ABIGAIL

Today is the day I am going to be fired at the hands of a ruthless man. And if that sounds like I’m being dramatic, I’m not.

Because here are the things everyone knows about my boss, Elijah Armstrong:

1. He’s ridiculously rich. Like, flies off to Ibiza or whatever the latest hotspot is on his private jet for a quick weekend jaunt rich.
2. He dates only supermodels, no exceptions. Despite this rule, he’s a notorious womanizer. (Seriously, it’s known that during New York Fashion Week the designers need to keep a bunch of models on retainer, since they don’t know who’s going to call in sick after being too heartbroken to get out of bed. Who knew there were enough supermodels in the world that a man could go through so many and still not ever get through all of them?)
3. He doesn’t give interviews. Ever. People, Time, The New Yorker, it doesn’t matter. No interviews -- print, screen, or otherwise.
4. He’s gorgeous. There’s no way anyone can really dispute it. Elijah is everyone’s type, because he’s just sexy as all hell. Dark hair, piercing brown eyes that somehow make him look like he wants to bring you to his bedroom while at the same time making you feel like he’s one second away from dismissing you all together, a jaw that could cut steel, and a body that fills out his designer suits just enough to keep them from looking elegant and make them look dangerous.
5. He’s an asshole.

All of these things can be found out with a simple google of his name. He might not give interviews, but that doesn’t mean that the tabloids and the online gossip sites leave him alone.

In fact, it’s like his determination to stay private makes the gossip-mongers of New York even more determined to find things out about him. The paparazzi follow him to dinners at the most exclusive places, getting pictures of him as he emerges from some dim lit restaurant with his latest supermodel conquest on his arm.

And while you might be able to figure out that Elijah Armstrong is a cruel and demanding boss by reading about him in the in the gossip mags or on TMZ, what you won’t be able to find out is that Monday morning is when he’s at his worst.

Monday morning is a tense time for everyone at Armstrong Media because of Elijah’s notorious bad moods.

And when you get called into his office on Monday morning, it’s cause for panic.

And this Monday morning, for some reason, he wants to see me.

“He’s going to fire me,” I say to my best friend Hailey. We’re standing in the break room at work, one of the many perks of working at Armstrong Media. It’s filled with chrome counters and a refrigerator bigger than my apartment which is filled with all kinds of organic snacks and drinks, free for the taking. “He’s going to fire me and I’m going to be out on the streets of New York with nothing but my wits.”

“What wits?” Hailey asks, typing on her phone.

“It’s not funny!” I pull my coffee cup out from underneath the fancy espresso machine, dump in a bunch of Stevia and a splash of almond milk. “Good bye, almond milk,” I say wistfully. “Good bye coffee that doesn’t taste like watered down tar.” Damn this place for giving me a taste of the good life. It got me hooked on almond milk and fancy espresso, things I won’t be able to afford if I end up out on the streets of New York. Actually, forget almond milk and espresso. I won’t even be able to afford cheap coffee or regular milk.

Or food.

Or rent.

“You’re being dramatic.” Hailey finally looks up from her phone. Easy for her to say. She’s not the one who’s been called into the devil’s lair.

“Who’s being dramatic?” The voice comes from the other side of the room. It’s my other best friend, Will Manning. He walks over to the espresso machine and starts brewing his own cup.

“Abby thinks she’s getting fired,” Hailey says, rolling her eyes behind her chic Kate Spade glasses. She’s scrolling through her phone, texting or replying to an email.

I watch her, so innocent, so secure in her job in the graphic design department. The publishing arm of Armstrong Media, where the three of us work, is always going to need book covers, and Hailey is super talented. She can design for any genre – romance, thriller, mystery…

Me, on the other hand – I work in editorial of our clean romance line, Sweet Kisses. And in publishing, lines close all the time. And the editors get fired, left to fend for themselves on the mean streets of New York. Well, at least until they find another job or end up back in upstate New York or Wisconsin or wherever the hell it is they came from.

“Why? Did you get brought in to meet with Armstrong?” Will jokes, adding milk to the frother.

“Yes!”

Will freezes. “Oh.” He swallows and looks slightly sick.

“See?” I turn to Hailey. “See? Will knows!”

“No, I don’t,” Will says quickly. “Maybe he wants to congratulate you on your strong sales numbers.”

“My sales numbers are horrible.” Well. Not horrible. But definitely not strong. More like middling. I push my fingers to my temples. “I’m getting a headache.”

