8. The Interview - Jules
Finding a job is tougher than I thought it would be. Sure, the opportunities are plentiful, but there’s also more competition. For the past three weeks, during every job application and interview, Mom’s scathing disapproval followed me around like a destructive shadow. She laid into me over the phone the morning I called her and told her where I was.
Seattle? Seriously, Julia?
Do you really think you’ll make it on your own, halfway across the country? You don’t know how to be alone. When have you ever been alone a day in your life?
Running away is cowardly. It’s beneath you. Chris dumping you was the best thing that could have happened, as was getting fired from that retched job. That boy did you a favor, so stop acting like a child and come home.
No doubt, she thought her sharp words would be enough to get me on a plane back to Oklahoma, but truth be told, my first phone call home only drove me to succeed.
No fucking way am I going back. If I have to take Les up on her offer and work in a coffee shop for a while, I will. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The issue is my pride…and possibly my aversion to all things java. The main reason I’m determined to push forward is the voice in my head whispering that I have something to prove to the world.
But mostly to myself.
As I enter the atrium level at Mont Center, my heels tapping across the immaculate floor, I’m still in shock I was called up for an interview here. I submitted my resume on a whim, despite being ridiculously unqualified to work as an assistant for a CEO of such a well-known conglomerate. And don’t get me started on my lack of experience. I doubt The Powers That Be at MontBlake Holdings will appreciate the two years I worked for a small accounting firm in the midwest.
And yet here I am, striding across the first floor of the elaborate atrium like I belong here. Like I have a shot in hell of landing this job, never mind my fear that Perry will bust any chances I have at working as an assistant again. He promised to give me a good recommendation, but no one’s hired me yet, so I’m skeptical.
Jabbing the button for the elevator, I can’t help but gawk at my surroundings. A vaulted ceiling rises several stories high. The space overhead is monstrous and full of sharp angles. It’s an asymmetrical masterpiece. But I would expect nothing less, considering the company’s track record when it comes to the design of buildings and hotels.
Patrons meander in and out of the various boutiques as the rich aroma of coffee wafts through the air, mingling with the fresh scent of plant life. My favorite part is the towering wall of windowpanes where the sun beams through. A person could lose a whole day in this place, shopping, sipping tea, and reading a good book while curled up in one of the overstuffed chairs scattered throughout.
As the doors to the elevator slide open, I can hardly believe I’m interviewing for a position as the CEO’s assistant. I’m sure I’ll exit the building in the next hour as jobless as when I entered, but at least I can say I tried, because I sure as hell don’t have the luxury of giving in to my insecurities now. My living situation feels more crowded every day. I have no idea how Les can handle living surrounded by guys all the time, but if I have one more bathroom incident with Garen, I’ll lose my shit.
The guy seems to know exactly when I’m in there, and the fucking lock on the door doesn’t work. I wonder if he broke it just to have an excuse to walk in on me. Maybe it’s payback for my faux pas my first morning there.
I don’t think so, though. Garen Ashmore has a voice as seductive as sin, and a body to match. The problem is he knows it, and ever since I moved in, he’s had his sights set on me. When he’s not too busy banging anything in a skirt, that is.
The elevator dings on the thirty-eighth floor, and the doors part before me to reveal a sleek reception area. Floor-to-ceiling windows stand to my left, offering an up-close-and-personal view of downtown Seattle. I stride across spotless white marble and approach the young brunette behind the reception counter. A wall of slate tile stands behind her, providing a contrasting backdrop to the floor that seems too clean to set foot on.
“Welcome to MontBlake,” she says with a welcoming smile. “How can I help you?”
“I have an interview with Mr. Montgomery. I’m a little early.” Better to be early than late, is my motto.
“You must be”—her manicured fingers dance over the computer keyboard—“Julia Harley?”
“Yes, that’s me. But most people call me Jules.”
Real smooth. For fuck’s sake, Jules. Calm the hell down.
Her smile doesn’t slip. “Mr. Montgomery will be with you shortly, Jules. Feel free to take a seat.”
I settle into a wingback chair and try not to twiddle my thumbs, or bite the nails off of them. Someone offers me something to drink, but my stomach is one giant knot, so I decline. While I wait, I people-watch. The reception area is a busy place, but all activity seems to stall when a woman with striking black hair steps off the elevator. Everyone in the vicinity takes notice as she crosses the room, the tap-tap-tap of her heels sounding off a purposeful echo. Luscious, curly locks cascade down her back, and her red power suit is obviously designed by someone important.
