When the alarm went off in Ivy Zimmerman’s small studio apartment that she shared with two other girls in adjacent studio apartments, it was accompanied by a steady downpour of rain and nary a trickle of sunlight.

She looked at her alarm clock. 6 a.m. She threw her head back on the pillow. While she knew most people woke up early on Monday—it was the start of the work week, after all—she felt pretty sure that for most people, it didn’t mark the near end of her work week. Friday was her Monday, “the weekend” was the hump of her week, and Monday provided only the notice that it was her “Friday” eve.

What little semblance she had of a social life seemed to have flown out the window once she took this new job, entirely by necessity. If she had her way, she wouldn’t be serving coffee to rude businessmen, obnoxious college students, and bratty teenagers. If she had her way, she would be in a much better place in life. If she had her way, she might even have a nice, charming, handsome boyfriend who would complement her.

But that didn’t happen. And now she had to get through her last day of work before she got off on Tuesday and Wednesday, days which would undoubtedly be filled with meaningless network shows, soap operas, and maybe, if she was lucky, a gym visit or two.

She trudged her way to the shower when her snooze disappeared and her alarm went back off at 6:10 a.m. She got herself pretty enough for work and put on her work uniform which always felt as uncomfortable as needles scraping on the skin. People always said she looked beautiful, but the talk got old. Ivy didn’t want the drooling men who went for her just because she had tan skin, noticeable curves, and seductive eyes. Ivy wanted a true man, a gentleman who had his shit together, his body compact, and his goals clear.

But as long as I’m a barista, we all know that’s not happening. So not even worth it.

Ivy got into her car, made the silent drive over to her coffee shop, and began opening the store. Her manager walked in with a nod which Ivy returned. She didn’t dislike her manager, but she didn’t like him, either. He was just there, a person who supervised her and occasionally helped her.

It described the job perfectly, really. It wasn’t bad, per se, but it was not what Ivy wanted, and she saw no way forward.

Within just a couple of hours, the coffee shop was teeming with people, as usual, everyone desperate to get their caffeine kick before the start of a new week. Businessmen, college students, moms, everyone came in—it made for an interesting sight to Ivy, who felt like she could see all of society blended together in a coffee shop. Nowhere else, outside of maybe a bar—and even then, doubtful—did Ivy think she would see all classes of the area blend together.

Ivy was manning the cash register and taking orders, which she was being forced to do because, as usual, the shop had limited staff. While she much rather preferred the barista duties behind the counter so that she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, she had mostly moved past the point of caring at her job. She just accepted the role with silent resignation and waited for her work to end so she could focus on her true passion.

On this particular Monday, though, it seemed like everyone wanted to talk. They wanted to talk about the weather. They wanted to talk about the game Ivy had worked through. They wanted to ask about Ivy’s job as a barista.

Ivy didn’t care for any of it. And when she saw a man with half-open eyes, tattered clothing, and a bad tan approach, she bit her lip and faked a smile, praying he wouldn’t have interest in hitting on her or talking.

“A hot tall skinny upside down with whip caramel macchiato,” the man in front of her said dryly, wearing a creepy grin that Ivy tried her best not to respond to.

Ivy clenched her jaw as she typed in the order, wondering if the man was calling out his preference in women or coffee. The way he had spoken, she really couldn’t say for sure.

He handed her the cash, and she smiled as she returned the change to him. He snorted as he took it and pocketed it.

She had a brief respite, although it wouldn’t last, given that someone in a suit was approaching the front door. In that moment, she thought of how she had given the man three dollars and some cents in change. She did the math on how long it would take for her to pay off her debt with that kind of money and the barista’s hourly earnings.

Years.

She sighed. A few more years of this, she reminded herself, just a few more years and then she could look for an actual job.

But a few years had a way of seeming like way too long when put into dollar denominations of barely double digits.

