Strong hands and soft lips, scratchy stubble on his chin, and breathing the scent of him into me… his tongue against mine, tasting of heat and Port wine. No one has ever kissed me like this. It’s nice. I like it. I’d like to…

But we’re on the sidewalk in front of all of New York City, and he didn’t even ask. He just did that without even thinking if I wanted it or not.

I shove him away, taking a step back, catching my breath.

“This wasn’t part of our agreement.”

“You kissed me back.”

“A momentary lapse in sanity,” I say, crossing my arms. “This is foolishness.”

He’s shocked and amused, which makes me angry. I step up close handing him the envelope, not taking no for an answer.

“Our deal is concluded. Thank you for your help, Benjamin,” I say, never breaking steely eye contact with him. I step back, and as he opens his mouth to protest, I turn on my heels and walk away, leaving him standing there gaping after me.

I shouldn’t have given him my number. I’ll probably wind up having to block him like half the guys I meet in this town. New York seems to cultivate aggressive men, and I’ve been the target of more than my fair share of it. The minute you say no to some of them, they show their true colors and start calling you names.

I may be a quiet, conservative girl by New York City standards, but I can go toe-to-toe with the best of them. Slick boys in silk suits with Ivy League educations don’t impress me and they don’t intimidate me, either. Benjamin is just an entitled little boy who’s obviously had everything handed to him. He thinks he has a right to take what’s mine, and mine alone, to give.

I may not be Amish on the outside anymore, but I’ve still got all the self-respect my mother raised me with. Benjamin might be the handsomest man in the city, but I don’t kiss strange men on the street.

I don’t kiss strange men, period. I was brought up better than that.

* * *

“So, tell me about new subscriptions? Can you break it down for me?” I ask Trudy, our VP of Client Relations.

This is our quarterly executive round-up prior to the Board of Directors meeting. Today is numbers dumping and problem solving before we go in front of shareholders and explain ourselves.

“New subscribers are down 5% year-over-year. It’s not a great trend,” Trudy replies. “The team feels we may be experiencing some level of market saturation, and we also have the issue of rising unemployment rates. Women are always the first to get axed when the layoffs start. We can see a clear correlation between the—”

“Demographics,” I say, interrupting her. “Break it down for me by demographics.”

Trudy squirms a little in her seat. “I didn’t bring that data with me,” she says. “Off the top of my head I know we did better than average with 20-somethings but…”

“You didn’t bring the data? Or you didn’t prepare the data?” I ask.

She hauls in a deep breath. “We didn’t prepare demographic data for this meeting.”

“All right,” I say, letting my disappointment show in my tone. “Prepare it. Make it thorough and get the report in front of me by the end of the day tomorrow. If someone loses sleep, tell them I’m sorry, but with declining numbers, it’s unacceptable to come here empty handed.”

I turn to Margot, our VP of Marketing Programs. “Margot, I hate to pile onto your team’s workload, but we’re going to need you and Trudy to collaborate on an incentive program to turn these numbers around by next quarter. Understood?”

“Got it,” Margot says, noting the instructions on her tablet. “Do we have discretionary budget for this? We’re tapped out. Every dollar is allocated to on-going programs, through the end of the year.”

I smile. “Nice try,” I say. “No. Find the money internally by reducing or eliminating whatever programs aren’t performing. You know that.”

She returns my smile, nodding. “Had to try.”

We spend the next two hours going around the table like this. Luckily, everyone else is prepared. While the new subscription numbers are down, our revenues are still trending up, as our existing subscriber base is spending more for service add-ons and access to premium content. We will have some difficult news to report to the board beyond just the declining new subscriber’s numbers. The new entertainment division we’ve just acquired is running in the red as we get new content ready for Netflix and Hulu. We’ve taken a big risk with that acquisition. It’s outside our general area of expertise and we had to shell out a barn load of cash to buy it, but in the end, I know it’s going to grow the company exponentially. It’s also giving PinkBook an opportunity to create the first and only entertainment network run by women, with all the content written, directed, and produced by women, for an audience of women. We’re talking high-quality creative, entertainment for all kinds of women. It’s going to continue to succeed. Women are sick of the dated shit on Lifetime.

When we’re done, everyone files out of the conference room except the Gang of Four, as the staff jokingly refers to us. ‘The Gang’ is me, plus my old college dorm mate Candice, who’s now our Chief Technical Officer; Millie, who was our suitemate and is now Chief Financial Officer; and Jenna, also an old suite mate who is now PinkBook’s Chief Operating Officer. Jenna and I have been best friends since our freshman year of school, and she and Candice have been married almost five years. Millie’s married too, to the sweetest guy I ever met. Together, we started this company, and together we’ve grown it to a social media platform with a four-hundred-million-dollar market valuation.

Not bad for a few young girls doing it all on their own.