This woman, whoever she is, doesn’t buy things off the rack.
“Hello, Mrs. Montgomery,” the receptionist greets her with the same warm smile she graced me with.
“My husband is interviewing today, yes?”
“Yes, he is, Mrs. Montgomery.”
“Clear some time on his schedule for me after his next interview,” she says quietly, her voice a melodious lilt.
So this is the CEO’s wife.
“Of course. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No, thank you, Beth.” Mrs. Montgomery boards the elevator, her head held high, and I can’t help but speculate on what kind of man it takes to land a woman like that. I’m guessing he’s older than she is, probably middle-aged at least. Undoubtedly handsome. Driven and successful. And loaded.
Someone like her views wealth as a necessity. Even so, I don’t get the sense she’s a snob. If anything, she comes across as polite, despite being straightforward in her interaction with the receptionist. A phone rings, breaking through my assessment of Mrs. Montgomery. The call is short, and after Beth hangs up, she turns her attention to me.
“Mr. Montgomery is ready for you now. His office is right through that door,” she says, pointing to the first door down the hall.
I try not to let out a nervous breath as I rise to my feet. He might be ready for me, but am I ready for him?
Don’t blow this, Jules. Fake it ’till you make it.
I enter through a door that reads Cash Montgomery, CEO in etched gold, and my attention is drawn to the wall of tinted glass that looks out over the city and Elliot Bay. The windows wrap around an entire corner of the office. Jesus, the view is breathtaking. I have a hard time tearing my gaze away, but when I do I take in the man sitting behind the desk.
He’s scribbling something on a pad of paper, his head dipped, and on some subconscious level I recognize his thick dark hair, because my heart thrashes against my ribcage.
“Ms. Harley, thank you for…” Lifting his head, he trails off as our eyes connect, and the earth slams to a halt. Utter shock blankets his face. The time and space separating us seems to shrink, because I fall into the steel of his gaze as swiftly as I did the night I met him. The weeks melt away, and I’m back sitting beside him, 35,000 feet in the air, his hand covering mine.
His breath on my lips. His fingers gripping my hair. The warmth of his goodbye kiss burning my cheek.
Our time together on that plane crackles between us, paired with confusion and lust so strong it almost consumes the entire room.
“Close the door,” he says, clearing his throat. “Please.”
My hand shakes as I push the door shut. I turn to face him, and our isolation is a blast to my senses. We’re alone, blocked off from the bustle of people who have no idea of the magnitude of this moment. And my reaction to him is just as potent as it was three weeks ago. Possibly even stronger, as I’ve built him up in my mind since then. I fantasized about him every night as I drifted off to sleep, thought about him everywhere I went. Some irrational part of me even hoped fate would intervene, and I’d catch a glimpse of him. Just once.
I’m practically in love with a fucking apparition of a memory, except the ghost of the man is very real, and he’s rising from behind the desk. My lips part at the first sight of his tall body encased in a suit he makes look good. In many cases, the suit makes the man, but not my stranger. His broad shoulders fill out the jacket perfectly, never mind the tailored fit of those slacks that hug his manhood.
His hair is a little longer than I remember, and he brushes it back as that stormy gaze ping-pongs between me and his desk…where a wedding photo of him with the stunning brunette sits.
As if to taunt me.
Oh my God. She’s his wife.
Clearing his throat, he gestures toward a chair. “Please, have a seat.”
I’m not sure how my feet eat up the floor without making me stumble, but I manage to reach the chair without tattooing the word fool onto my forehead. I have a million and one questions ready to roll off my tongue, but I can’t find my voice.
Weakness seizes my knees, and I grab the back of the chair, refusing to sit down just yet. Reclaiming his seat on the other side of the desk, he runs a hand through his hair. That’s when the sight of his wedding ring blasts me in the chest, and I manage to squeeze the single most important question past my constricted throat.
“You’re married?”
His wince is slight, but he can’t hide it. “If you’ll sit down, I’ll try to explain.” He’s eying me as if I might run from the building any second.