The man walked away and Ivy took a moment to take in a deep breath. It was only 8:30 a.m. in the morning but she was tired already. How was she going to survive another six hours of this? How was she going to survive another six weeks of this? Six months? Six years? Could she really make it years when she couldn’t make it a single day? Maybe she should grab some of the coffee. Maybe—

“Morning,” she heard a voice and snapped her neck up to look at the next customer.

The forced polite smile that she had instinctively pasted on her face faded when she saw the man in front of her. It didn’t happen often, and certainly not to this degree, but when a true man like this walked in… well, she didn’t have to fake feeling happy to feel good.

Was she just imagining this? He sported a sharp-as-a-razor jaw, freshly shaved cheeks, a pointed nose, and chiseled features like he had recently been sculpted from marble. He had a buzzcut, but Ivy could tell that his hair would have been a thick dark mane if he let it grow out. His eyes were nearly transparent; they were that blue and he had thin lips pursed together in a casual frown. If it wasn’t for his clothes, she would have assumed he was in the military, but he was dressed too fashionably for that. Dark suit, starched white shirt, and a navy tie. His black coat looked tailored or at least more expensive than her entire wardrobe.

Suffice to say, compared to the previous customer with tattered clothing and a look that screamed alcoholic, this was a man who had his shit together.

And it left Ivy feeling all sorts of aroused and excited feelings inside.

“Grande Dark Roast, please,” he said in a voice that was deep and sizzled as it seeped into her system and for a few moments, Ivy had no idea what to do. She tried to collect herself, but damn did this man have an impact.

“Umm…yes, okay, anything else?” she said, fumbling with her words. This is one way to brighten up the work day. Bring in more men like this.

She had already said more than she usually did to any of her customers. The man must have noticed her flushed face and the look of discomfort about her because he allowed himself to grin slightly. It wasn’t anything overt, but she knew that he knew how she felt. And it made her sink even more.

“Nothing, thanks,” he said and that voice destabilized her again. What in the world is happening to me?!?

She felt her fingers shaking slightly as she typed in the order. From the corner of her eye, Ivy noticed the sparkling Rolex on his wrist as he slid his patent leather wallet out of his pants and flipped it open. It only reinforced her assumptions about how this man had himself together, but heavens, this was just overkill of the most pleasant kind!

It wasn’t very often that a stranger had this kind of an effect on Ivy, especially a man who looked like he was much older than her. She prided herself in how well she could keep herself in check from falling into bed with a random stranger… with anybody for that matter. No matter what sort of flattery men used, no matter how much alcohol he or she had consumed, and no matter how persuasive their arguments were, Ivy did not fool around. She may not have had her shit together, but she had her sexual and romantic life locked up and under control.

But the fact that she was even thinking these things in that very moment in front of a complete stranger—a customer, in fact—made Ivy flush a bright red. C’mon, Ivy! Stop!

The man handed her the cash, and she tried to concentrate on counting the change. But even then, she thought of how the change meant nothing to the man, and what that might’ve meant for him.

“Hey, you!” the voice of angry customer roared, breaking through the ambiance of the shop. “I ordered a Skinny. This is not a skinny!”

She whipped around to find the man, whose order she had taken a few minutes ago, waving his cup of coffee in the air. Ivy was noticing now that his eyes were bloodshot and he looked hungover, if not on drugs of some sort. This had gone from obnoxious to potentially dangerous.

“It’s all right sir, we’ll just make you another one,” one of Ivy’s coworkers, Shelly, who was making the coffees, said in her attempt to calm the man down.

Instead of listening to her, he charged towards Ivy again, thrusting the coffee towards her angrily. Ivy took two steps back, her eyes wide and her heart rushing in fear.

“Why can’t you people do your jobs right?” the man said in a high-pitched voice, spit coming from his lips and a vein bulging from his forehead. “I said Skinny, damnit!”

She tried to maintain her calm but wasn’t sure how to deal with this kind of aggression. She was trying to get the word “sorry” out of her system but she couldn’t, not when this man was glaring at her like that. She’d desperately wished she’d taken those karate classes she kept saying she would take. Management sure didn’t care to teach her self-defense in a spot like this.

