I licked dry lips and met his concentrated gaze. He stood up as I entered the room, acknowledging me with all his somber intensity. Mr. Tucker reluctantly stood too, and I was thankful for an excuse to look anywhere but at Ezra.
“Hi, Molly.” Mr. Tucker’s eyebrows rose subtly with surprise. He hadn’t been expecting me. I had a feeling he only knew my name because Ezra had asked for me specifically. I imagined Mr. Tucker waiting impatiently to find out which one was Molly. Now he knew.
Next week he was going to make us start wearing name tags. I could feel it.
“Hello, Mr. Tucker,” I returned professionally, unruffled, completely and utterly in my element.
Or at least pretending to be.
“Have a seat.” He gestured at the chair next to Ezra. “This is Ezra Baptiste,” Mr. Tucker went on. “He and his company EFB Enterprises are interested in our marketing services and he’s requested your assistance. Seems he’s aware of your outstanding reputation.”
Mr. Tucker smiled proudly at me as if he was also aware of my outstanding reputation. The outstanding reputation that didn’t exist. And even if it did it would not be important enough information for Mr. Tucker to familiarize himself with.
Ezra didn’t jump in to corroborate the claim, so there was a heavy minute of awkward silence in which I refused to speak and Mr. Tucker didn’t know what else to say.
Finally, unable to withstand the tense pressure, I crossed my legs, looked at my boss and said, “Thank you.”
That also left Mr. Tucker scrambling for the appropriate response since he wasn’t sure if I was thanking him or Ezra for the compliment or for the job.
Finally, Mr. Tucker cleared his throat and nodded. “You’re welcome.”
We fell into silence again.
If this had happened to anyone else, I would have found the entire meeting entertaining. Instead, as the victim in this situation, I tried to discreetly scope out the underside of Mr. Tucker’s desk in the probable chance I decided to crawl under it and rock myself back and forth until everyone left for the day.
Mr. Tucker scratched the underside of his chin and glanced desperately back and forth between Ezra and me. He wanted so badly for one of us to take over the conversation. Poor, naïve, Mr. Tucker.
“You’re in the restaurant business, isn’t that right?” Mr. Tucker asked Ezra.
“That’s right,” Ezra agreed, finally speaking up. “I own four fine-dining restaurants around Durham, but my logo and website are dated. I’m interested in working with Miss Maverick to revamp my image, give the corporation a fresh look. I’m also interested in hearing her thoughts on a better social media approach, running a few commercials for the different restaurants and whatever else you have to offer. I want the whole package.”
Mr. Tucker smiled and I could swear dollar signs started floating in his eyeballs. I resisted the urge to kick Ezra in the shins.
Was this even a real conversation? Did he honestly want all of those things from STS? From me?
If he had been anyone else, I would have understood his motivation. I was awesome at my job. Especially if he wanted a big social media package. I would kick serious internet ass for him. But this was Ezra we were talking about.
Just this weekend he’d called me green. And tried to dictate my style by telling me which colors to avoid in an email for the love of all things holy. The man wasn’t capable of letting me do my thing without dipping his fingers into every single thing.
So maybe this was something else? Maybe he was picking on me or punishing me for daring to stand up to him Friday night. Maybe he was just trying to make my life complicated.
Because he was doing that. He was so doing that.
There had been an email from him in my inbox this morning, but I hadn’t had a chance to read it. Or there was a possibility I hadn’t read it out of spite. Now I wished I hadn’t left my cell phone at my desk.
Besides, STS was most known for their stellar design team. We rocked the local area with our logos, graphics and print ads. I was doing my best to help with social media strategy, but STS as a whole wasn’t as savvy when it came to competing on the different social outlets and what worked. I was fighting an uphill battle, although if Ezra really wanted those things at least he’d picked the right person.
But commercials? Maybe he hadn’t done his research after all.
While we offered a media package, it was nothing to boast about. We charged an exorbitant amount of money, but in my honest opinion, couldn’t deliver the quality and finesse Ezra would be looking for.
Mr. Tucker congratulated Ezra on having good taste and then launched into a schmoozy-pitch about how much more we could offer him. I zoned out in favor of staring a hole into the side of Ezra’s head.
He glanced at me, doing a double-take when he caught me staring. With a second turn of his head, the corner of his mouth kicked up in a half smile and he cut Mr. Tucker off mid-sentence to say, “I trust you, Molly.”