“You were a little rough on Trudy,” Jenna says. “I know she came unprepared, but she’s new. We need to cut her some slack.”

“Her team isn’t new,” I reply. “They knew she needed to come armed with that data.”

I know the breakdown happened somewhere between Candice and her senior managers. It’s either a case of a newly elevated executive trying to find her way, or bold-faced incompetence defying the experience of her staff in an effort to show authority.

“She’s got a month to fix it, or we make adjustments.”

The Gang all know me and know my management style is straight-forward, no nonsense, with high expectations for everyone who works for the company. I don’t ask more of anyone than I ask of myself. Candice, Jenna, Millie and I didn’t get where we are by doing things half-way. We’ve all got brains, ambition, and work-ethic. I’ve got an added advantage of having been raised in a world where everyone, no matter how young or how old, is expected to pull their weight and then some, earn their own keep, be responsible for everyone’s well-being, listen well, and be frugal.

When I was a child I didn’t know that while my parents were raising me to be humble and God-fearing, they were also instilling in me all the skills and habits that go into making an excellent chief executive officer. When I was a teenager, even in high school, I knew one day I’d run my own business. I never imagined I’d run anything like this, but here we are.

“Is everyone ready for the board and shareholders meeting?” I ask. “Any final concerns? I really don’t want any surprises. We’ve already got to do some fancy dancing around the new media delays.”

“Just one tiny thing,” Candice says, her nose wrinkling a little with annoyance. “It’s probably nothing, but my team thinks it’s enough of an issue to bring to you.”

“What’s that?”

“It looks like somebody tried to hack one of our main servers,” she says. “We don’t think they got in, but we’re still running tests. I’ll know more in a couple days.”

“Which server?” I ask. This could be a non-issue altogether, or a giant pile of steaming trouble.

“Subscriber data,” she replies, hedging. “But we really don’t think they got in.”

If they did get in, and if they accessed our subscriber data, that’s not only horrible news, it’s a public relations catastrophe. In any event, I have to act as if this is a worst-case scenario.

“I’ll call the PR team and start prepping for crisis management, just in case,” I say. “I’m glad you told me. Stay on top of it and keep me up to speed.”

I look around the table at my three best friends and the best business partners that have ever been assembled in one place. “Anything else?” I ask.

Jenna leans on her elbows, resting her chin in her hands. She’s got that goofy grin she always turns on when she switches from corporate mode to let’s order pizza and do our nails.

“How’d it go last night? Did your completely ludicrous scheme work out?” she asks.

Candice and Millie mimic Jenna’s pose, being silly.

“My completely ludicrous scheme went off without hitching,” I reply rather smugly.

“Without a hitch,” Jenna corrects me. Sometimes I get these odd English phrases slightly off.

I shrug. I don’t give a fuck. I’ve got that phrase and that attitude down to a tee.

“Elaborate, please,” she prods, pointing her perfectly manicured finger at me, rolling it around. “Details. We need details.”

“Well, my father was the same. He’s still so disapproving, but the fact that he came…”

Jenna starts laughing, throwing up her hands. “Screw your mean old Amish father!” she exclaims. “We know all about your parents! We wanna know about the guy! Who is he? Where’d you find him? What was he like?”

Candice and Millie are doing that head bobbing thing. They all want me to get a boyfriend. They’re worse than my mother.

I roll my eyes. “He was very well-dressed, very clean. Handsome. My parents were impressed by him. He did a great job convincing them.”

Jenna deflates. “Clean? He was clean?”

“Yes, he was clean. Clean-shaven. Respectable looking. He said the right things.” And he tasted amazing. The feeling of melting in his arms… it left my breathless, acting idiotic. Far younger than my age, or my station.

“So, he just took the money and left? Was he single?” Candice asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I don’t care.”

I see Lilly, one of the office admins, approaching looking in through the glass walls of the conference room. She pauses at the door, eyes on me. I wave her in.

She leans in the door, smiling. “Sorry to interrupt ladies, but there’s a delivery out here for Sarah.”

“A delivery?” I ask. I’m not expecting anything.

“I’m not telling. You’ll have to see for yourself.”

Her eyes barely conceal her amusement. This better be good. I’m not a big fan of surprises.

Candice, Mille, and Jenna jump up, racing for the door like a pack of puppies scrambling for treats. They’re so silly when they get like this. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only grown-up in ‘The Gang.’ Somebody’s got to be.

Before I make it around the corner I hear the ooh’s and aah’s, and from more than just the executive team. Half the administrative staff is circled around the admin’s desk, all admiring the largest arrangement of flowers I’ve seen since the last royal wedding was on television.

“Oh my good Heavenly Lord,” I say, stopping in my tracks.

That’s for me? It can’t be.

