evaluations from my associates this week and I waited until Friday to open them. Out of a possible five stars, my score is a 3.8. Now, normally this wouldn’t bother me, because stars are just stars and they don’t mean anything. But this year they were allowed to write anonymous comments with their ratings and I almost went out there and fired every single one of them.

Their comments went something like this: “Miss Gracen is an okay director, but she would be better if she weren’t so stuck up.” “Miss Gracen should trust us with more work.” “Miss Gracen should stop trashing so many of our concepts and send them up to the board.” “She dresses nice but she doesn’t know much about advertising.” “Miss Gracen needs to realize that most of us went to Ivy-league colleges and are more than capable of coming up with great campaign slogans. (Didn’t she go to the University of Pittsburgh? Isn’t that a public school?)”

You know what? I’m not even going to address their dumbass remarks. I just...

“The new sPhone blue. We make Crayola jealous.”

Enough said.

This can’t be my life,

Claire

Chapter 7

Claire

I called in sick to work on Monday. I didn’t want to deal with Jonathan asking me any questions about me standing him up for our date, and I didn’t feel like sitting through another useless brainstorming session.

All I wanted to do was relax.

I dimmed the lights in my bathroom and lit all my favorite candles—vanilla, honeysuckle, and amber. I tossed a few Eucalyptus salts into the tub and turned on the water, squeezing generous dollops of cherry bubble bath underneath the running faucet.

I’d always felt that bubble baths were the best therapy in the world. Hot water and soapy beads had a way of helping me escape to another life—a life where I could sail to anywhere I wanted, a life where I worked because I wanted to, not because I had to.

I stepped into the tub and slid under the suds, letting the warm water lull me into my special place.

Don’t think about work...Don’t think about work...

I pulled my favorite purple vibrator from the side panel and sighed. I hit the “on” button, prepared to put him to work, but the doorbell suddenly rang.

Ugh! Why now?

I figured my next door neighbor had received my mail by accident again and wanted to “personally return it” as opposed to simply sticking it in my mailbox. My neighbors were so syrupy sweet sometimes it made me sick.

I waited to see if she would go away, if she wouldn’t notice that my car was parked right out front, but the doorbell rang again.

Damnit...

I stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around myself. Blowing out all of the candles, I put my hair into a high messy ponytail. “I’m coming Mrs. Hamilton! Give me one second!” I rushed downstairs.

I opened the door and saw Jonathan standing there, looking completely irresistible. He was dressed in another perfectly fitted suit—dark gray with an opened collared white shirt, and his stunning blue eyes shifted from my face to my towel; it seemed like he was slowly undressing me.

“Umm hello?” I closed the door halfway and peeked around it. “Why are you here?”

“Hi.” He grinned. “You called in sick today.”

“Okay. And? Do you make house visits every time an employee calls off work?”

“No. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh. Well, I am. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great—”

“I actually need you to sign off on your team’s designs before they can be presented this afternoon.” He held a briefcase up. “Every director has to pick a top option.”

Oh my god, I forgot all about that...Why didn’t I remember that the meeting with the advisors was today?

“Are you going to let me in so you can see them, Miss Gracen?” He smirked.

“Give me a minute.” I shut the door in his face.

I rushed upstairs to my room and put on a pair of sweats and a baggy T-shirt. I threw my robe on over it and caught a glance of myself in the mirror.

I look absolutely terrible right now...

I took my time walking down the steps and opened the door. “You sure this isn’t about me standing you up Saturday?”

He smiled and walked past me. “Of course not. This is business, not personal. Do you have a table you can lay these out on?”

I showed him past my unfinished hallway and ushered him into my rustic themed kitchen; I was glad I’d cleaned up this morning.

He set the suitcase on the table and looked around. His eyes met mine and I turned away.

“This is very nice.” He ran his fingers across the hanging bronze light fixture. “Who designed this room for you?”

“I did.” I sat down and opened the briefcase. “I did the paint, the crown molding, everything. It took me two months to get the flooring right. I had to buy it in installments.”

“I’m impressed.”

I pulled out the first few markups and sighed. I was now convinced that I needed to find a way to quit his company in two years, not five. My associates didn’t know shit about marketing. Actually, they didn’t know shit about anything.

None of their ad submissions were as terrible as the ‘the cotton field’ one, but they were still lackluster. There were even misspelled words on some of them.

How hard is it to hit ‘spellcheck’?

“You don’t look too happy.” Jonathan sat in the chair next to me.

“I’m not. My daughters could’ve designed these in ten minutes and done a much better job.”

“Tell them we’re hiring.”

I rolled my eyes. “They hear me complaining about my job every day. I doubt they’d be interested...I guess I’ll go with this one though. It’s simple, modern, and it gets the point across. We can have the art division spice it up if the chairs approve.” I placed the best poster on top and placed the stack back into the briefcase.

I stood up and clasped my hands together. “Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention, Mr. Statham. You can go now.”

“Is that coffee?” He pointed to my coffeemaker. “Can I have a cup before I leave?”

“Don’t you need to get back to work?”

He looked at his watch. “It’s eleven o’ clock. The meeting isn’t until three.”

Ugh, my bath is getting cold...

I walked over to the cabinet and pulled out two mugs, making us both a cup. I didn’t bother asking him how he liked his; I made it just like mine and handed it to him without sitting down.

“Thank you,” he said as he took a slow sip. “How was your weekend?”

“You said this was a business visit. I don’t think that question—”

“The first part was business. Now it’s personal.” He glared at me. “How. Was. Your. Weekend?” He set the coffee down.

So he is mad about being stood up...

“It was um, great. How was yours?”

“Yours was great? That sounds really interesting. What all did you do?” He narrowed his eyes at me and leaned back in his chair.

Try to look away from him, try to look away from him...

“I went for a long run with two of my friends and caught up on some work.”

“Hmmm. You know, I was having a pretty good weekend too. I was spending my nights talking to an extremely beautiful woman. I believe I talked to her every night and we made an arrangement... But then she stood me up on Saturday, so my weekend ended quite terribly.”

“Oh really?” I cleared my throat. “Well, that stuff happens sometimes. It’s all a part of life, young man. Live a little more and then—”