Ignite Me (The Annihilate Me Series) (19 page)

“Thank you for
how you behaved earlier,” she said to me.

“I’m sorry?”

“You know
exactly what I’m talking about, Madison, so please don’t behave as if you
don’t.”
 
When she spoke, she did so
without looking at me.
 
Instead, her
gaze was fixed straight ahead of us, and I could tell that she was still undone
by the tension that Epifania had created between us.

“I meant what I
said, Ms. Blackwell.
 
I know very
well whom I’m learning from.
 
On the
day of my interview, I told you then that I’d researched you and learned how
hard you’d worked to make it to the top.
 
Your story has inspired me in ways that make me want to get up in the
morning.
 
Has this past week been
easy for me?
 
No, it hasn’t.
 
But did I ever expect it to be
easy?
 
Not at all.
 
This week has made me believe that if I
work hard enough, maybe one day I’ll be able to do with my life what you’ve
done with your own.”

“Well, that’s a
stretch,” she said, but when she said it, it was with a hint of a smile that
quickly vanished.
 
And then she just
sighed.
 
“She was serious, you
know?” she said.
 
“Right then, you
could have left me at that very moment, she would have doubled your salary on
the spot, and yet you didn’t take it.
 
So I have to ask why you didn’t, Madison?
 
Because you’re right—since you’ve
worked for me, I haven’t made things easy on you.
 
Some would say that I’ve been nothing
short of rude and impossible to you.
 
Others might call me a bitch.”

“To a point,
I’d agree with them,” I said.
 

When I said
that, she shot me a look.
 
“You’d
what?”

“I said that
I’d agree with them, but only to a point.
 
What you need to know is that I’d rather learn from a perfectionist than
from a woman who—how do I put this delicately—seemed somewhat
unhinged to me.”

“Just
somewhat?”

I smiled at
that.

“You still
could have gone with her, Madison.
 
Don’t think that I don’t know that, or that fact that you just turned
down a salary of one hundred eighty thousand dollars.
 
With full ‘bennies,’ I might add.”

“But to what
end?” I said.
 
“All that would have
led to is a dead-end job.
 
Fine, she
would have doubled my salary.
 
And
I’m not going to lie to you when I say that for a moment there, that sounded
particularly tempting to me right now because I mean it when I say that I’m
broke.
 
I could use the money.
 
Money is important to all of us, but I
have to look at the big picture, and in the end, as my previous two jobs have
proved, the big picture isn’t all about money for me.
 
It’s about hopefully rising up through
the ranks, proving myself to my employers, and earning a fair wage for what I
provide to them.
 
That’s what I hope
to achieve by working for you and for Wenn.”

“I never
overlook loyalty,” she said when she unexpectedly reached out and touched my
arm.
 
“You should know that.”

“And you should
know that I know that you easily could have just handed me over to her.
 
But you didn’t.
 
Instead, you shut her down.
 
So, thank you for that.
 
I know I haven’t done everything exactly
as you’ve expected of me, Ms. Blackwell, but hearing you give her some pushback
when it came to me suggested that maybe I’m not a lost cause after all.”

“Let’s not go
that far, darling,” Blackwell said.
 
“Because what you also need to know is that I’ll do anything not to
lose.”

When she said
that to me, I couldn’t keep my mouth from falling open.
 
This was her response to me?
 
After what I thought had been such a
groundbreaking conversation in which we each seemed to appreciate the other?

“How about if
we fill you up with some roughage?” Blackwell said with a self-satisfied
smile.
 
“I think we’re due for an
early lunch, don’t you, Madison?
 
Otherwise,
you’re just going to look like a horror show of perplexity when we return to
Wenn.
 
So today lunch is on me, not
that you should ever get used to
that
.”
 

She leaned
forward in her seat and tapped Cutter on his right shoulder.
 
“Le Salade, darling.
 
Tout-de-suite
!”

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN

 
By the end of the day, Blackwell had put
me through my paces again by asking me to personally deliver a litany of signed
paperwork to dozens of executives throughout Wenn’s many different businesses,
to the point where I thought I’d spent more time in an elevator in one day than
I had in my entire life.

When I returned
to the fifty-first floor, I was a sweaty mess.
 
She’d given me so much to do in such a
short period of time, my pulse and adrenaline were in overdrive.
 
But since there was no way in hell that
I could present myself to her looking like this, I stopped at the restroom and
blotted my face with a few paper towels in an effort to look as if all of this
had been nothing short of a breeze for me, which was far from the case.

In fact, if she
keeps this up, she’s going to be the end of me
, I thought.
 

