There’s a place for everything, and everything has its place. They were words to live by. My mantra.

I started my morning at exactly five thirty. No snooze button. I took a five-mile jog, spent exactly twenty minutes at the gym, and then rode the elevator back up to the penthouse for a cold shower. Breakfast was two whole eggs, three egg whites, a bowl of oatmeal, and a handful of almonds to eat separately when I was finished. I had set out my clothes for work the night before. Black, custom-tailored suit with a gray shirt and a red tie.

I liked order. I liked structure. It was the principle behind my business model and one of the primary factors that led to my success. Achievement was a two-part formula as simple as identifying the steps required to reach a goal and then taking those steps. Almost anyone could identify the steps, but not many had the self-discipline and control to follow them down to the letter.

I did.

I went through a nasty, complicated break up just three months ago, and lately, it had felt even easier to focus on the routine. Maybe I was getting more dependent on it by the day, but frankly, I didn’t care. I’d happily bury myself in work if it meant forgetting. I’d push anyone and everyone away if it meant I didn’t need to feel that sting again.

I had my driver pick me up at exactly seven in the morning to take me to the office. I worked out of an eighteen story building downtown. My twin brother and I bought it five years ago, floor by floor. Our first goal had been to operate out of New York. That took us a year. Our next was to rent a space in what used to be the Greenridge building, a modern, granite and glass monolith in the center of downtown. That took two months. Eventually, we wanted to own the whole thing. That took five years.

But here we were.

I pulled out my phone and dialed my brother, William. He answered, voice thick with sleepiness. “The fuck?” he groaned.

I felt my pulse quicken. We might look the same, but our personalities couldn’t have been more different. William slept with a different woman every week. He perpetually overslept and missed work. He’d show up with lipstick smears on his neck and earlobes or with his shirt untucked. If he was anyone else, I would have fired him the moment I met him.

Unfortunately, he was my brother. Also unfortunately, he had my same sense for business, and despite his lack of professionalism, he was critical to Galleon Enterprises.

“I need you here,” I said. “We’re screening the interns today for the publicity piece.”

There was a long pause. Long enough to tell me he had no idea what I was talking about.

“The interns. The ones you suggested we bring in? The ones who are going to soak up everything we show them and ‘spew our diamond-crusted garbage to the media.’ I assume you don’t remember saying any of that?”

William groaned, and I thought I heard the soft voice of a woman in the background. “Right now, no. I don’t remember that. Once I’ve injected a metric fuck-ton of caffeine into my veins, then yeah, maybe it’ll start ringing a bell.”

“Just get here. I’m not going to spend all morning interviewing your interns.”

It was almost lunch, and I'd spent all morning interviewing interns. I checked my watch. It was the kind of watch Navy SEALs wore, which meant I could dive up to a hundred and twenty-five meters with it on. I wasn't sure when I might need the ability to spontaneously go for an ocean dive, but I'd always found a satisfying comfort from knowing I was prepared for every last thing life could throw at me. I kept two extra sets of clothes in my office and in my driver's car at all times, business and casual. I had worked with a nutritionist to make sure my food intake was as optimally balanced as possible to keep me from feeling any energy dip or lethargy during my workday. I even had an extra phone with all my contacts and information backed up in case something happened to mine unexpectedly.

Every possibility was covered. No surprises. No setbacks. Most importantly, I never made the same mistake twice. Never.

One of the newest additions to my policy on avoiding repeat mistakes had been staying out of relationships. It wasn’t worth it.

I could leave behind the more complicated pursuits like women and commitments for the simple ones. Speaking of which, there was a banana with my name on it—literally—in the break room. I could’ve kept it in my desk, of course, but I preferred the excuse to get up and take a walk a little while before lunch. It also meant I had a chance to interact with my employees. Talking with employees usually just meant listening to them kiss my ass, but I knew it was good for morale to mingle from time to time. People worked better for someone they liked.

I thanked the sixth intern I had interviewed that morning and stood to show her out of my office. Like the interns before her, she had been fresh out of college, wide-eyed, and terrified. I hadn’t expected much else, but I wasn’t sure how William expected to screen the candidates. He wanted someone who would absorb everything we did in the most favorable light possible, because he was going to set up a series of interviews with the media once they had learned enough. He said it would be free PR right before we launched our newest branch in Pittsburg.

One advertising philosophy we took very seriously was the idea of coming from as many angles as possible. We didn’t just want our clients to dump all their money into radio or TV commercials. We got creative, and turning interns into our own relatively free advertising was just another facet of our strategy. It wasn’t as much about the money as it was about playing the game, and we both loved the challenge. Think differently. Act faster. Take bigger risks. It was also another opportunity for potential clients to see the innovative and creative ways we used to market our own business. After all, if you want the best clients to pay you to market for them, you damn well better market yourself like a pro.

