With the recent upheaval in my personal life, work had really been pushed to the back burner. I swore to myself on Tuesday morning that I’d catch up. The number of emails in my inbox alone was enough to make a grown man weep.

“Ryder,” my assistant Paige smiled at me in greeting as I walked in. “Coffee?”

“Please.” I hadn’t been at work yesterday afternoon - I’d needed to meet with Ben, my personal lawyer, to get him started on drafting the contract between Zoe and me. Caffeine would be required to get through the accumulated backlog.

She followed me into my office in a few minutes with a steaming cup. “Your schedule is jammed today,” she said, taking a seat in front of me and looking at her calendar. “The Vancouver developers needed to meet with you urgently. They’re showing up in thirty minutes. Joe Wilder is the project manager - he’s going to be in it too, but he let me know it’s a cost issue.”

“If they want to haggle, they can go elsewhere,” I said flatly. “Sorry, Paige. I’m sure Joe’s already told them that.”

“I asked, and he said yes. He thinks the clients need to hear it from you.”

“A fucking waste of time, but okay. What else?”

She sighed. “The Drake Towers team is requesting an emergency meeting.”

“Why?”

“Between you and me, Steve’s being a whiny little bitch,” Paige retorted frankly. “He doesn’t want to add in a park. He thinks the design is perfect as it is.”

I stifled a grin. I’d brought Paige with me when I moved to Toronto from London. She was forthright and had a mouth on her, and she was worth her weight in gold. Paige knew everything about Drake & Partners, and I trusted her completely. “They better have something for me,” I said grimly. “I’m not in a mood to listen to their excuses. It does not take a week to put in a park and a playground.”

Paige rolled her eyes. There was no love lost between Steve Sinclair and her. “One would think,” she said dryly. “Oh, by the way, I hear you are getting married.”

I almost spit out my coffee. “How on earth did you find out?” I thought only three people knew. Gigi. My lawyer Ben. And Zoe, of course.

“Bianca Russo called to set up a meeting with you next week, and she told me,” she replied. “I’m a little hurt that I didn’t hear it from you, Ryder.”

I looked up at her tone. “Are you serious?” I asked her. Paige and I got along fine, but our conversations were restricted to work. We didn’t talk about our feelings, for crying out loud.

She cracked up. “Just fucking with you, Ryder. I know how private you are. Christ, you should have seen your face. Congratulations, by the way.”

“Good thing you are good at your job,” I grumbled though I was grinning. It was hard to stay mad at Paige. “Speaking of my fiancée, Zoe’s going to need to buy a car. I gave her a list of dealers. Can you set up appointments for her to test-drive them, please?”

“Sure thing, boss.” She got to her feet. “I went through your email, answered most of them, and highlighted the ones you need to respond to.”

“Perfect.” I was already scrolling through the list. “Thanks, Paige.”

She cleared her throat. “In all seriousness, Ryder,” she said on her way out, “I’m really happy for you.”

When she left my office, I massaged my temples. What a tangled web I was weaving…

* * *

Just as Paige had suspected, Steve Sinclair had nothing. I looked at the design alteration in front of me. It was a travesty. All Steve had done was chop off six inches on all four sides of the building to create a sliver of extra space. A playground? This was a pathway.

“What is this?” My voice was dangerous. “What happened to the sketches I sent you?” I’d left the town hall meeting inspired by the possibilities. I’d drawn out a playground that effectively integrated outdoor space along with a portion of the indoor space on the first two floors of the building, and I’d sent Steve my concept drawings.

“I ran the cost projections on that,” he said. “It would have been too expensive. That glass atrium alone would have added a million dollars to the project cost.”

The extra cost was inconsequential. This was the most important project of my career. It carried my name, damn it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” My voice rose, and Steve flinched. I never yelled at work. “To save a million dollars, you offer me this piece-of-shit design? I promised to incorporate a park into our design, Steve. Do you understand that? Do you think my word means nothing?”

“This is a park,” he unwisely insisted. “It satisfies the requirements. I checked with Manny.”

“Manny’s not in charge.”    

That should have stopped Steve cold. It didn’t. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “You hired me to keep this project on track,” he said. “I’m trying to do that.”

No. No. He was missing the forest for the trees. We had a chance to do something unique, creative and inspiring, and if we succeeded at it, we would get a ton of free press coverage out of it. Steve’s idea, on the other hand, would draw widespread condemnation. “Why do you think people hire us?”

Steve kept quiet, a stubborn expression on his face.

“Because of the prestige of our name. The jobs that keep us in the black, the condos and the townhomes, the business complexes of the world, all those people come to us because of our reputation.”

I looked at his plan with disgust, Zoe’s words from the party running through my head. She’d told me I’d do the bare minimum necessary, and nothing else. “Throw this crap away and start over,” I snapped. “Draft up the design I drew.”

Steve sneered. “Some fucking chick comes to city hall and whines on about her childhood, and we’re jumping to her bidding. Whatever, Ryder.”

White hot anger filled me. I wanted to punch him for talking about Zoe that way. “We are doing this,” I said, very quietly, “because when we agree to do something, we do it with integrity. And if you can’t see that, Steve, then you don’t belong here.”

He tossed the drawings angrily at my desk and left the room without further comment. Just as well. He’d pushed me almost to snapping point.

I swept the drawings into a corner of my already overflowing desk and stared at the door he’d walked out of for a long time. When I hired people, I looked for two things. One, a burning desire to do the best possible work they could, every single day. And two, an ability to stand up to me. I wanted people with passion and backbone.

Steve had backbone. But the passion was lacking, and I had no use for someone who went through the motions.

I went to pour myself a cup of coffee from the pot that Paige had behind her desk. She looked up with a questioning look on her face. “That was a fucking disaster,” I said.

“Time to hire someone else?”

“For the moment, no. He’s going to rework it. But get the process started, will you, Paige? This isn’t going to end well.”

“Sure.” She smiled. “On a more cheery note, your fiancée called. She’s looking at cars on Saturday.”

“Good.” I didn’t expect that piece of news to lift my spirits, but it did. Zoe was so self-sufficient and shouldered so much without any complaint. I wanted to make her life easier.

For six months, I reminded myself. This is a temporary deal.

But I couldn’t ignore the truth.

I wanted to make Zoe happy.

And I didn’t know what to do with that feeling.