“Did you hear me this time? Skinny!” the man repeated himself, leaning over the counter towards Ivy.

Then Ivy got an unexpected assist from someone she never anticipated stepping into the middle of her furious customer.

“Take it easy, man,” said the gorgeous stranger.

He had placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and was gently tugging him backward. Ivy watched in stunned fear. The man showed no fear at touching the crazed customer, which meant he was either naive beyond all hope or he had an impressive confidence in his ability to handle the situation.

Ivy got her answer quickly, and it made her emotions just swirl with delight.

The hungover guy whipped around and, trying to balance the coffee in one hand, took a lousy swing. Mr. Handsome avoided the weak, half-arced swing easily by stepping casually back in a manner that suggested he’d faced situations like this many times before. In a flash, he had snapped up the other man’s wrist and then twisted his arm to his back in a move that looked professional. The man yelped, his face reddened, and Ivy’s manager came running out of the kitchen.

“Gentlemen please, step outside, we cannot have this in here,” he was saying.

Ivy sensed her teeth biting down on her lip as she watched them. She had just lost the ability to speak, so stunned by what had happened that she had no words for it. The entirety of the coffee shop followed her lead, for they all watched, unable to pry their eyes away from the chaos of the drunk and the smooth skills of the calm man.

“He was being rude to your employees,” he said in that same voice, confident and collectively like nothing had happened. Oh please. You’re too much, Ivy thought.

“He attacked me!” the hungover guy said, the moment his arm was released. He looked like he had tears in his eyes, which almost caused Ivy to laugh.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not here to play the role of judge,” the manager said sternly and with an exasperated look in his eyes. “I have to ask you both to leave, I’m sorry, but that’s final.”

Ivy’s manager repeated himself and the men glared at each other before the hungover guy scampered off with his coffee in hand, sniffling.

Mr. Muscle threw Ivy a look, nodded his head at her once, smoothened the front of his shirt casually and then turned and walked out of the coffee shop without saying a word.

Ivy’s heart was thudding against her chest and her knees felt weak as she watched him leave. Had she really just witnessed a man dressed impeccably not only defend her, but take down a potential assailant with the ease that she would have in making a latte?

This was all too unreal for 8:30 a.m. on a Monday morning.

And on top of that, Ivy realized when she looked at Shelly, the man in the suit hadn’t even gotten his coffee.

Gotta do something good today.

“Excuse me!”

Ivy had followed the man out of the shop and was now running after him. It wasn’t until she had gotten close to him that he stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her.

Ivy came to a sudden halt and nearly fell forward on him. She barely collected herself in time, and she knew she looked like a fool in the process. He had that same devious grin on his face as he looked at her, apparently amused at how much of a buffoon she was making of herself. He had his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his pants and was now proceeding to study her. Ivy knew she was blushing, but she couldn’t help it for when a man of this caliber and attractiveness had no shame in staring at her.

Still, he didn’t say a word. Ivy, feeling awkward, did something she rarely did in excess—she talked.

“I thought I’d bring you your coffee and personally thank you for what you did in there,” Ivy said, surprised at her own enthusiasm. “I hope you, uh, I hope you don’t mind.”

She was usually a woman of few words, and now her voice was just tumbling out of her from nervousness. Instead of replying, the man looked deep into her eyes, and then down at her heaving breasts, then slowly down past her belly to the spot between her legs. It was like he had no shame in just staring, in literally undressing her with his eyes.

Ivy felt self-conscious, mentally kicking herself for picking her oldest most uniform that day. She didn’t exactly feel sexy, even though he was looking at her like that. She hadn’t even bothered with much makeup that morning. His blue eyes sparkled as he drank her in, and then without a word, he reached for the styrofoam cup of coffee in her hand. It would’ve seemed rude from just about anyone else, but from this man, it just seemed to speak to a level of confidence that Ivy could only stand back and admire.