William and I had always played off each other's personalities well. He pushed me to take more risks than I would with the business, and I helped reign him in when he was too reckless.

I pushed my chair back in at my desk and drained the last of my water.

My stomach gurgled at the thought of the banana I had waiting for me. My diet had very little sugar in it, and over time, bananas had come to be the highlight of my culinary life. I knew it was ridiculous, which was why I would never admit it to anyone. But the banana I had before lunch was often the best part of my day. William said the employees who were afraid of me had learned to stay out of the break room if the banana was still there. The ones who were looking to kiss my ass would wait around it like it was bait.

The office was clean and modern in design. William and I paid an interior designer to put the look together and spared no expense. Having a clean, pleasing design was more than a luxury, it was a business model. We didn't just want our competition to think we were top of the line in every respect, we wanted our employees to feel it too. People worked differently when they thought they were at the top and wanted to stay there.

The break room was a glass rectangle overlooking an indoor courtyard area covered in just about every flower we could find that would survive indoors.

Each floor of the building had about eighty employees working at any given time, and I always had been quick to remember faces and names.

So when I didn’t recognize the girl wearing a navy pencil-skirt and white blouse, I knew she was one of the interns. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and she had missed a lock of hair that was catching the air from the overhead vent, flapping lazily and drawing my eye. She was pretty, with expressive, hazel eyes, a mouth that looked accustomed to mischievous grins and quick turns of phrase, and a body that she clearly took care of.

None of that mattered though. What mattered was the object in her hand.

The half-eaten object in her hand with my name written on it in sharpie. Only the neatly written “BRU” was visible before the peeled back flaps of the banana obscured the rest.

There were four other people in the break room, all of whom saw what was in her hand and had moved themselves to the farthest corners of the room. They were watching her like she was holding a grenade with the pin pulled, all while making efforts to casually slip out of the room before the explosion they knew was about to come.

The girl noticed me then.

Her eyes widened slightly and she sucked in a gasp, which seemed to lodge part of the banana in her throat. She started coughing and half-choking.

I saw red. She must be an intern, and she had the fucking nerve to touch my banana? To eat it? So when I moved to her side and slapped her back to help her dislodge whatever was stuck in her throat, I patted her with a little more force than I intended.

She grunted, coughed, and swallowed. Her cheeks ignited with a splotchy red as she looked me up and down, plopping herself in a chair by the large table at the center of the room to catch her breath.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked once she seemed to be fully recovered from choking on my banana. My throat was tight with rage and indignation. She was a small injection of chaos into my life, a sabotage of my routine. All my natural impulses were practically screaming for me to eliminate her from my life as fast as possible like a healthy body would attack a virus.

“You’re Bruce Chamberson,” she said.

The half-eaten banana was sitting beside her. I drew her attention to my finger before flicking the peel over the banana so she could read the full name written on the side.

Her mouth fell open. “I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Chamberson. I just forgot my lunch and I didn’t see your name when I grabbed it. I thought it was complimentary, or—”

“A complimentary banana?” I asked dryly. “You thought Galleon Enterprises supplied its employees with a single, solitary banana?”

She paused, swallowed, and then shook her head. “Oh God,” she said, sinking into her chair like all the air was seeping out of her. “Something tells me I’m not going to get the internship after this.”

“Something tells you wrong. You’re hired. Your first job every day will be to buy me a banana and bring it to my office, no later than 10:30.” I made sure not to let surprise touch my features, even though it was spiking through me. What the fuck was I doing? She was attractive, and not in the way I could just notice off-handedly. She made something stir up inside me. I hadn’t felt any ounce of sexual desire since I ended things with Valerie, but this intern was quickly changing that. I didn’t just feel a curiosity about how good she’d look with that skirt hiked up to her hips, I wanted to know if she was quiet or loud in bed, if she’d dig her fingernails into my back or if she would lay herself out for me like a prize to be claimed. Yet at the same time, I wanted to eject her from my life as fast as humanly possible. She was everything I’d been trying to avoid. Everything I didn’t want.

Her eyebrows drew down in confusion. “I’m hired?” she asked.

I pushed down all my doubts. I told her she was hired in front of everyone in the break room, and I wasn’t about to look like I’d lost my shit in front of them. I had to own it. “Don’t look so pleased with yourself. If I liked you, I would send you packing. You’re going to wish you never touched my banana, Intern. I promise you that.”