When I was
finished, I hurried down the hallway and took a breath before I knocked on her
doorjamb.
 
With a swift flick of her
head, she glanced away from her computer screen and narrowed her eyes as her
gaze swept over me.

“I’m assuming
by the sweat on your brow that you’ve somehow managed to survive today?”

I didn’t get
all of it?
 
Damn it!

“Everything has
been delivered,” I said, and when I said it, I was aware that I sounded winded,
which she no doubt noticed.

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Then that just
tells me that next week, you can handle more—so expect more from me,
Madison.
 
But good job,
nevertheless.
 
I realize that
hustling through a building the size of Wenn Enterprises is nothing short of
daunting, so I appreciate your efficiency.
 
I’ve sent you a few emails since you’ve been gone that need to be
answered before you leave for the weekend.
 
Tend to them, and I’ll see you here on Monday.”

“Thank you, Ms.
Blackwell.”

With a deep
sense of relief that this week was just about behind me, I went back to my
desk, sat down, woke my computer from its slumber, and discreetly looked across
the room at Brock’s office.
 

When I saw that
he wasn’t there—and that his office light was off—I wondered where
he was.
 
Had he already gone
home?
 
Earlier, he’d asked me if I’d
be free after work, and also if I was free this weekend.
 
Instead of obsessing over it, I decided
that I knew better and just dismissed the thought that he’d leave without
saying goodbye, especially after what had happened between us in the break room
that morning.

Wherever he is,
he’ll be back, so focus.

I opened my
emails, read through them, saw that the requests were relatively minor, and
that if I worked swiftly, I could get through them within a half hour.

I was in the
process of answering the fourth email when Brock stepped into the office.
 
And when he did, I brightened up.
 
As he walked past me, our eyes connected
for a heated instant before he went into his office, tossed a file onto his
desk, switched on the light, and started up his computer as Blackwell’s
personal line rang.

Aware that
Brock was looking at me, I listened to Blackwell as I pretended to type.

“Daniella?” she
said.
 
“How did the shopping go
today?
 
Do you feel better?
 
I thought that you would—retail
therapy and all that.
 
I’m
sorry?
 
Come again?
 
What in God’s name do you mean that
you’ve purchased a man?
”

At that moment,
my computer dinged, but because I had the volume down so low, I was confident
that only I could hear it.
 
Not that
that mattered.
 
I’d specifically
asked him not to contact me this way.

“Want to get
out of here?” he wrote.
 
“After the
meeting I just had with Alex, I’ve had it with today.
 
Now, I’d rather spend tonight and the
rest of the weekend with you.
 
How
soon can you leave?”

I hadn’t agreed
to spend the weekend with him, but we could discuss that later.

“Fifteen
minutes?” I wrote.

“It’s beautiful
outside.
 
How about if we take a
walk through the Park and then have dinner somewhere?
 
Maybe in the Village.
 
I’ll wait for you to leave, and then
I’ll be five minutes behind you.
 
Sound good?”

I glanced up
over my computer monitor and gave him a brief nod while my heart quickened with
the idea of having him next to me again.

And then my
inner voice decided it was time for another chat.

Was all of this
moving too fast?
 
After last night
and what had happened between us in the break room this morning, I knew in my
gut that, for whatever reason, it wasn’t just the air that had shifted between
us, but also the earth.
 
Somehow there
was something big between us.
 
It
was vital.
 
It was alive.
 
And despite how hard I’d initially tried
to shut it down, I knew for certain that it was real and it wasn’t going to go
away.

Whatever was
evolving didn’t care about my job.
 
And it didn’t care about the fact that I was on the verge of putting my
heart on the line.
 
It was bigger
than that, more consuming than that.
 
What I knew in my soul is that this was too rare to ignore.
 
I had never been so excited by the
prospect of getting to know a man and spending time alone with him.

I’d been hurt
before by other men, and though it had taken me years to trust someone again
with my heart, I was older now, more mature, and it was time to do so.
 
If I really was going to go forward with
my Summer of Resolve, then I had no choice but to break down the walls that had
held me back for years, forget about all of my fears when it came to men, and
hope beyond hope that the rubble from those walls didn’t overcome me in the
process.

*
 
*
 
*

I was on the
sidewalk waiting for Brock when he emerged from the building.
 
And when he saw me, his smile was so
wide and genuine, it lifted me up.

“Can I take
your hand?” he asked me.

“Maybe after a
couple of blocks . . . ?”

“Still
concerned about Blackwell, I see.”

“Maybe a bit.”