“I didn’t do anything, but thank you for bringing me the coffee,” he said and took a deliberate sip of it. “You’re the one who made me this delicious drink. Remind me, what was it that I ordered?”

Ivy knew full well the man knew what he had ordered and said this just to get her to look silly. But he seemed to enjoy it, which in turn caused her to enjoy it. She hated it, but she secretly loved it.

“Grande dark roast,” she said, and a small nervous laugh escaped her lips.

She clasped her hands together because she couldn’t think of anything else to say and also because she felt like she was melting with every second that he spent looking at her. She felt ridiculous, and it hadn’t even occurred to her that she had left the shop in the middle of her shift to hand deliver this product to this exiled man.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have lost my shit if you got my order wrong,” he said with a wink.

Ivy’s cheeks flushed as she laughed to try and dismiss the air around them, but the joke really did seem funny to her.

“I don’t always get my orders wrong,” she said. “I guess I need a coffee too. Mondays, huh?”

“Indeed,” he said plainly.

She smiled and looked around. Customers came and went from the shop. A few looked at them, the memory of what he’d done to the drunken or hungover man still vivid and fresh in all their minds. A few might even be waiting to see if more action enveloped. Ivy briefly considered the possibility of the incident going viral on social media, but the thought got rushed out of her mind by the sight of an empty cash register in the store.

What was she doing outside? Why was she still talking to him? Why did this man have this kind of grip upon her?

She couldn’t believe this was actually her. This was probably the boldest thing she had ever done. Which says a lot. I need to do more things.

Be more… risky, let’s say.

The man smiled a wide satisfied smile that spread over his face and reached his blue eyes. Ivy wanted to put her hands on that smile, just capture it, and take it home with her.

“Have a nice day, Ivy,” he said.

Her knees buckled. She rushed to remember if she had ever said her name to him. She hadn’t—how did she know?

It didn’t help that he must have noticed the shocked expression on her face, because he looked straight at her breasts and continued to smile. Once again, on just about any other man, Ivy would have given him a lesson in manners.

With him, though…

“You know you’re wearing a name tag, right?” he added.

Her cheeks turned ruddy again and she could feel the back of her neck burning up. Stupid, I wear that everyday! How could I not—I mean, others have said my name, I don’t care then. But now?

“Yeah, of course, it’s there to make us appear more approachable,” she said uselessly.

Ivy realized that by this point she was just talking for the sake of talking, which was so out of character for her she thought she’d transported to Saturday night somehow.

“It’s working,” he replied.

She couldn’t suppress her smile anymore. She was nauseous from how silly she must have appeared to him. And she didn’t care one bit. Not when this man had the smoothness of a fresh set of bed blankets and a presidential smile.

“I’m Travis Dunn,” he said and held out his hand to her.

Ivy’s brows crinkled for a moment, for she knew that name from somewhere, but she pushed that thought to the back of her head and shook his thick, tight hand.

When their bodies touched, she felt a sudden electric shock run down her spine. His hand was warm and big, enveloping her own small hand completely in his. He gave her one quick stern shake like he had just signed a peace treaty with a ruthless dictator. He was efficient, firm, and calm. He left no doubt who had the upper hand in their greeting.

“Zimmerman. That’s my name. No, I mean my name is Ivy but my last name is Zimmerman,” she said, fumbling with her words still, while Travis continued to grin.

“All right, Ivy Zimmerman,” he said, holding his coffee out in salute. Hearing her full name… oh Lord, what’s happening to me? “I hope you have a nice day.”

Just like that, he turned from her and walked away. He didn’t say goodbye, he didn’t ask to stay in touch—and yet with the way he moved, he acted as if he would see her again. Why else would he have such an ease to him?

Ivy stood where she was, with dropped shoulders and a heavily beating heart as she watched him walking away. He weaved through the people, towering high above them with his face turned firmly forward. He didn’t turn once to look at her…and Ivy rolled her eyes. Why would he? A man like that wouldn’t look back on something. He probably always had his eyes forward.

