I managed to reach the meeting room in the marketing department at exactly 11:15. That meant entering the small space cramped with eight staff members while they all turned to see who the intruder was.

It was clear from first glance that this was their own meeting room, and I wondered why they couldn’t use the much bigger, brighter one I had passed on the way in. But then it occurred to me that maybe they were being tested as I was. After all, they were interns too.

“Hi,” I mumbled, trying to take in my new surroundings as I searched for a vacant seat. There was one, but it was over in the far corner.

No one spoke as I tried climb over people as nicely as I could. For such a large group, it would have made sense to give them a bigger meeting room. Or use a smaller table. But I got the impression that we interns were supposed to be put in difficult positions.

“Can we help you?”

I looked up at the woman who spoke just as I was sitting down, and I had a very nerve-wracking thought: Was I in the right room?

“Umm, yeah. Hi, I’m Nicole Blythe, and Mr. Carell asked me to take notes of the meeting.”

The same woman spoke again, and I wondered if she was some kind of manager. I doubted it, though – she was only in her early 20s like me. “Why? We have this.”

She reached over and lifted a microphone off the table, ceremoniously showing it to me before setting it back down. Quickly, I recalled the email Devon Carell had sent me, hoping I hadn’t missed something. Why would he need me to take notes if the meeting was being recorded?

“Well, the email said I should go to the meeting of the junior marketers. Is that this one?”

“We’re not junior marketers,” she said, her eyes narrowing angrily at me. I could hear negative noises around me, and I knew I had said something I shouldn’t have.

“Okay, well, I’m in the wrong room. Where do the junior marketers meet?”

This time, the entire room erupted into quiet but angry, sounds. After a few seconds, the muttering tapered off as one of the guys spoke for the rest of them: “Nicole, ‘junior marketers’ is what some of the other staff call us. It’s not nice – it’s meant to suggest we’re kids pretending to be marketers.”

Oh shit, I thought. My face turned red, and I was instantly tongue-tied. I hadn’t thought that we were only supposed to use that title behind their backs, and the email from Devon hadn’t suggested an alternative title. “I’m sorry,” I managed, barely. “I didn’t know that.”

“That’s okay,” he said, smiling rather genuinely. “And for the record, this is the meeting of the marketing interns so you’re in the right room.”

I settled lower into my chair and lifted my notepad high enough to almost cover my face. They all turned away from me after a few seconds of staring, and I wished there was a hole I could crawl into.

What I wouldn’t have given to be out in the world at that very moment. In the middle of a hike somewhere, without people to take offense at everything I said, and without the stuffy inside air to make my brain slower.

Being late to my first day of my dream internship was bad enough, but now I was killing my chances at my second goal: Friends. I didn’t allow myself to make many of them in college because I was too busy studying my ass off. Every time I refused to go on a date or rejected an invitation to a party, I told myself: I’ll make friends after I graduate.

The woman who had been less than friendly opened the meeting by reciting the agenda, and I started scribbling furiously. If only my mind would stop racing, I might have been able to concentrate on what she was saying.

* * *

It was only when I felt someone knock hard against my knee that I looked up and noticed they were all filing out of the meeting room. The woman who had scolded me earlier looked back, her smirk making it clear that the knock wasn’t accidental.

I went back to my notes, trying to remember the last sentences I hadn’t yet written down. The entire group were apparently well-trained speed-talkers, and I had spent most of the meeting desperately trying to keep up.

Focusing so hard on recording what I’d heard meant that none of it had stuck in my memory, and I was left with a rather abrupt ending to the meeting. According to my notes, it ended with a long line across the page that looked suspiciously as though the writer had been jostled by an angry junior marketer.

There wasn’t much I could do, though. With a little luck, I might be able to retrieve some memory of how it actually ended when I was typing the notes on the computer.

Rubbing my knee, I stood from the uncomfortable chair and stretched my back. As I did, I looked through the wide glass window on one wall of the room, watching the interns all go back to their desks in one corner of the marketing room.

