Chapter Twenty-Nine
Asher
My palms were clammy and cold as I clicked on the link Lilah had just sent me. The headline alone was enough to send chills of dread running down my spine: “Sinclair Agency Posts Transphobic Tweet and Sets off Twitter Storm!”
Of course, the first thing I'd done when Lilah had sent me the link was log on to Sinclair's official Twitter account and delete the offending tweet. It contained a phrase we'd been tossing around for one of the new campaigns for a new men's cologne.
The offending phrase had been: “Conjures up images of a time when men were men.” It had only been a rough idea, part of a larger ad idea that wouldn’t have been offensive in the least had it been seen in the context of the other ad which referred to dignity, responsibility, hard work, and such. It had nothing at all to do with gender.
Someone in our company, however, had taken that isolated phrase and tweeted it. Minutes later, a transgendered blogger had caught wind of it and hammered out what I could only imagine could have been a sensationalist piece.
Luckily, the blogger didn't have many followers, and it appeared that nothing had gone viral—yet.
I hoped it would stay that way. I sent a private message to the blogger, explaining how the phrase had been taken entirely out of context, and that when taken in context, there was nothing that referred to gender, and I asked very nicely that they take their article down. I waited for an hour. The message had been marked as read, but no reply came. It became apparent that the blogger wasn't going to take their article down.
At that point, all I could do was wait. Wait and pray the situation did not go viral because then we'd have a real mess on our hands. I shot Lilah a text to keep her up to date on what I hadn’t heard from the blogger.
Keep me posted. She’d texted back.
I found my thoughts drifting to my conversation with Lilah in my office that morning. It had been good to clear the air between us, and I'd been relieved to find out that she hadn’t been romantically involved with Savage in any way. I was especially reassured by the way she’d said she had absolutely no interest in him. I wondered what that meant for me, about me.
Did it mean she had strong feelings for me? Is that why Savage never stood a chance? But if it did, why did she insist on keeping our relationship strictly professional? That had been the hardest of her demands to give in to. The other things—the salary, the company car, the promotion—they'd been easy. She was talented enough to deserve it all, even if she had only been at the company for a short time.
But in that short time, she'd done way more than merely turn my company's fortunes around. She'd turned my life around, inside out, and upside down.
I could have sworn that these intense feelings she'd awoken in me weren't one-sided. I knew it wasn't just me! It was there in her eyes; I could see it every time she looked at me. I felt it when we kissed, when we touched. That’s not something you can fake.
Even though her words had said that she wanted nothing to do with me, her eyes conveyed an entirely different message.
But despite the connection I’d felt even as she told me, despite what I had seen in her eyes, what could I do? She had laid down her demands—a strictly professional relationship between us being one of them—and that was that. I had to honor her wishes and pray someday she’d change her mind.
I wasn't sure how I was going to cope. It wasn't something I had much experience with. Usually, it was a girl falling for me and leaving me to be the one who had to draw a line or end the relationship. The whole experience was new to me. I'd never felt like this with anyone else.
I knew, somehow, I just knew she felt the same. It was the strongest gut feeling I’d ever known. But until she would admit it, I was at her mercy. I was her boss, nothing more.
I sighed, poured myself a glass of whiskey, and went up to my turret to look at the stars.
***
I called Lilah into my office first thing that morning to talk about the Twitter disaster. As far as I knew, nobody else in the office knew about it. Luckily, nothing had gone viral just yet. It seemed that Lilah and I were the only ones aware of the near catastrophe, and I intended to keep it that way.
“Morning, Asher,” she said as she stepped in. “You wanted to see me?”
She seemed to be playing things very coolly, keeping a decent distance between herself and me. All I could do was to play along and try to keep my burning desires bottled up. Which was precisely why I avoided making eye contact with her for longer than a millisecond.
“Have a seat.”
“So, it's about the tweet, right?”
“Yup. In all the panic last night, I forgot to ask how you found out about it?”
“My best friend Meg, she's an attorney. Last night she was doing some research for a case she’s working on regarding transgender issues. When she saw the Sinclair name pop up on a transgender message board, she contacted me.”