But where had she heard his name? Travis Dunn… Dunn…

She looked toward the downtown skyline and suddenly, it clicked.

Travis Dunn wasn’t just a man.

He was the man in the city.

He was ex-military, having served in the Marines, and recently in the news for the huge waterfront project that he had signed with the city’s mayor. The man was a successful, high-level entrepreneur and one of the richest people under fifty in the country!

And he’d talked to her. No, not just talked to her. She dared to say that he’d even flirted with her. Oh, Travis Dunn.

She scanned her brains to try and recall if she had seen any pictures of him. The only one she could remember were the tabloid photos taken by paparazzi while he entered or left a nightclub. A skinny tall young blond on his arm. Just like the other guy’s coffee order. So not really my type. But still. Travis Dunn! Talking to me.

She heard someone call her name and she looked back. Her manager stood in the doorway, calling for her. She sighed. The dream of an actually enjoyable Monday had lasted only a few minutes, far too short.

Ivy turned and walked dejectedly back towards the shop. She had darted out of there with his coffee order in hand, without asking her manager for permission. She was pretty sure that she was in for a lecture, and to some extent, she couldn’t blame the manager one bit.

What was she thinking? Chasing Travis Dunn down the street. He was just being polite and a perfect gentleman when he manhandled the hungover guy. With his military experience, it was probably just second nature to him, she thought. Travis would have done that for any poor barista. She just happened to be in the… right place? The place where it happened? She was in the place that crossed his path. She wasn’t special.

Ivy shook her head, scolding herself in her head as she pushed open the door of the coffee shop and entered. Even from the across the room, she had caught her manager’s glaring eyes. This was going to be a long day indeed, and especially since she wouldn’t be able to forget those piercing blue eyes of his that had burnt her skin when he looked at her.

She slipped the apron on over herself and walked over to the cash register, pasting her forced smile on her face again. She had been foolish, a complete idiot. Travis Dunn wanted to have nothing to do with a girl like her.

She finished out her shift without any further incident, which came as both a relief and a disappointment for her. It felt like a relief because the last thing Ivy needed was more run-ins with hoodlums and trouble makers like the hungover guy from earlier. It felt like a disappointment because the thing Ivy needed most was more run-ins with Travis Dunn.

At least, though, she’d be coming up on her weekend. At least she’d have the chance to put Travis out of her mind, as a chance encounter that she would never get to reenact.

When the time came to clock out, she did so hurriedly, barely acknowledging her manager. She said goodbye to Shelly, but did so in the hastiest of manners, walking out the door of her coffee shop as she spoke farewell.

When she got home, she collapsed on the couch and fell asleep. She hoped that dreams would take her to where she would encounter Travis once more.

As she slowly drifted off to sleep, her mind began to blur the line between the reality of her dark studio apartment and Travis walking in. She imagined a tall, handsome, well-cut man in her room, then sitting by her bed. Her mind began to loop the same sequence over and over again, a sequence that she had not experienced in real life yet but one that she could not stop fantasizing about.

In that fantasy, the man named Travis Dunn came into her bed and reached his hands down between her legs. She squirmed as she felt her body spasming with the release of intense pleasure.

“Travis, please,” she moaned. “I want all of you.”

“Do you, Ivy?” he said with a wicked grin. “Do you?”

In real life, Ivy couldn’t have known how she would respond. It was a different game for her to imagine her doing what she’d never done before with any man with a stranger she’d met once at her job.

But here, in the safety of her dreams and of her mind?

Oh, yes, she didn’t want Travis Dunn. She needed Travis Dunn.

But then, just as she felt his prick pressing against her, she would jolt awake. She would find herself back in her studio apartment, awake in the middle of the night, the only other living thing in her room the occasional bug that had sneaked in through the air system.

“Damn,” she murmured to herself.

