Ignite Me (The Annihilate Me Series) (5 page)

And then, for a
reason I couldn’t understand, she folded her arms in front of her chest and
looked sternly at me.

“What you also
need to know is that there is an empty office straight across from you.
 
Late yesterday afternoon, I met with
Alex and Jennifer, and it was decided that Brock Wenn—for the
interim—will occupy that office because they want me to oversee him for
now.
 
They are very close to
deciding where he’ll land at Wenn, but they first want to test his strengths
and weaknesses.
 
To do that, they’ve
charged him to write a report on some biotech that Alex and Jennifer are
considering buying—or not.
 
It’s up to Brock to convince them either way.”

I almost
tingled at the news.
 
The fact that
the man I saw yesterday was going to be sitting in an office directly across
from me was something I’d never expected, and the idea of it nearly did me in.

How am I going
to get any work done with
him
just twenty feet away from me?

“And I must say
this,” Blackwell said as she leveled me with a glance.
 
“I was not unaware of the way that the
air shifted between the two of you when you were first introduced
yesterday.
 
I actually felt it, so
here’s what you need to understand going forward.
 
Both of you have jobs that are on the
line, and because of that, I can promise you this.
 
Right now, each of you is being tested,
so it’s in your own best interests to simply focus on your jobs and forget
about whatever hormones passed between the two of you yesterday.
 
Because if you are to keep this
job—and to climb the Wenn ladder, which you have already claimed to me is
your aim—I’m expecting nothing but focus and results from you,
Madison.
 
And that man?
 
That man will only distract you from
your goals, which will lead to no good.
 
Are we clear on that?”

Ab-so-lute-ly
not.

“We’re clear,”
I said.

“I hope so,”
Blackwell said.
 
“Because I’m here
to tell you that I will tolerate nothing that leaves that pretty head of yours
in a fog.
 
You are being paid
handsomely to be my personal assistant.
 
While most of the time you’ll simply be at my beck and call, part of
your job is to serve as a buffer between me and all of those directors I’ve
already mentioned to you.
 
And
here’s what you need to know about them, Madison.
 
Those people?
 
Those people all want a piece of me,
which is the very reason for Margaret’s promotion—and for your hire.
 
Every director now knows that they are
to answer directly to Margaret first, but does that mean that they won’t pull
something on you or on her in a bleak effort to try to get to me?
 
Of course not—they will.
 
I already know that they will.
 
So does Margaret.
 
And by the end of the week, I expect you
to know exactly how to shelter me from them.
 
Steer them toward Margaret.
 
Keep them at bay.
 
And don’t disappoint.”

“It seems to me
that Margaret is your real assistant,” I said.

“Not true,”
Blackwell said.
 
“You both play a
critical yet separate roll.
 
At this
point in my career at Wenn, I’m being pulled in so many directions, the less
I’m involved in the day-to-day grind of small HR matters, which Margaret can
handle with ease, the better it will be for everyone.
 
If Margaret believes that I should be
involved, I trust her judgment implicitly and will step in.
 
This whole restructuring that we’ve done
is to allow me to be more accessible to Alex and Jennifer when they need me,
which is increasing steadily.
 
Understood?” she said.

“Understood.”

“On your desk
you’ll find the necessary paperwork to fill out so you can become an official
Wenn employee.
 
If you have any
questions about benefits, retirement, or whatever, don’t come to me.
 
Go to Margaret.
 
And when everything has gone to
Margaret, let me know so that I’ll know that you’re ready to get to work.”

“May I ask what
time you usually arrive?”

“Why?”

“So I can
arrive earlier if you need me to be here earlier.”

That caught her
offguard—but only for a moment.
 
“I arrive at five sharp,” she said.
 
“And while I appreciate the offer, I arrive early to have two hours to
myself before the onslaught begins.
 
You are to come at seven.
 
As
for today?
 
Let’s just hope that you
have a good deal of endurance, Madison, because today you’re going to wish that
you’d been running marathons for the past year.”

And when she
said that, I knew why Rhoda had suggested that I bring a pair of running shoes
with me before I left the apartment.

CHAPTER
FIVE

I was in the
middle of filling out my paperwork when people started to arrive for work.
 

As with any new
job, I was nervous being the new kid on the block, but also relieved when so
many people came up and introduced themselves to me.
 
I met all of the various directors, much
of their staffs, certainly all of the secretaries I’d be calling on at any
given point, and then I met Margaret, who couldn’t have been much older than I
was, and whom I liked immediately.
 
Every one of them seemed pleasant and professional, which was a relief
after the hell I’d just been through with Blackwell.