“You are not getting fired,” Hailey says, finally looking up from her phone. She shoots Will a look of ‘don’t get Abby going.’ This is a pretty normal interaction for the three of us. I’m the dramatic one, Hailey is the eternal optimist, and Will is there to balance us out.

The three of us met here at AM, but we’re friends outside of work, too. Hailey and I started around the same time, three years ago, right out of college, and Will just got hired about six months ago. But he fit right in with the two of us, the third we didn’t know we needed until he showed up. Will is straight and pretty handsome – tall with dark hair and bright blue eyes -- but interestingly, there’s never been any sexual tension between the three of us.

Hailey has boyfriend she’s practically engaged to, and I’m way too focused on my career to even think about dating. And besides, Will is pretty much like my brother.

“Has Mr. Armstrong said anything to you?” I ask him now, desperately.

Will is Elijah’s executive assistant and every so often, he passes on pieces of gossip about our CEO. Of course, they’re usually along the lines of some supermodel calling incessantly or how much Mr. Armstrong spent on wine.

“Please,” Will says, taking a sip of coffee. “You think he tells me anything?”

Of course Elijah Armstrong hasn’t told Will anything. Even though Will is technically in charge of scheduling all of Mr. Armstrong’s appointments, Mr. Armstrong himself is in charge of all firing. For the entire company. The rumor has it that he likes to do it in person because he’s just that evil. What CEO of a multi-billion dollar media conglomerate fires people personally?

My phone buzzes with a message.

One new chat message from our interoffice message center.

From: Elijah Armstrong.

To: Abigail Bennett

I will see you now, Ms. Bennett.

My stomach flips.

“Wish me luck,” I whisper to my friends, tossing my coffee in the sink before heading out of the break room and toward what is sure to be certain doom.

* * *

Okay.

This is going to be fine.

I mean, there’s no reason for him to fire me. I’m good at my job. I have three New York Times bestselling authors on my list. I have a degree in English with a dual minor in book publishing and marketing from New York College, one of the only places in the entire country that offers such a program.

Of course, the sales numbers for my line, Sweet Kisses, have been down lately. The last book I worked on didn’t hit the Times list like we wanted it too.

But that doesn’t mean that it’s my fault. Fiction stales numbers are down across the board, not just at AM but everywhere. It’s not my fault that bookstores aren’t ordering in the quantities they used to. The industry is changing, and romance readers in particular are moving over to ebooks.

Which is why if he fires you it’s going to be hard to find another job.

I push the thought out of my head and try to replace it with something more positive.

Maybe he wants to talk about promoting you.

Yeah, right. I was already an executive editor. The next level was editorial director, and I didn’t have nearly enough experience for a job like that. There was no way I was getting promoted.

A sick feeling settles in my stomach as the elevator doors open on the fortieth floor, where the offices of Elijah Armstrong take up the entire space.

The only elevator to his floor was manned by a slick-looking security guard who checks my badge, then scans it into his tablet, making sure that my name matches the person who’s supposed to be allowed into Elijah’s inner sanctum.

I take a deep breath and approach the reception desk.

Elijah is so important that he needs an executive assistant and a receptionist. Will is in charge of making Elijah’s appointments, fetching his lunch, and answering his calls, but this girl -- the one in the chair behind the curved desk in front of me -- is in charge of answering the random calls that come in to the company and making sure that no one is allowed in to see Elijah that isn’t supposed to be.

“Abigail Bennett,” I tell her. “I’m here to see Mr. Armstrong.”

The girl taps into her computer. She has shiny black hair and a perfect complexion, and when she speaks, it’s with the cultured air of someone who attended the best boarding schools.

“Mr. Armstrong, I have Abigail Bennett here to see you,” she says into her headset.

Her voice is commanding, but when she ends the call, she looks at me warily. “He’ll see you now,” she says. “It’s the last door at the end of the hall.”

She won’t last.

Even the rigors of prep school and the Ivy League can’t prepare her for dealing with Elijah Armstrong.

She pushes a button on her desk, and the heavy oak door in front of us splits in two, opening and revealing a long hallway with plush cream carpet. Who the hell has pocket doors made of oak in New York City?

Not to mention the cream carpet.

It’s pristine.