At least she had chosen to have these fantasies on her Friday night. She wouldn’t wake up until much later and probably wouldn’t get much more rest, but at least she wouldn’t have to fake smile her way through her shift tomorrow. She could have until the real Thursday to make that happen.

When she woke up on Tuesday, she had planned to do nothing but watch Netflix. It was a long week even before running into the hungover guy from the day before, and that incident had just pushed her over the edge. The politeness of Travis had kept her sanity for the rest of the day, and a good thing too—she could have easily imagined quitting her job in a fury if the hungover man had managed to do anything more than he had done. Netflix should have provided the cure.

Instead, she spent much of the morning in bed just fantasizing about her encounter with Travis. The thoughts that she had had from the night before played ad naseum in her mind, a vivid reminder of the man she had not yet gotten… but the man she had not yet lost, either.

When she did get out of bed, she found herself amusingly disgusted at how much she thought about him. She didn’t understand why she had such a crush on the guy. When she thought about it, she had no rational reason for falling that hard for anyone—sure, he was hot, a billionaire, charming, seductive, handsome, interesting, mysterious…

But no one, no one, deserved that kind of infatuation from Ivy.

Perhaps, she realized, she needed to get out of the coffee shop more. She needed to get serious about doing things outside her work. She needed to have a life.

Good luck making that happen anytime soon, though. Hopefully one of those interviews will get back to me soon.

She booted up her email. A couple of companies had, miraculously, invited her for in-person interviews for their marketing teams in the weeks to come. Even if they hired her, it would take at least a month or so for them to get on board. But it was a start.

And if Travis came into the picture…

Oh God, Ivy, come on!

Ivy turned on a nature documentary on Netflix and proceeded to kill as much of her day as she could shutting her mind off and doing nothing. For the most part, it worked. She couldn’t get her mind off of Travis, but it became like a program running in the background of a computer, there and having to be accounted for but not disrupting her day.

The same happened on Wednesday. By the time her bed came around 8 p.m., she’d accepted that for the entirety of her weekend, she had not once gotten past meeting Travis Dunn. She figured she’d have to do something about it, but at least she would walk into work the next day in a better mood than the one before. She’d shut her brain off, and she’d accomplished her goal of resetting her sanity levels to acceptable.

But that would all go to hell, she knew, if she didn’t get to see Travis.

Thus, when Thursday came, she had to hope that he had decided to make a visit to her shop a regular occurrence and not a special one-off visit.

As Travis Dunn walked back to his office for the first time since the previous Friday, he thought about how many “first time since” incidents had just happened.

It was the first time he’d grabbed coffee since his business had been in the early stages and he had to burn through many hours of work just to get funding, not even to get the business doing its duty. He had avoided coffee for so long, fully aware that he might become addicted, but on a day like today, with final stages of contract negotiation set to begin with a design firm on their new office, Travis had to take as many steps to prepare as he could. And if that meant indulging in some coffee, well, as long as he had a steady supply from a local vendor, he might as well.

It was the first time he’d used his close quarters combat skills since he’d been on active duty in the Marines. He had never envisioned a day in which he’d have to use it as a civilian, but frankly, he saw no choice but to use it. The drunk moved aggressively on the defenseless staff, and if someone hadn’t done something, who knew what would have happened? And once the drunk had swung at him, Travis simply acted out of self defense. There was no thinking—it just went all on instinct. He’d practiced CQC far too much to have it slip away just because he’d been out of active duty for a decent amount of time now.

And, perhaps most stunningly, it was the first time he saw a girl who got him as excited since…

He quickly shut off that train of thought before it reached its natural point. The last thing he needed on a day like today, with as much going on as he had, was to revisit the past of his romantic life and ponder what the new girl—Ivy Zimmerman. Remember it. Ivy. Zimmerman. Ivy Zimmerman—would mean to him. She just works there and looks like her, Travis. But that’s it and you know it. Don’t let yourself get sucked into something unnecessary and distracting on a day like this.