And then in
walked Brock Wenn himself.

Because he
stopped in Blackwell’s doorway with his back to me, I saw him before he saw
me—and I have to say, given how long it had been since I’d been with a
man, that there was something about this man that drew me toward him in ways
that usually told me to run in the other direction.
 
I had no idea what was different about
him, but I couldn’t deny what I felt.
 
Brock Wenn was nothing short of strikingly good-looking, and my hormones
went into overdrive before I quickly looked away so Blackwell wouldn’t catch me
staring at him.

I pretended to
continue to fill out my paperwork while I listened to their conversation.

“Well, well,”
Blackwell said to Brock.
 
“Good to
see you.
 
And I have to say that you
look handsome.
 
Perfect suit.
 
Brooks Brothers?”

“It is,” he
said in his baritone voice.

“Given what
Madison is wearing, it’s refreshing to see a suit that’s actually been properly
tailored.”

He looked over
at me when she said that, our eyes met, and I felt his gaze sweep over my
body—and then he gave me a discreet wink that seemed to suggest, “Don’t
worry about this—I’ve got your back.”

“What’s wrong
with what Madison is wearing?
 
She
looks terrific.
 
You know, I might
have been gone for a few years—”

“To Wharton,”
she interrupted.
 
“Where apparently
you overachieved and forgot about the rest of us.”

So, he’s a
Wharton grad?
I thought.
 
Promising. . . .

“Yeah, to
Wharton.
 
But whatever.
 
And I never forgot about anyone, so
let’s put that on the record.
 
That
said, what I do remember when I was a kid is that sometimes you can be a bit
harsh.”

“
Moi
?
 
Never.
 
I speak the truth—always.”

“Not in
Madison’s case you don’t.”

“Anyway,”
Blackwell said, almost too quickly as I heard her stand up.
 
“Enough of Madison.
 
You have paperwork to fill out if you want
to work here, which I presume that you do.”

“I do.”

“Then come with
me,” she said, taking him by the arm as she stepped out of her office.
 
“Your office is just over here.
 
You’ve already talked with Alex about
what he and Jennifer expect of you?”

“I have.
 
I’m researching a new biotech that is on
the verge of going into final trials for some hot new breast-cancer drug they
have in development.
 
Last night, I
read up on them—what they’ve been working on sounds promising on the
surface, but we’ll see.
 
I’ve agreed
to write a report so that Wenn Pharmaceutical can decide whether they should
consider a buyout.”

“Last night?”
she said, just loudly enough so that I could hear her.
 
“Well, there’s
real
commitment
for you.
 
Staying up late to focus
on your work.
 
Good for you.
 
I hope it didn’t get you into any
trouble with your girlfriend. . . .”

“Girlfriend?”
he said.
 
“I live with two roommates
in the Village—male roommates.
 
I don’t have time for a girlfriend.”

“Oh?” Blackwell
said.
 
“No time at all?”

No time at all?

“I’m focused on
my career right now.
 
A girlfriend
can wait.”

“So sensible,”
she said.
 
“Because after all, at
your age, career is key.
 
How old
are you now?
 
Twenty-eight or so?”

“Twenty-seven.”

We’re the same
age
, I thought.

“Then good for
you for staying the course.
 
When
you lean into your thirties, you’ll still be a powerhouse of good looks, and
the women will flock to you.
 
But
career first.
 
And then a girlfriend
in, oh, three or so years from now.”

“That’s the
plan,” he said.
 
“Unless the right
woman comes along.”

“She won’t.”

“And how do you
know that?”

“I just know
it.”

“My mother
wants me to be engaged now.”

“Well, Ruth
always has been nothing if not a rock of insanity sitting alone in an unsteady
sea, hasn’t she?
 
But we both know
that, so enough about Ruth.
 
Anyway,
here is your office,” she said.
 
“I
hope that it suits.
 
You’re on this
floor because I’m to oversee you in case you have questions.
 
Your computer is there.
 
There are pens, pencils, and other
office-related things all around you.
 
If you need anything else to help you write your paper, just ask
Margaret and she’ll supply you with whatever you need.
 
And listen to me on this—take your
time when it comes to writing that paper, make sure that it’s perfect, show it
to me if you want to, and then you can take it to Alex and Jennifer.
 
At that point, we’ll see where you land
at Wenn.”

“Done,” he
said.
 
“And thanks, Barbara.
 
It really is good to see you again.”

“Agreed.
 
I’ve missed you, you horrible boy.”
 
She paused for a moment and seemed to
reassess him.
 