“That was a lucky break for us. Thanks to her quick response, and yours, I was able to delete the tweet quickly enough. Nothing has gone viral.”
“Good. But how in the hell did that get tweeted to begin with? That campaign isn't even finalized yet!”
“Exactly. And I have no idea how that got out,” I explained.
“Who has access to that Twitter account?”
“Myself, Janice, and all of the senior members of the team.”
“Have you questioned any of them yet?” she asked.
“Not yet. I thought I'd speak to you first. Got any theories?”
It looked like she wanted to say something, and she opened her mouth—then paused.
“Aside from the obvious theory that we’re being sabotaged . . . no, not really,” she said.
I stared at her for a while, long enough to make her squirm uncomfortably in the chair.
“All right then,” I said slowly. “I’ll let you get to work. I'll talk to each member of the senior team individually and see what I can find out. Thanks for your help—and thanks again for bringing that tweet to my attention so quickly.”
“I just did what I had to do.”
“I appreciate it,” I added and our eyes met for a moment longer than I had intended.
She forced her gaze to the desk, got up rather quickly, and headed for the door. I knew she had an idea about who was behind this, likely the same idea I had, but I couldn't fathom why she wouldn't just tell me. Perhaps she needed proof before she made any accusations; I could understand that. Still, this was an urgent matter and if it went viral we'd be in hot water—boiling hot water. I'm not sure how well we could weather that storm.
There was, of course, still the matter of the break-in to consider and how it’s possible our social media accounts may have been compromised because of it. Granted, every password in our system had been changed, but it was possible. So far, the PI had still not been able to conclusively link Savage to the intrusion, although he said he was working on some good leads.
With these thoughts swirling around my head, I pulled in a deep breath and called the first member of the senior team in for questioning.
***
A few hours later, I stood and stretched as the last member of the senior team left my office. It had been a long morning. The interviews, or interrogations as Janice had called them, had taken a lot longer than I'd thought they would. In the end, I still had nothing. It seemed nobody had any idea about how the tweet had gotten out. And if they did, they were concealing it extremely well.
I glanced at my watch to confirm it was time for lunch—something my stomach already knew.
I stepped out of my office, headed toward the elevator, and turned the corner that would take me past Lilah's office—only I didn’t make it past her office. I stopped dead in my tracks.
There, standing in her doorway, talking and smiling as she held a huge bouquet of flowers, which, presumably, he'd just brought her, was none other than Brendan Savage.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed.
Brendan turned around, a smug grin plastered across his face. Lilah simply looked away, blushing furiously and looking as though she’d prefer to slink into a corner.
“I'm just visiting a friend. Aren't I, Lilah? It's a free country, Sinclair. I'm not breaking any laws.”
“Get out,” I growled.
He smiled arrogantly, “Or what?”
Or I'll uppercut that smug grin right off your face and roundhouse kick your head through the damn wall—is what I wanted to say. Actually, it’s what I wanted to do. However, I managed to hold my tongue and keep my composure.
“Or I'll call security and have you removed. This is private property, you are not welcome, and you're trespassing. The law is on my side here, Savage, and whatever lawyer you hire to defend you, I'll hire a better one to sue your ass. Now leave.”
He chuckled sarcastically. “All right, all right. I'll leave. This place is kind of a dump, anyway. You should see my building, Lilah. Makes this trash-heap look like a ghetto. See you around, beautiful.”
Lilah said an awkward goodbye and then hurried into her office. I simply stood in the doorway, arms crossed aggressively across my chest until Savage slunk away. I wanted more than anything to follow him into the elevator and kick his ass—especially after seeing him with Lilah—but I remembered Colonel Tanaka's lessons on self-control and took minor consolation in the fact that I'd been the bigger man.
As much as I hated to admit it, his presence was giving me doubts about what Lilah had told me. What had that man been doing here, under my nose, bringing her flowers? I shook my head. I could just walk in and confront her about it, but it wasn’t the time or the place. The answers to those questions would have to wait. I had way too many other things on my plate to deal with at the moment. I put my hands in my pockets and trudged out to get some lunch.
