“When I tell you that this guy didn’t stop talking the entire three hours we were at dinner, you have to believe me. Whoever said that women talk more than men never met this guy. I think I may have said fifty words during the entire date, and in the mean time, I learned about this guy’s cat, his mom, his grandma, his cousins and extended family, his hopes, his dreams and possibly his predictions for the next fifty years of his life. There’s a possibility I might be asked to write his biography using only the information that I learned on this date.”

—Rock Bottom Caroline

When I get home I spill every detail of the day to Alice, who’s dying for details after a full day at the bank. Which, she assures me, is boring as fuck. I find some pictures of Chance online and Alice can’t stop staring, and when I tell her that the pictures really don’t do him justice, she just shakes her head. This is all crazy, right?

When Alice heads to bed, I read the contract until my eyes feel like they’re going to fall out. It’s not a bad contract from what I’m gathering. A lot of it is standard employment legal stuff limiting Heart Makers’ liability and making sure that I understand that what I write on behalf of the Heart Makers’ brand belongs to them, but they don’t own anything else that I write, now or in the future.

Then there’s the explanation of my exclusive contract and my compensation. With money like this I’ll be able to pay off what’s left of my student loans and get my own place in just a few months. I can’t screw this up, because money like this could really change my life.

I can’t screw it up by doing something like fucking the boss, even if he is the most gorgeous piece of man candy walking around downtown Manhattan. Ugh. Seriously, how do you even get to be that hot? Is there some sort of vitamin you can take? Did the hotness fairy appear out of the sky and hit him with the hotness wand until it broke?

Great. Now I’m thinking about him again and how delicious he smelled leaning over me and that last long look before I said good night. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Hell, every day is going to be a long day of keeping myself—and my hands—off of him. But I think that it’s a good trade off.

I’m tempted to give in to my temptation to masturbate with all this pent up sexual energy, but I always feel weird doing that on Alice’s couch. Soon, when I have my own place, I’ll have plenty of privacy and time to do that. And then Noodle won’t be staring at me with his head tilted from across the room, wondering what the hell I’m doing. There’s nothing that kills the mood more than an animal curious about your sex life.

And with thought in my head, I sign the contract, put it away, and collapse into sleep.

* * *

I raid Alice’s closet again. I’ll be able to buy a new wardrobe soon. That will be fantastic! But today I settle for one of the outfits I regularly borrow from her: a deep blue button down that has short sleeves and somehow makes me look like I have bigger tits than I actually do, and black slacks that make my ass look amazing. I pull some flats from her closet, too. They’re a little big, but I’ll deal with it. I’ll be sitting at a desk all day, not running a marathon.

On the way downtown, on the subway, it hits me. I have a job. I have a job! A job that I’m actually going to like. A job that I have a shot at being good at! I don’t know what divine being or lucky star let me have this great fortune, but I’m certainly not going to complain about it.

When I get to the office, I’m pulled through a whirlwind. I have to fill out employment forms with HR, get my photo taken for my ID and building keycard, and I have to get log-in credentials for the computer system. Then, the HR woman, who seems like she’s in a hurry, gives me a more thorough tour of the Heart Makers offices. I pay attention this time—I don’t want to be the new girl who constantly has to ask for directions.

She leaves me at my office, and I’m exhausted even though it’s only ten A.M. I decide that I need some coffee, and thanks to the tour, I know where the break room is. There’s a group of women in the break room when I step inside, and there’s a momentary hush as everyone looks me over. I give a little wave. “Hi.”

One of them quickly steps forward. “You’re the new girl, right? The writer?”

“That’s me.”

She holds out a hand. “Hi. I’m Emily.”

“Caroline.”

They all introduce themselves to me. Helen, Eileen, Darcy, Lila.

“Coffee is over here and Eileen brought in doughnuts on a whim,” Emily says.

“Thank God for that,” Lila says, and everyone laughs.

I pour myself a cup of coffee and pick up a donut with a napkin to take back to my desk.

“We’ve all been waiting to see who would get hired for that position. They’ve been talking about it forever. How did they find you?”

I laugh nervously. “I honestly don’t know. I have a blog about my dating experiences—good and bad—and yesterday morning I got an email from Mr. Montgomery offering me the job. It’s all been really fast.”

The girls giggle when they hear me mention Chance’s name. “You interviewed with him?” Darcy asks.

“I wouldn’t call it an interview,” I say. “He’d already decided he wanted to hire me. If I’d said yes he would have had me sign the papers as soon as I came in. Does he not normally do the interviews?”