I was still annoyed at the woman whose name I hadn’t known, but I could now see a little of her anger. She and the others weren’t exactly included in the marketing department, and she probably wanted to be.

As I switched off the lights in the meeting room and headed toward the elevator, I hoped I wasn’t in for the same experience. I didn’t expect to run the company, but I definitely didn’t want to spend my time taking notes. Partly because I had just learned how bad I was at it, but also because I was here against the advice of almost everyone I spoke to.

Former Pristine interns from different internships told me of rumors about the executive-level internship I applied for. Everything from the massive hours to the terrifying experience of being screamed at by Devon Carell.

Friends of friends told stories that were even worse, and I even had a professor tell me that he wouldn’t wish that particular internship on his worst enemy.

But I didn’t believe much of it. The long hours, sure; but Devon didn’t seem like a man who screamed. When I was standing in front of him, dripping water onto his lobby floor, he had very calmly suggested that I might be fired without coming close to a raised voice.

Since I had gone against the advice of everyone who offered it, I at least hoped this internship would teach me something. Maybe it could even set me up with a career at Pristine, working alongside some of the smartest people in the country.

The elevator opened suddenly while I was in deep thought, and Maureen stared up at me. She lifted her hand and bent her finger, motioning for me to follow her to her desk.

I did as I was told, trying not to feel like a well-behaved puppy.

“Mr. Carell said for you to meet him in the conference room.”

“Oh, ok. Thanks.”

I turned toward my office, intent on leaving my notes on my desk to be typed up as soon as I got back.

“Other way,” Maureen called out, clearly having lost patience. Or, more likely, never having had it to begin with. “The conference room is down there.”

Looking back at her, I stopped walking as soon as I saw the expression on her face. She seemed so angry. “I’m just going to – “

“No, he said immediately. Go now.”

That time, I didn’t feel like a properly trained puppy. No, I felt like a schoolgirl being told by a teacher to go and sit in the corner. And I hadn’t even done anything wrong as far as I was aware.

Walking in the direction she pointed, I tried not to think about the fact that I was doing as I was told. It was what I normally did since it avoided conflict, but it created situations like this where I wanted to tell Maureen that I was simply going to drop my notes off and return. Instead, I chose to walk past her without so much as a hint of an argument.

Mad at myself, I followed the signs leading me through a series of wide, art-filled hallways. The conference room was visible long before I got there, and I could see Devon sitting at the head of the large table through the very wide window.

That’s strange, I thought. It was supposed to be a big meeting but he’s all alone. At least, it was supposed to be some kind of meeting – that was why I had organized catering.

Panic descended as I increased my speed. I had been completely clear as to the time and day with the caterer, and it wouldn’t have been hard for them to find out where the conference room was.

The woman on the phone even said she was used to being escorted by security, so it didn’t matter that I didn’t know which floor.

But if she hadn’t showed up, then I had failed. Had she simply told me ‘yes’ to get me off the phone? Was it some kind of cruel prank?

When I got closer, I breathed a sigh of relief. The food was laid out on countertops to his left, hidden from my view by the wall separating the conference room from the office beside it. The catering had arrived, but apparently the meeting hadn’t lasted very long.

Five minutes, in fact, I realized as I took a quick look at my watch. That was weird.

Devon looked up at me, and I suddenly realized I was staring at him. Worse, I was staring at him from the hallway, my feet rooted to the spot.

Even worse, I was too far from the door to pretend I was simply about to knock.

He raised an eyebrow at me, obviously wondering what I was doing. So was I.

Pushing forward, I opened the door and poked my head in, looking around to make sure I wasn’t interrupting anything – even though it was very clear I wasn’t. What on earth was going on? “Maureen said you wanted me, sir.”

“Devon,” he said, looking me straight in the eye with the greatest of ease. Something as simple as eye contact was much harder for me, but then I guessed he didn’t have quite the view I did.