“Then I’ll
respect that, but just so you know, Madison, it’s killing me not to be able to
take your hand and kiss you right now.”

It’s difficult
for me, too.
 
But if I told you
that, God only knows what would happen between us.
 
We’d probably be cited for public
indecency.

With his arm
touching my shoulder, we started to walk up Fifth, which was teeming with
people—some of them tourists, others just out of work and in a hurry to
get somewhere else.
 
It was still
warm outside, but at least there was a breeze, which picked up my hair and felt
refreshing against my neck.

“How was your
day?” I asked.

“Let’s just say
that it didn’t end as well as I would have liked.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Alex called me
out of the blue, and asked to see my report early.
 
I told him that it wasn’t ready to be
seen, but he still insisted upon seeing it.
 
Since I had no choice, I showed it to
him, and he pretty much shit-canned it.
 
Not all of it—there was some parts that he responded to—but
he pretty much put me on notice that I needed to step up my game if I was going
to go into acquisitions at Wenn.”

“I’m sorry,” I
said.

“The good news
is that I now have a stronger feeling for what he’s looking for, and I already
know that I can fix it.”

“I’m still
happy to look at it whenever you want.”

“I appreciate
that.
 
And trust me, I’ll take you
up on that.”

“It would be my
pleasure.
 
And trust me when I say
that I’m craving to do something that’s business-related.
 
I didn’t move to this city to be a
personal assistant, but that’s nevertheless all the work I’ve managed to find
since coming here.
 
Believe me,
getting my hands on a document like the one you’re working on and sharing ideas
with you wouldn’t only be fun—it also would be a relief.”

“You’re so
different, Madison,” he said.
 
“And
I mean that in the best way possible.”

I looked up at
him.
 
“Different from what?”

“From most of
the women I’ve known.
 
You’re
beautiful.
 
You’re smart.
 
And you’re a fighter.
 
I think that’s the thing I respond to
most about you.
 
You’ve got this
fire in your gut that mirrors mine—I see it every time Blackwell
challenges you, and I sit in my office cheering you on because I know how hard
she can be on people.
 
I don’t think
you’re aware of it, but when she pushes you, this sense of determination comes
over your face and you become kind of like a lioness, like you’re determined to
prove her wrong no matter what it takes.
 
You came to Wenn to win, just like I did, which isn’t just sexy as hell
to me, but also speaks volumes about who you are as a person.
 
We may have only known each other for a
week, but you’re unlike any woman I’ve ever met.
 
I can’t tell you how happy I am that
we’ve met.”
 

He brushed his hand
against mine.
 

“Can I hold
your hand now?” he asked.
 
“We’re a
good four blocks away from Wenn at this point, and I really don’t want to wait
much longer.
 
I’ve already waited
all day for this.”

“All right,” I
said.

When he took my
hand in his, I felt that same jolt of excitement again—that undeniable
stirring of desire that whirled within my soul and made me feel inexplicably
lightheaded.
 
I wondered if Brock
also felt it.
 
When he intertwined
his fingers with mine, I had to believe that he did, especially when he
squeezed my hand in such a way that felt meaningful and protective to me.
 
As if this is how it should be between
us.
 
Hell, as if this had been this
way between us for years.
 
That made
little sense to me, but it was nevertheless how it felt.
 
And it was real.

And what am I
to make of that?
 

*
 
*
 
*

When we moved
past the Plaza Hotel and entered the Park, we started to stroll down one of the
paved walkways in silence until we came upon an empty green bench.

“Would you like
to sit down?” he asked.
 
“You’re in
heels.
 
I wasn’t thinking about that
when I suggested that we take a walk.
 
And you’ve been in them all day.”
 
He squeezed my hand harder and said in a disarmingly sexy voice, “You
know, if you’d like, I could rub your feet for you.”

“I’m totally
taking you up on that,” I said.

He laughed when
I said that and motioned toward the empty bench.
 
“Well, then have a seat.
 
I’d be happy to oblige.”

“You should
know that I’m ticklish,” I said as we sat down.

“Noted.
 
Now kick off your shoes and put one of
your feet in my lap.”

And then it
struck me.
 

“But what if my
feet stink?” I said.
 
“I’ve been in
these heels since the morning.”

“I seriously
doubt that your feet stink.”

“I was all over
Wenn in these shoes today.
 
My feet
are so going to smell like a sewer.
 
I know it.”

He cocked his
head at me.
 
“May I just have one of
your feet please.”

Oh, please,
God—if you can hear me right now, don’t let my feet stink.
 
Not now,
 
not at this moment.
 
Please!
 
I’m begging you!