“Although maybe that’s
not quite fair—you seem somehow different to me.
 
Not quite so brash.
 
Not quite the womanizer I used to know.”

“That’s because
I’m not.”

He was a
womanizer?

“Music to my
ears, even if I don’t believe it for a second.”
 
She clapped her hands in front of
her.
 
“So!
 
Get settled in.
 
See Margaret once you’ve filled out your
paperwork.
 
And then continue on
with your research.”

“Will do,” he
said.

When Blackwell
left his office and walked past me, I caught a look of suppressed glee on her
face, and I knew what had caused it.
 
Brock Wenn was off the market.
 
He was in this for his career.
 
She knew that I’d heard every word of their exchange, and as far as she
was concerned, she’d triumphed in sending home a message she thought I clearly
needed to hear.

Brock Wenn was
off limits to me.

But an hour
later, after I’d finished filling out my own paperwork, Blackwell was busy
chatting away on her phone when the computer closest to me dinged.
 
How could it be that I’d already
received an email, unless it was perhaps from Margaret?
 
I glanced over at the screen and saw
that Wenn obviously had an instant-messaging system in place to communicate
internally.

And there was a
pop-up message waiting for me.

It was from
Brock, which surprised me, and after I read it, I just stared at it before I
looked up at him and caught the smile on his face.
 
“You really do look terrific,” he’d
written.
 
“Don’t let her get you
down.
 
Deep within her, she actually
has the potential to be a good person—believe it or not.”

Maybe to you,
she does.
 
But when it comes to me,
she’s about as nice as a stray cat tormented by mange
.

I saw that
there was more to the message and scrolled down to finish reading it.
 
“I don’t know many people here, so with
us being the newbies and all, would you be interested in having coffee with me
tomorrow morning?
 
We could meet
somewhere at six before we come to work.
 
If you’re worried about Blackwell, don’t be.
 
I promise that it will just be two colleagues
enjoying coffee and getting to know one another.
 
Nothing more.”

With a sense of
certainty I felt whirling within my gut, I knew that
that
was a
lie.
 
Brock Wenn was interested in
me.
 
But Blackwell had just
mentioned that he was once a womanizer.
 
Was that still the case?
 
And
with Blackwell so firmly against us having anything to do with each other, I
had no choice but to wonder what kind of dangers having coffee with him would
pose to my career here if somehow she found out about it.
 
Because if she did find out, she’d have
my head.

I thought about
it for a moment, and then I figured that the chances of that happening were so
low, why the hell not?
 
It was my
Summer of Resolve, after all, and I was nothing if not attracted to him.
 
So, I responded to him with this:
“Coffee at six sounds nice for a couple of newbies.
 
Where do you have in mind?”

“How about the
Starbucks inside Trump Tower?
 
It’s
not far from here.”

My heart was
hammering in my chest when I wrote:
 
“Perfect.
 
See you tomorrow at six.”
 
Thinking that this conversation was
over, I shut down the message, glanced up at him, saw that he was looking at me
with an intensity that unnerved me, and then, perfectly rattled, I pretended to
look over my paperwork a final time.
 

Blackwell was
still on the phone, but it sounded to me as if she was wrapping up her
conversation when my computer dinged again.
 
And when it did, I almost panicked
because I heard Blackwell say, “Right, right.
 
Let me look into that and I’ll get back
to you shortly.”
 
I read the message
as quickly as I could.
 
“I’m looking
forward to getting to know you, Madison.
 
But I’ll leave you alone for now, as much as I don’t want to.
 
So, until tomorrow.
 
—Brock.”

The moment I
clicked off the message, I heard Blackwell call out to me.
 
“Madison?” she said.
 
“Would you come here, please?”

Great
, I thought as
I stood up and faced her.
 
She’d
been aware of this the entire time. . . .

I went to her
door.
 
“Yes, Ms. Blackwell?”

“Coffee,” she
said.
 
“
Rapidement
!
 
Let it cool for precisely one minute before you bring it to me,
otherwise it will be too hot, and that won’t do.
 
Also, after that particular telephone
conversation, I need a fresh glass of ice.”

“A glass of
ice?” I asked.

“Yes.
 
Ice.
 
Fill a glass to the top with it.
 
I crunch on it throughout the day while
thinking of all the people who dare to overstep my authority.
 
I bite down on each cube as if it were
someone’s head.”

Lady, how about
having your own head checked?

“Would you like
anything else?” I asked, relieved that none of this was about why I was clearly
using the instant-messaging system.

“Not now, but
at noon, you’ll be consumed.
 
So, be
prepared for that, because it’s coming.”