I couldn’t tell if he knew it, but it was distracting just being in the same room as him. Especially when his eyes were so firmly focused on me, making me imagine all kinds of things.

“Sorry?”

“Call me Devon, Nikki. And come in.”

He motioned for me to sit at a chair close by him. I was caught between excitement from being told to call him Devon, and a desire to ask him not to call me Nikki. The only person to call me that since I was a little girl was an ex-boyfriend who discovered how much it annoyed me. We weren’t together long after that.

I chose to take the easy option, which was to simply smile and sit in the seat he pushed out with his foot.

“Grab something to eat if you get hungry,” he said, nodding toward the plates on top of the cupboards. “There’s a lot there.”

I might have, but the thought of eating in front of him ruined my appetite. As though he would be judging my ability to eat food, and docking me points if I didn’t do it exactly right.

It did smell good, though. Even with the serving bowls and plates covered, the scent wafted through the room so that I imagined it was hard for anyone in a meeting to actually concentrate. Maybe that was the plan.

“No thanks, I’m not hungry. And isn’t the food for the meeting?”

He laughed. “There is no meeting, Nikki.”

I could have been knocked from my chair with a feather. No meeting?

“But you said there was a meeting at 12:30 today. That’s why I had to organize catering. Did I get the time wrong?”

“No,” he said, a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his face. “There just wasn’t a meeting. I made it up to put you under pressure.”

But why the hell would you do that? I was suddenly so angry that the words very nearly slipped out. I swallowed them down, though.

“You look really pissed off,” he chuckled, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms behind his head.

“Well, I mean, no, of course not,” I lied. “It’s up to you what you do with me, but if you’d told me to just find a caterer for no reason I could have done that.”

“You’re right, it is up to me what I do with you.” He paused, and I wondered if he meant more by that than I had. No, he couldn’t have.

“And the pretend meeting was part of the point,” he continued. “Which was to pile on the pressure until you either succeeded or cracked and ran out of the lobby.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because this is a high-pressure environment, Nikki.” He stood and walked to where the platters were all lined up. As he lifted the coverings off each of them, apparently unable to decide which he wanted, my stomach rumbled.

“You can’t just come in here and expect everything to be easy for you. I’m sure it was at college, but it won’t be here. If it was, anyone could do this internship.”

“I don’t expect it to be easy,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “And I know it’s high-pressure, I promise.”

I felt like I was fighting for my internship. Again. Twice in one day; my first day, to be exact.

“Good. Make sure you keep that knowledge at the front of your mind, because this is nothing. Finding caterers is a job we usually give to temps, and I’ve seen them find higher quality food than this in less than an hour.”

I couldn’t imagine that was true, but I wasn’t game to argue.

He sat down again, placing a huge plate of food in front of each of us. The food looked better than I was used to, but he didn’t look very excited by it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking down at my plate. Anywhere but at him.

“No, don’t apologize.” He stood again and turned away, this time exasperated. “I’m not looking for an apology, Nikki. I’m looking for you to understand that pressure is your new way of life. It’s going to fill your entire day and some of your nights. You’ll forget what it’s like to be relaxed. You need to understand that.”

“I do,” I said, still staring at the food. I did understand it, but I didn’t know how to convince him of that.

He sighed, sitting in his chair again. “In that case, let’s get to your notes. Tell me what you’ve got.”

“Now? I haven’t had a chance to type them up or add to them.”

“Now.”

He stared at me, as though challenging me to defy him. Of course, I wasn’t going to. “Okay,” I said, lifting my notepad from my lap and placing it on the table in front of me.

I skimmed the first few sentences, trying to decide whether to start at the beginning. It was mostly the agenda being read, and I couldn’t imagine he cared.

“I can’t hear you when you read silently to yourself, Nikki.”

I felt myself a flush at the name again, but I cleared my throat and started to read. “Well, it starts with, umm, the woman who was angry…”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get her name.”