My heart skipped, or rather, tripped over itself at those precious few words that meant more to me than I wanted them to. He trusted me? Why? I hadn’t done anything worthy of gaining his trust. I hadn’t even earned the trust of my bosses yet. Or coworkers. Or parents!
I opened my mouth to argue with him when the office door creaked open and Henry Tucker walked in uninvited. If I hadn’t understood that there was nothing in my power to get rid of Ezra, I would have screamed with frustration. Not only was Henry being incredibly rude and intrusive, he was jeopardizing my standing with a potential client. Henry had no idea I had history with Ezra. He had no idea what he was walking in on.
“Henry, my boy!” Mr. Tucker grinned that cat eating the canary smile. “I’m so glad you stopped by. This is Ezra Baptiste, head of EFB Enterprises. He’s interested in a full workup. With Molly of all people.”
Henry stepped up behind me, dropping his hand to rest on my shoulder. I felt his body heat through my blazer, too warm, too slippery, too wrong. I wanted to cringe and I wanted to shake him off, but most of all I wanted to die from embarrassment because Ezra’s shrewd, always alert gaze dropped right to where Henry’s hand had covered my collarbone.
“Of course he is,” Henry said through a stretching smile. He squeezed my shoulder and I wanted to stop, drop and roll the hell out of here. “She’s our very best.”
Lie.
I wasn’t the very best. I wasn’t even close to it. His hand stayed perched on my shoulder longer and longer, elongating the awkwardness until the hairs on my neck stood up. It was all I could do not to wince. His fingers pressed below my collar bone too familiarly and then his thumb, his unwelcomed, uninvited thumb drew a slow path along the nape of my neck where it buried itself in my hair. A sickly feeling slithered beneath my skin while my brain tried to convince my instinct that this was an accident or that Henry was overly touchy but not threatening. And that’s when my body decided to ignore them both by making a complete fool out of myself.
Dropping my shoulder and sliding out of my chair, I practically jumped to standing startling half the room. Without having a game plan I thrust out my hand to Ezra. “I’m looking forward to working with you,” I heard myself say.
Damn it! That was not at all what I meant to do. My flight reaction got in the way of common sense.
Ezra blinked up at me, clearly not expecting me to walk into this arrangement so easily. He glanced back at Junior before he stood to his full height, crowding me, towering over me, eating up every inch of space that his tall frame needed and then some. His hand wrapped around mine, warm and firm and dry—such a contrast to the hand I’d just run away from. “As am I,” he said coolly.
Mr. Tucker slammed his hands on the desk excitedly, no doubt already preparing Ezra’s invoice. He started to say something congratulatory but all I wanted to do was get out of this office.
“I can take you to our conference room,” I blurted to Ezra, my hand still wrapped in his. “We can go over details while you acquaint me with you
r company and give me a better vision of what you’re hoping to accomplish with STS.” I let out a slow, steady breath, hoping the beads of sweat along my hairline weren’t obvious.
“That’s a great idea,” Ezra replied. “Lead the way, Miss Maverick.”
I turned and smiled bravely at Mr. Tucker without meeting his eyes and shot another nod of confidence somewhere in the vicinity of Junior’s feet. Then I escaped quickly to a conference room, Ezra close on my heels.
Pushing the door open with one arm, I gestured for Ezra to enter. “Right in here.” I followed after him just as soon as I’d glanced back to make sure Senior and Junior hadn’t bothered to follow me.
“I had been prepared to negotiate,” Ezra began talking. “I should probably apologize…”
Nervous energy buzzed through me, but I blamed it on Ezra’s sudden appearance. Although I could still feel the phantom brushing of Henry’s thumb over my neck. I shuddered, wishing I could erase the memory altogether as I walked to the wall of windows in the conference room.
I should say something to Henry, I decided. That was too much. Too intimate. And on top of every terrible thing, super inappropriate. He was my boss and in general he gave me the creeps. If he gets close again, I’ll say something. I’ll ask him to stop. He’ll listen. He’s a professional. I’m a professional. It will be fine.
“Molly?”
Ezra stood up and walked over to me. Belatedly, I realized I had been staring out the window at downtown Durham, completely lost in thought and he’d been talking since the door closed behind us. Actually, now that I thought about it, I thought maybe he’d been apologizing, but I hadn’t heard a single word of it.
“Sorry,” I told him, reverting to my familiar tactic of always being the one that had to make the other person comfortable. “It’s been a weird day.”
His eyebrows scrunched together over his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I told him with a smile that lied. “Perfectly fine. I just wasn’t expecting…” I met his dark gaze again, braving the concentrated gaze I knew would be waiting for me. “You.”