I’m tempted to keep my feet planted where they are, but damn it, I need answers as much as I need a job. Even more disturbing is how I want to sit and drink in the sight of him for the next decade or so. I lower into the chair and scoot to the edge, as if preparing to take flight, and force my eyes on him. Direct eye contact is a must in this situation, because he holds too much power over me.
If, by some twisted miracle, he does hire me, this is going to be a disaster of epic proportions, never mind the ratio of well to truly fucked.
“I don’t understand, Mr…” I trail off, his surname catching in my throat. It seems so…impersonal. “I thought we…on the plane…you’re married?” I ask again, my voice rising to a high pitch. This man flusters me to no end, and I’m certain two pink spots are spreading across my cheeks.
“It’s Cash,” he says with a meaningful glance that shoots warmth over my body. “My name is Cash.”
There are other jobs out there—there has to be. Because I can’t do this. Not again, and certainly not with him. The pull I feel toward him is too strong.
I jump to my feet, and my purse smacks the front of his desk, making that fucking wedding photo vibrate. “Thank you for your time, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” I scurry to the door until the command in his voice halts me.
“Sit down, Jules.”
A thrill travels down my spine, and a vision of him ordering me onto my knees flits through my mind. Where the fuck did that thought come from? I’m not even good at giving head—a shortcoming Chris never failed to point out. I gulp before turning around, knees shaking, and make my way back to the chair I just vacated.
“I know it’s a cliché thing to say…” he begins, leaning forward, “but it’s not what you’re thinking.” His fingers form a steeple under his chin, and I wonder if he’s as rattled as I am. I can’t tell by looking at him, which makes me question what else he might be hiding. In fact, when I think back to our time in the air, I’m sure he’s a master manipulator.
Because I had no fucking clue he was married. None. I knew he was involved with someone. But married? Fuck to the no.
“You’re right. That is a total cliché. You’re gonna have to do better than that.”
“My marriage is complicated, Jules.”
Damn him for using my name again. Every time he does, the core of my sex pulses. The faster I get out of here, the better, and yet I can’t help but push back. “I imagine kissing strangers on planes would complicate a marriage.”
“I didn’t kiss you.”
“But you wanted to.” My accusation settles between us, heavy with the ring of truth.
“Yes, I wanted to,” he admits, “and I would have if things were different.”
“Meaning, if you didn’t have a wife waiting for you at home.” I feel like such a hypocrite, considering I cheated on Chris, but I can’t stop the rush of betrayal from flooding my system. It’s illogical, irrational, and it’s close to choking me.
“I wasn’t sure I had a marriage to go back to. If you remember, I’d just found out she was cheating on me.”
“So that makes it okay?”
“No,” he says, eyes on his fingers as they collapse and entwine on the desk. “It doesn’t make it okay. What I did was out of line. I promise it won’t happen again.”
“How can you promise that? We had a…a connection.” If he denies it, I might go crazy on him. And I’m not crazy. There’s no way I imagined the hunger in his eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong,” I challenge, gripping the arms of the chair. “Tell me those hours weren’t as real to you as they were to me? Tell me—”
“They were,” he interrupts, a soft plea in his tone.
“But you’re married!” I cover my mouth with a trembling hand. How the hell did I get stuck in this sadistic loop of deja vu?
Please, please, please have a good reason. Don’t be a slime ball.
God, the thought of him being a first-class douche is too much. Whether it makes sense or not, I fell hard for him in a matter of a few hours. Call it rebound. Call it insanity. It’s probably a mixture of both, but I can’t deny that I feel something for him.
Cash.
He’s no longer my sexy stranger. He has a sexy name. A sexy life. A sexy job. And a sexy wife I’d fuck if I were into women. I hate myself for admitting that.
He better have a damn good reason for omitting his matrimonial bliss.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know,” he says, pulling at his tie. “It was hard enough talking about her affair. It didn’t occur to me to share more than that. C’mon, Jules. Did you expect to see me again?”
I dreamed of it. Wished for it. But… “No.”
We’re saved from further discussion by the swish of an opening door. His wife stands with one hand cradling her hip. There’s no warmth in her glacier blue eyes, and despite the fact that I basically hate this woman now, I hate it more that she’s looking at him like that.
“I need to speak with you,” she tells him. “I’ll come back when you’re done here.”