How does he keep it so perfect? I wonder as I start down the hall. Hasn’t anyone ever spilled their coffee or tracked in dirt? The streets of New York City are filled with sleet and snow in the winter -- how is it possible that no one has brought any of that in with them?

Maybe he has it replaced every month, I think. Or maybe he doesn’t allow any riff raff up here. Probably the only people allowed into his office are people who are about to be fired and the rest of them are so important that they have drivers to take them everywhere they want to go, so they don’t have to worry about their shoes being muddy.

I glance behind me as I walk, mortified to see that my knock off Prada pumps are leaving indents in the otherwise flawless carpet.

Why the hell did I decide to wear these shoes today? They’ve always been problematic. I got them my first weekend in the city, and the heels have always been a bit wobbly. At first I thought it was because they’re only designed to hold up, like, 120 pounds and I’m nowhere near that, but then I realized that it’s because –

“Is something wrong with your leg?”

The voice is smooth, demanding, and I turn back around so quickly that I stumble a bit. When I right myself, I smooth my skirt and find myself looking right into the eyes of Elijah Armstrong, CEO.

He’s standing in front of his open door, gazing at me as if I’m a bug that’s skittered onto his pristine carpet.

“Um, no,” I say, smoothing my skirt down and straightening my shoulders. “I was just admiring your carpet.”

He glances behind me at the carpet, looking at it like he forgot it even existed, like it was something he picked up at a discount store sale, instead of what I’m sure it really is, which is ridiculously expensive and possibly imported from some foreign city whose name I can’t pronounce.

His eyes return to mine, and he stays quiet. He’s closer to me than he’s ever been, and he cuts an imposing figure standing in the doorway to his office. The clean lines of his suit encase his broad shoulders, his jaw looks as if it’s been cut from steel, and the look in his dark eyes makes it seem as if he could swallow me whole.

His silk tie is done in the perfect Windsor knot, and I imagine him at home in the morning, tying his tie, standing in front of the mirror, which makes me think of him getting dressed, his muscles flexing as he puts on that perfect white shirt.

My faces warms. “It’s very, um…clean.”

“Yes, well, that’s what happens when you have something cleaned.”

What an asshole.

After this sarcastic missive, he stays quiet, and I wonder if this is a technique he uses – keeping his mouth shut while he waits for someone to say something stupid, all the while he staring them down with those piercing dark eyes under those slashed brows.

I resist the urge to babble on about his carpet, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of disarming me even more than he already has.

This might be his company, but this is my job, the job I’ve dreamed about since I was a little girl, the only job I’ve ever wanted.

I’m not some simpering idiot desperate to impress him. Okay, I am desperate to impress him, but I refuse to let him throw me off. That will be the death of my career. If there’s something that’s already glaringly obvious, it’s that Elijah Armstrong doesn’t suffer fools.

And I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a fool.

I force myself to meet his gaze, ignoring the pulse between my legs as I catch a whiff of his scent – clean, manly, expensive.

“You wanted to see me?” I ask. It’s a direct question, one he can’t just ignore. Even so, he waits a beat before answering.

“Yes.” He turns and walks back into his office, leaving me to follow him. I leave the door open behind me, figuring maybe the meeting will seem less formal that way.

“Close the door,” he demands.

I close it.

“Sit down,” he barks.

Okkkkay.

I sit down in the chair across from his long oak desk. I sink into it, the expensive leather supple against my thighs, and I yank my skirt down in what I hope is an unobtrusive manner.

Behind him, floor to ceiling windows provide what I’m sure is an impressive view of Manhattan, but the blinds are drawn tightly, providing no distraction or conversation starters.

Elijah picks up his phone. “Addison, hold my calls while I am with Ms. Bennett.” He hangs up before she has a chance to respond and leans back in his chair. “There is no easy way to tell you this, Ms. Bennett, so I’m just going to say it. Your imprint is being eliminated.”

My heart beats fast in my chest and my stomach churns. Eliminated. It’s common in publishing, imprints getting eliminated. The market changes and lines come and go, but that’s like saying a surgery is common, it may be common but that doesn’t mean you want to be the one it’s happening to.

“We have two books on the New York Times bestseller list,” I say. “Regan Fowler and Jessica Chase both have more books under contract. And our sales are comparable to other lines. Are those being shuttered as well?”

His hands curl slowly into fists, and I took in a breath.

Have I gone too far already?

No. I need to show him that I know what I’m talking about.

So I hold his eyes and wait for his response.