Devon looked above my head, his head cocked to one side and a distractingly sexy expression on his face. One eyebrow lifted a little as his lips twisted softly, moving to one side.

It was somehow adorable and sexy, all at once.

“Oh, I know who you’re talking about. Belinda. Daniel calls her the intern who doesn’t realize she’s an intern.”

Sounds right, I thought. “Okay, well, Belinda started by reading the agenda. After that - “

“Stop. Not, ‘after that’; tell me why she was angry.”

Oh god. “Well, I mean, she wasn’t really angry. Just a little upset. It was nothing.”

“You pissed her off, didn’t you?”

The subtle smirk caused a less subtle shiver to descend through my body. I could have sworn his expression was one of amusement, rather than insulting as his words seemed to be. “No! Well, yes, but I didn’t mean to.”

Suddenly, Devon burst into laughter. He clapped his hands together once and threw his head back, raising his arms in some kind of victory pose. “You did it,” he said, amusement in his voice. “You called them junior marketers. Daniel was sure you wouldn’t, but I thought you might.”

My face flushed all over again, but this time it was with anger He had obviously set me up.

I didn’t like being setup. And I certainly didn’t appreciate it at work, even if it was his company. “That’s not fair. You called them that and I assumed that was the name of their team.”

His laughter faded, but when looked back at me, his smirk was still there. “Nothing’s fair, Nikki. But some things are very funny. Anyway, go on.”

My initial reaction was to continue the discussion about clear wording of emails, but I took a deep breath. This wasn’t another college student I could argue with when I was pushed too far – this was Devon Carell.

“Anyway, after she read the agenda, they discussed the newest campaign they’ve been working on for your grocery website rollout in Australia. They’re not happy with the budget, and they’re trying to decide which of them will ask you for more.”

I paused as I became aware of him staring at me. “Nikki, if I wanted to know what they said, I’d refer to the recording. Didn’t you notice the microphone on the table?”

The memory of the woman – Belinda – holding it up flooded back, and I blushed all over again. Of course, he didn’t want what he could get from the recording, but what had he wanted?

“I—I don’t understand, Mr. Carell.”

“Devon. Honestly, if I have to tell you to call me Devon again, I’m going to start calling you Nicholas.”

“Devon, sorry. What do you want if you don’t want notes?”

“I want the important stuff, Nikki. I want to know about the people in the meeting, not what they said.”

I tried to figure out what he was meant, but I couldn’t. Other than what had been said, what else was important?

He looked frustrated. “When you think of business, what do you think of?”

“Money?”

He laughed. “Of course, but something much more fundamental than that.”

He paused, waiting for me to understand. I didn’t, and I felt like a complete failure as I searched for the answer. It was probably obvious, but I didn’t know it.

When he started again, his eyes were fixed so firmly on mine that I could see the passion in them. At least, I could when I was able to stare back at him for a more than a second at a time.

“Business is about people. Everything in business is people. The customers are people, the regulatory agencies are filled with people, the suppliers are run by people. You, me, my staff – we’re all people, Nikki. The more you know about people, the better you’ll do in business.”

It felt like he was annoyed with me still, but I felt a wave of awe. This was the Devon Carell I had seen on TV – the man who could take a complex issue and dumb it down until it was easily understandable. The man who could point out the exact reason why a company’s share price rose or fell, and who could predict nearly anything.

“If you can figure people out, Nikki, you can succeed in business. If you know what your supplier wants – really wants – you can figure out how to get a good price. Does he want to sell lots of his product? If so, you can get a discount for volume. Maybe he wants to be able to tell potential customers that he supplies to a big company like yours. If so, he’ll give it to you nearly for free just to get you on board.

“And it’s the same with that meeting. I wanted you to see what made the junior marketers tick. Things like, which one hates all the others, but pretends she really likes them? Which three of them are in a relationship together and trying desperately to keep everyone else from finding out?”

I sat silently staring, my mind racing. It all made complete sense, but it was so simple that it felt like there was a catch. Of course, business is people – but why had I never thought of it like that before?