He doesn’t even offer her a verbal acknowledgement. He merely nods his head, avoiding her eyes the whole time.
She prances through the door, letting it close in her wake, and I reevaluate my earlier assessment that she’s polite. And it isn’t due to jealousy, though I can’t deny that a dizzying amount of emotions are storming through me, and one of them might be a little green. The biggest reason for my mistrust of that woman is the way she walks—with a calculated sway to her hips. I recognize manipulation when I see it, because I’ve witnessed it many times in Brit.
Cash clears his throat, bringing my attention back to him. He’s holding my resume in one hand. “You were my first pick out of the candidates HR sent my way.”
Were.
I’m stuck on his use of the past tense, and struggling to switch gears as fast as he had. “I don’t have much experience, and I only have an associate degree.”
He quirks a brow. “Are you trying to talk me out of hiring you?”
It would be the sane thing to do.
“Not at all. I’m just being upfront with you,” I say, uncertain if I meant the double meaning in that sentence or not.
He either doesn’t pick up on it, or he chooses to ignore it. “A bachelor’s is preferred but not required. And I like that you don’t have a lot of experience. I prefer things are done a certain way, so I don’t mind training you.” Something about that statement makes him visibly gulp. “Besides,” he says, setting my resume back on the desk, “your previous boss sang your praises.”
“Probably because I fucked him, to which he repaid me by asking for my resignation.”
Cash holds my gaze, his eyes brimming with smoldering ash. “Do you always talk about your sex life during job interviews?”
“Nope. This is a first.”
“Your old boss sounds like an ass. I hope you handed him his.”
This interview is an epic fail, a mockery of professionalism. But we tossed propriety out the window the instant I walked through the door.
“He was a mistake.” My lungs seem to shrink, and I draw in a deep breath until the suffocation subsides. “I don’t plan to go down that road again.”
Cash settles back in his chair, dark brows pulling together as he fingers his chin. The line of his jaw is cut from granite. “What are your top three strengths as an employee?”
“I thrive under pressure, can multitask without sacrificing work quality, and despite what you might think of my personal life, I have good work ethic.”
A sigh puffs off his lips. “You have no idea what I’m thinking. If you did, you would have left already.”
I can no more leave this office than he can push me out. I’m the magnet to his steel, the yin to his yang. A force of nature brought us together, and we can neither defy nor define it.
“What would you say is your biggest weakness?”
“Married men, apparently.”
One in particular, and he’s sitting across from me with a glower on his gorgeous face. “I’m trying here, Jules. Do you want the job, or not?”
“I want to go back in time and know you’re married.”
Had I known, I wouldn’t have flirted. I wouldn’t have lost myself to his voice and touch, and I definitely wouldn’t have ached for his kiss. A fucking kiss that should have never been a possibility, because even though I didn’t know he was married, he did.
“Jules…” he says, pushing a hand through his mussed hair. “An apology will never be enough for my behavior that night. If you take the job, we’ll keep things professional.”
Doubt plummets to the bottom of my gut. “I’m not sure I can.” Meeting his eyes is impossible—not after admitting in a roundabout way that my feelings for him are lightyears away from professional.
“You’re right,” he says, his voice strangled. “Working together is just asking for trouble, but professionalism aside, the thought of you walking away again is…” He’s shaking his head, as if trying to find the right words, but none are needed.
I know exactly what he means. For all the confrontational shit I’ve flung at him, I feel the same way.
“Ask yourself how you ended up in my office, of all places.”
Fate.
I crash into the storm of his eyes, unable to brake in time. The damage is done, and if I’m honest with myself, I was headed for destruction the instant I decided not to run the other way.
“Accept the job, Jules.”
There’s that tone again—a deep and commanding timbre that vibrates straight to the delta of my thighs. My mind is galloping ahead of me, imagining him using that tone as he bends me over his desk. The attraction I had to Perry was mild compared to this. It was minuscule and lacked depth—in truth harmless, until we somehow ended up in bed together.
But the chemistry between Cash and me is all-consuming, awakening me in ways I never believed possible. In ways I never knew existed. In ways I never knew I wanted. The energy surrounding us is scorching, and I’m too far gone to heed the warning licks of fire.
“Okay,” I say as I imagine my life going up in flames.
This man is going to be the death of me.