“No,” Emily says. “Almost never. Mr. Montgomery is always nice, but he rarely mingles with the staff. He’s really…busy.”

Eileen nearly chokes on her coffee. “If by busy you mean hot.” She looks at me. “Did you notice?”

I hesitate, not sure if I should be gossiping about the boss, but I can’t pretend like I didn’t see him. “It’s hard not to,” I say.

“He has a strict no dating employees policy,” Emily says, pouting. “Unfortunately for every woman who works here. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t rumors.”

I can’t help myself, my curiosity is out of control. “Rumors?”

“About his…package.” Emily says.

Eileen leans closer to me conspiratorially. “That he’s huge.”

I blush immediately. I already have an obscene amount of dirty images of Chance in my mind, and this isn’t going to make it better. Oh God.

“Like, almost too big to fuck huge.” Darcy says.

Lila smiles. “And that he’s pierced.”

“Prince Albert. God, what I wouldn’t give to see that,” Lila says with a dreamy look on her face.

“Where do these rumors come from if he doesn’t date anyone he works with?”

Emily smirks. “He still dates other people. And being the young, hot, single CEO of a groundbreaking dating company gets him plenty of press. The rumors come from the tabloids. We all assume that they’ve talked to the girls he’s actually slept with.”

“Wow.” I’m fighting the urge to picture what he would look like naked in all his glory, because I’m not sure that I would survive it. But a part of me is relieved. Even if he is brilliantly perfect, if he’s made himself off-limits to employees that makes it that much easier to make sure I don’t screw this up by screwing him. Not that he even wants to, but it’s nice to know that I won’t have to worry about it.

“Good morning, ladies.” As if appearing straight out of my thoughts, Chance is in the doorway of the break room, and a hush falls. His eyes land straight on me. “Caroline, can you meet me in my office to finalize the contract and talk about some things?”

“Sure.”

He gives a quick nod to the other girls in the room and steps out. All of their heads swivel to look at me at once.

“What contract?” Emily asks.

“Non-compete,” I say. “While I’m employed here I can’t write for anybody else aside from my own personal blog.”

They all nod, but the rest are still too stunned by Chance’s sudden appearance to say anything. I give them a little shrug. “Don’t want to keep him waiting,” I say, stepping out and heading back to my office to drop off the coffee and doughnut and grab the signed contract. I have a feeling that after that little interaction—innocent as it was—there’s going to be some entirely different rumors floating around, possibly involving me.

Marcy waves me straight into the office when I approach, so I don’t bother knocking. I hold up the folder. “I signed it.”

He smiles at me, coming to take it from my hands. “Excellent.” He lingers for a second, almost like he’s unsure of what to do, and then heads back to his desk. “To start, I thought we might knock off some of the simpler ideas quickly, like an article per day, so that we create a backlog of content to post for when you’re taking more time with the more in-depth topics.” He gives a long look again, like he’s forgetting himself. Then he shakes his head a little. “Does that sound good?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That sounds fine.”

“For today, there’s a pitch in the documents about having a good first date. Let’s do that one.” He’s looking away from me now, like he’s avoiding my eyes.

“Is everything okay?” I ask, suddenly nervous. “Was the article okay? I know it may need work. I’m not used to doing multiple drafts but I’m willing to do whatever work you think it needs.”

He turns back to me and smiles softly. “Your article was fine. I thought it was really good. I loved it, actually. The tone is exactly what I was looking for.”

Sweet relief runs through me, and I didn’t even realize how panicked I was about losing this job before I even had it until I started rambling about the article. I step forward out of instinct, and before my mind can catch up, I’m hugging Chance. I see him move to stop me, but it’s not fast enough, and my arms are wrapped around him.

This is…totally inappropriate. And–oh my God–it feels so good. I should pull away, but Chance suddenly relaxes and his arms fall around my shoulders like it’s the most natural thing in the world. And then, he pulls me closer. For a second, I think that I imagine it, but he holds me a little tighter.

I pull away quickly. “I’m so sorry—I was just really happy that you liked it—”

The words fall out of my mouth because I’m looking up into Chance’s face and the look there is one of pure lust. It’s there and gone in an instant, and then he’s completely professional once again. But it was there, and the same lust that I’ve been feeling since I set eyes on him flares in response. Shit. This is bad. This is really, really bad.

I clear my throat. “I’ll get started on that article for you, and check in at the end of the day.”

“I look forward to it,” he says, and there’s no mistaking the lust in his tone. It sets my heart racing and I can’t help but look back at him as I leave his office. He’s following me with his eyes and–oh fuck–I am so screwed.