Why had no one in college told me that?

“Okay, an easy one for you, Nikki. Who was the spy in that room?”

“Spy?”

“Yeah. This one should be easy.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Not even going to try? Think it through. Think about which of them didn’t quite belong there. Who seemed to be an outsider, even if they were trying to fit in from the beginning?”

“There was one guy – I don’t know his name – who seemed to mainly repeat what everyone else said. Like he wanted to be involved but didn’t know enough.”

“Not him.”

I thought hard, turning my head to stare out the window. Looking at Devon, especially as he taught me a mind-numbing lesson, made it impossible to think straight.

Not that it helped. I still couldn’t figure out the answer.

He stood from his chair, raising his arms in exasperation. He began to pace but stopped and turned back to me, leaning forward so his hands were resting on the back of the chair he had just been sitting on and his eyes drilled into mine.

“You, Nikki. You were the spy.”

I lowered my face and lifted my hands to cover it, trying to shrink into the chair I sat in.

The answer had been completely obvious. Of course, it was me. He had basically told me to go and spy on them, yet I hadn’t figured it out.

It was a simple question with a simple answer, the kind I usually nailed.

I felt like an idiot.

“Nikki, relax,” Devon said from somewhere close by. His voice was softer now, as though he felt bad. I couldn’t figure out why he would, though – it was my failure.

“I didn’t mean to belittle you, Nikki. I get carried away talking about this stuff.”

His presence was close, but I didn’t know how close until I felt his large hand on my shoulder. Breathing was suddenly impossible, and I nearly jumped out of my chair.

“Are you okay?” His voice was low and rumbly as he bent his head down to mine.

I nodded, unable to speak. The feeling of failure still coursed through me, urging me to run and never look back. It had been one hell of a day – after a nervous, sleepless night – and it was all catching up to me at once.

His hand on my shoulder was comforting, though. And something else.

“Honestly, it’s not as bad as you think it is. Now you know how I look at things, so you know what I expect. You’ve learned a lesson.”

At the price of looking like an idiot, I thought.

I felt a hand on my wrist, tugging gently at it. When I tried to fight it, he only tugged harder.

“Don’t make me get security to come and taze you,” he said, a subtle humor in his voice.

Reluctantly, I let him take one hand away from my face, and then the other. Without looking up, I could see him standing beside me, still holding my hands. I refused to turn my head, but I could just make out an expression that looked like worry or pity.

I didn’t like either of those.

Placing a finger under my chin, he tried to turn my face to make me look at him. I knew there was no point fighting, so I let him. The gentle smile he wore somehow made me feel worse; as though he was trying to teach a stubborn child.

“If you’re going to go to pieces over this, you’re not quite cut out for this line of work.”

The realization of where this was going forced me to take a deep, slow breath to stop myself from begging. He was testing me to see if I had the mental strength required to make it through this internship, and I had to show him I did. Somehow.

“I’m fine,” I lied, turning around to look up into his eyes with my bravest face on.

He was so close that I could smell his aftershave, and I had to resist the urge to ask what it was called. If I had to name it myself, I would have called it “dark wood and money”.

“I’m annoyed with myself, but I’ll get over it.”

He smiled, apparently happy with my answer. “Good, because as pressure goes, this is nothing.”

Reaching down to take his untouched plate of food, he turned to leave the conference room. I forced a smile when he lightly squeezed my shoulder, but I was immediately aware of the shivers it sent directly down my back. I even had to fight to ignore the very normal touch. “By the way, Mr. C-Devon?”

He stopped and turned back, raising an eyebrow in my direction.

“Just so you know, I prefer Nicole. Please don’t call me Nikki.

“Yeah, but I like Nikki better.”

I felt a flush of annoyance at his complete refusal to even acknowledge my request, but then he winked at me.

Any arguments I might have even considered making died before they reached my mouth.

Suddenly, I knew I felt something more than professional admiration for him.