Chapter Thirty
Lilah
My cheeks were glowing red and burning as if they'd just been doused in gasoline and set alight. I could hardly believe Brendan had the audacity to walk into this building, head straight to my office, and hand me a bouquet of flowers knowing full well the kind of stir his presence was going to cause. Knowing the likelihood that Asher would see him.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that making such a show was likely his motive all along. Brendan had made it clear he was still romantically interested in me—he hadn't stopped messaging me, despite me responding either with single word replies or not at all. My aloofness hadn't seemed to discourage him in the slightest. And now flowers?
I wasn't sure what I could actually do to get him off my back. The longer he pursued me, the more I questioned if he was even interested in me at all, and the more convinced I became that he had something to do with the tweet being leaked.
First, there had been the break-in at the offices, then Brendan suddenly taking a strong interest in me, and now this leaked tweet. Something was fishy—like, left in the cooler in the summer heat for a week, fishy. I didn't have any way of proving anything though—not yet, at least. I had every intention of finding a way.
For the moment, however, what I needed was damage control. Asher had arrived at precisely the worst moment—seconds after Brendan had surprised me and shoved a bouquet of flowers into my arms. It was almost as if the man had been given a cue.
And, what had I done? I froze. What was I supposed to have done? Or said? How should I have reacted? Clearly, I didn’t know. So, I did what any confused woman with her arms filled with flowers would do, I crept into my office and shut the door.
With all that was happening, I had to rethink my situation.
As much as I’d been trying to, I couldn't deny that my feelings for Asher had grown stronger. In fact, they seemed to be growing stronger by the day, no matter how much I tried to trample them down and ignore them.
But I still felt strongly about putting my career first—that hadn’t changed. My career, my passion for my job is what had driven me for the past few years. It was the one thing that had gotten me through the tough times, through the depression and heartbreak after Jacob. And focusing on that made me stronger than I had ever thought possible.
In fact, look where that had landed me. In my dream job, where I'd just been given a raise, a promotion, and a new luxury car to drive around in. And yet, despite all of those things, something hollow remained in my core. There was still an emptiness when I wasn’t buried in work.
Only, when I was with Asher, that emptiness went away. I found myself time and time again thinking about how we laughed together all those late nights when we were supposed to be working, how easy it was just being around him, how much we had in common . . . and how forcefully I kept pushing him away.
What I felt for him seemed to be at odds with everything I was putting at the forefront of my life. It was a conflict I felt, on some level, couldn’t possibly be reconciled. It would have to be one or the other; I simply couldn't have both. Life didn’t work that way.
How could I play both sides of that fence and make it work?
A sly smile crept over my lips as the idea spread like wildfire through my mind. Playing both sides of the fence was precisely what I needed to do.
***
Asher stepped over to the projector, where he pulled up a chart, and turned to face the team around the conference table.
“The French VIV perfume campaign has been a runaway success,” he said with a smile, “Largely due to the brilliant insight and innovation provided by our campaign leader, Miss Maxwell, here. I really don't think we could have asked for better results, especially since its success opens up a whole new potential client base for us in the European market. In fact, in light of how promising some of the market research appears, we are considering the option of opening an office in Europe.”
I was as taken by surprise as the rest of the team seemed to be. Opening a European branch? Mostly because of my influence on a campaign? It sounded too good to be true, and I immediately wondered what that meant for my future with the Sinclair Agency. I could totally see myself living in Paris.
Just as Asher was flipping to a new chart to review, he was interrupted by a frantic knocking on the door. Confusion ran across his features. “Come in,” he instructed.
One of the interns burst in, carrying a laptop that still had half of the power cord dangling from it as she rushed into the room.
“Mr. Sinclair, Mr. Sinclair, there's something you really need to see. I’m so sorry for interrupting. It’s just . . . it’s just,” she stuttered.
“What? What's wrong?”
“The tweet, sir, the tweet—and that blog post. They've just gone viral, sir.”