All eyes turn toward me, faces beaming. The sea of women part, and I get a good look at the thing. The vase is almost completely concealed by a horde of the tiniest, most delicate looking pale pink roses—antique roses like my great-grandmother raised in our front yard. I haven’t seen roses like these since I was a girl back home in Indiana. There must be a thousand of them.

“There’s a card,” Jenna says, pleased with this delivery. “Something tells me this isn’t from your father.”

No. Amish don’t send flowers. It’s considered prideful—a sin.

My heart beats faster, my pulse quickening.

Jenna reaches into the tangle of tiny flowers and greenery, plucking the small envelope from its clear plastic holder. She hands it to me with breath held. Everyone is looking at me. I feel my face flush hot.

“Open it, silly,” Millie prods. “We’re growing old here.”

I slide the small card from the envelope, revealing a note hand-written in neat, masculine script. It reads,

“I owe you an apology for stealing a kiss. This is a start. I hope you’ll give me a second chance to show you I don’t ever make the same mistake twice. – Ben”

Well, that’s unexpected.

“Are you going to make us stand here and speculate, or are you going to dish?” Jenna demands impatiently. “Who are they from and what did he say?”

I peer back up at the flowers, then back down at the card, then back up at the flowers. The thing is just absurdly large. It must have cost hundreds of dollars. I’m not opposed to the idea of receiving flowers, but this is a bit much.

“Lilly, you’re in charge of the flowers,” I say to our senior admin. “Send somebody out to buy four or five vases, and break that thing down into a few arrangements. Spread them around so everyone can enjoy them.”

I smile at everyone else. “That’s it, everyone. Let’s all get back to work.” I turn to go, but Jenna’s hot on my heels.

“You’re not getting away that easy,” she says, stepping in beside me, following all the way down the hall to my office. She closes the door behind us as she snatches the envelop from my hand. I don’t mind. Jenna knows everything there is to know about me.

I sit down behind my desk while Jenna reads the note, a smile creeping across her face.

“He kissed you!” she says. “Is he a good kisser?”

“It was unsolicited,” I say. “Mostly unsolicited. And it wasn’t part of the plan.”

Jenna sits down in front of my desk, crossing her knees, slouching.

“Ben. That’s a good name. My favorite uncle’s name was Ben. And smelling good is important. What was he like?”

I shrug. “He was nice. He seemed really… confident. He has nice eyes. Maybe a little sad. But nice. His eyes are the same color as polished steel. He’s got short, reddish brown hair with a little curl in it up top. He’s almost too handsome. You know, someone once said never to date a man who’s prettier than you are. I think he might be.”

Jenna rolls her eyes. “Okay, so he’s good-looking, but what was his personality like?”

I don’t really know how to answer the question. I know he was acting for my parents, and maybe for me too. “Guarded,” I reply, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind. “He didn’t talk about himself very much. All I know is he works in recycling.”

Jenna nods. “Recycling? That’s weird.” She jumps up from her chair, checking her watch. “I’ve got a meeting. We’ll catch up on this later. It’s good that he didn’t talk about himself much. Most handsome guys are complete narcissists. So at least he’s not that. You should call him.”

I laugh as she leaves. There is not a chance in the whole world that I would ever call him. I don’t have time for men who kiss me in the street or send me a frivolous bunch of expensive flowers. I don’t have time for men at all.

My phone starts ringing in my bag, nearly making me jump out of my skin. No one ever calls me at work. All my friends are here.

It might be him.

I scramble for my bag, grabbing the phone on the third ring, swiping in a hurry to answer.

“This is Sarah,” I say breathlessly. My heart races again.

“Sarah. This is Ben from last night,” his familiar voice says. “How’s your day going so far?”

I roll my eyes, but then I feel my face soften into a smile. “It’s okay,” I say. “Meetings. The usual. And some hopeful guy sent me an obscenely large and ridiculous bouquet of flowers.”

He laughs on the other end. “Obscene, huh? I hope that’s a good thing.”

“It was excessive,” I say. I look over to the flowers. They’re sitting on the console table by the door to my office. They are beautiful.

“Hardly,” he replies. “I owe you an apology. I hope you’ll let me offer it in person, over dinner, tonight if you’re free.”

“No,” I say immediately. “I’ve got a lot going on today, and I’m afraid I won’t be free.”

“Lunch? Friday?”

“I eat lunch in the office with my team.”

There’s a pause, and I hear the silence on the other end broken only by the sound of a rolling office chair’s squeaking wheels.

“I see how this is going to be. Everything’s a bit of a negotiation with you,” he finally says. “How about we meet for drinks tomorrow evening after work? The same place we met last night? Six o’clock? If you want to, you can go home afterwards. If you feel okay about it, we can grab some dinner afterwards.”

I bite my lip, trying to think of what to say.

“Sarah, it’s just drinks. It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me,” he laughs over the phone. “Take a risk.”