And yet, as he walked back to his office and as he thought of her beautiful, long hair with blonde streaks, her dark brown eyes, her nervous giggle, and her curves, he couldn’t help but shake the thought of her. He knew the last time he had had that feeling, and it had come just around the time that he’d begun to enlist in the Marines. It was a time that had affected him so much and touched his soul so much that he hadn’t thought he would ever leave the girl who had brought it to him.

But for how that had ended, he dreaded the idea of ever going back to something that reminded her of that last girl.

He made his way into the building bearing his name, the tallest building in all of the city. A small part of Travis loathed the size of the Goliath-sized building, given that it was about as un-Marine as he could get, but the simple fact was his building needed to be that big. For how close his company was coming to being one of the largest employers in the country, not just the city, he needed the size, no matter how preposterous it got.

He went up to the receptionist, an older lady named Miriam, and nodded.

“How are things, Miriam?” he asked.

He always liked to have a cool demeanor about himself while he worked. Travis believed that an employee who had their emotions in check was an employee who could thrive at the job. Some people mistook him as a result for being arrogant or aloof, but if they knew his background, Travis knew they wouldn’t make that mistake.

“They are well, Mr. Dunn,” she said politely.

“Excellent,” Travis said before departing to the back. Miriam always did a fine job—and it was a job, he thought, that he didn’t pay her enough for.

The problem wasn’t the business guests or the phone calls or the scheduling—it was the press coming to request an interview with him. It was the paparazzi demanding a photograph of him. It was the women who swore they knew him and demanded to meet with him. Miriam always handled the situation with aplomb, never making anyone feel stupid for having requested access to him, but also never allowing anyone to come near him without his permission.

Someday, he figured, he would reward her handsomely. Maybe on a work anniversary or something of that nature.

He nodded and greeted many more people, most of whom he did not recognize. He supposed that it was a testament to the growing size of his company that he could no longer recognize all of his employees—by face, let alone by name—but in some ways, it made him yearn for the simpler days, both when Dunn Inc was but a small startup and in the Marines when he and his brothers didn’t just know each other, they lived for each other. He reached his private elevator, pressed the button to his floor—which only he occupied—and breathed a sigh of relief when the doors closed.

No longer did Travis have to play the part of super-focused, engaged, tough CEO. Now, he could focus on what mattered—his job.

He didn’t mind interacting with people. But because of his intense nature, too many people misread him and judged him incorrectly. In the Marines, he was beloved. Outside, he was feared.

He got tired of being feared and had begun turning his attention to what didn’t fear him in the actual job.

Still, he didn’t take off his tie, nor his suit. He believed in dressing for the role he had and the role he wanted, and as long as he wanted to run his own company, he could not foresee ever losing the look.

The doors of the elevator opened and Travis headed to his desk. He sat down in the nicest office chair money could buy and booted up his company. Around him, he heard the occasional bird chirping and flying outside, but from his vantage point, he might as well have been in the sky. He worked from so high up, he could look down upon all the citizens in the city if he wanted to. And sometimes, after a particularly long day, he would do just that with a glass of whiskey.

Today, though, he had work to do with a major client. He opened his inbox and scanned through his messages.

He deleted multiple interview requests. He smirked at the photo alerts and, curious, opened one. This one came from an old photo in which he walked behind a female employee of his, dressed in a tight-fitting dress, with the headline “Well Dunn?” Travis got a laugh out of that—it might have sold copies, but this was a story of fiction, not reality. He had simply walked with her to her taxi for the night, something the photographers had easily seen. But that didn’t make a story, and so the story was left to the imagination.

For the briefest of moments, Travis imagined what it would be like to be caught walking that barista out to a taxi. Would it look good? Or would—

Why? Travis, don’t be ridiculous. Focus on your work.

Travis shook his head, in disbelief that he’d turned his mind to that girl, and continued scanning through his email. Then he found the one he was looking for.

---

“Travis,

---

Here’s the finalized contract. Come over at any time and sign and we can begin work.

---

Best,

Richard Thomas

CEO, Logic Designs”