He let out a slow breath, seeming to gather his thoughts. “I told you on Friday that I wanted to work with you.”
“I didn’t realize you would go above my head to do it,” I snapped, dropping the happy façade I didn’t feel.
“You’re angry,” he concluded.
“I’m pissed,” I countered.
He looked away and I swore it was to hide a smile, further feeding the furious dragon-woman living inside me. “Aren’t they the same thing?”
Aren’t they the same thing? Somebody hold my earrings!
“Is this really what you want, Ezra? You could hire anybody. Anybody! But you really want me?”
His entire body swiveled to face me again, tension pulling him taut, straightening his shoulders and widening his stance. His face was all cut marble, stone, granite, something that symbolized immovable strength and conviction. He was too intimidating, too beautiful. Too him.
“No one tells me the truth anymore, Molly. Not even the people I pay to do that. The current website is dated and dysfunctional and yet I paid my last web designer excessive amounts of money and all he did was give me exactly what I wanted.” I decided not to argue with him about why his last web designer was doing what he was paid to do. He went on, “I want someone who is going to ignore my personal taste and instead make something that has market appeal. I want someone who is going to stand up to me and fight me when I’m wrong. I believe that person is you. It’s true, I don’t like your taste. You’re too modern. Your designs are too simplistic and I hate your color schemes. And that is why I need you on my team.”
I glared at him even while I tried to convince my mind to stop plotting his murder. He wanted to hire me because he hated everything about my style?
“Despite what you think, Ezra Baptiste, I don’t get paid to fight with my clients. Nor do I want to spend my valuable time standing up to a pigheaded, outdated, stubborn old man. So here is how this is going to go, since I’m clearly trapped in this project that you’re forcing me into. You’re going to listen to my advice and you’re going to take it. You’re going to approve my designs and social media strategy and then you’re going to hire more people to implement every single thing I tell you to do. And lastly, but this is probably my most important point, you’re going to go somewhere else for your on-screen advertising because so help me God if I do all of this work for you and then you mess it up by letting STS do your commercials...”
His head cocked back in surprise. He blinked once, twice, then his mouth broke open in a victorious smile. “This is exactly why I hired you.”
I resisted, barely, the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m confident you’re getting more than what you asked for.”
His eyes darkened with promise, his smile turning sly and secretive. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
A shiver skittered down my spine, pulling goose bumps from my arms. It was the exact opposite reaction of how jittery I felt toward Henry. Fine, I was still jumpy and frustratingly nervous, but I was also too hot and too dizzy and something else entirely.
Ezra Baptiste had some kind of magic juju that lured confident, professional women in and turned them into melting piles of goo. This was why nobody could be honest with the man. This was why everybody told him what they thought he wanted to hear. Because frankly, they lose their damn minds around him.
I refused to be that girl. I refused to be hypnotized by his good looks and entranced by his secret charm. I refused to find his dark eyes mesmerizing and his smile adorably boyish. I refused to like this man that was heavy-handed and bossy and so ridiculously confident.
Do you hear that, libido? This is a sexy man boycott!
And I was definitely going to have to reopen my eHarmony account. Tonight.
Maybe over my lunch break.
I needed a date STAT.
“I have a worksheet,” I blurted, hating how I was starting to soften and lose my hard edge. “It will help me better understand everything you need.” He glanced at his watch and I took the opportunity to step back far enough that I couldn’t smell him anymore. “I just need to grab my tablet.”
His expression flattened with his familiar frown. “I hate to do this to you, but I am late for another meeting. Can you email it to me?”
I nodded to cover my inability to form coherent sentences. “Y-yes. That’s fine. Is it just for Lilou? I can tweak it to your specifications if I know which website I’m working with.”
“All of them,” he said casually, like it wasn’t about to cost him thousands and thousands of dollars. “The four restaurants and the EFB master website. Do you need links? My assistant can email them later today.”
“I’ll find them,” I assured him. “That’s part of my process. I need to evaluate how easy it is to search your sites and use them.”
“Well, you’re already familiar with Lilou.” His words had a playful bite to them and his eyes danced with that same surprising mischief. “You’ll want to find your way to the social sites as well?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“I’ll look for your email later today.”
“Sounds good.”
He stuck out his hand once more and I tentatively reached for it. “Thank you for agreeing to work with me, Molly.”
Holding his steady gaze, I felt the first authentic burst of confidence bloom inside me. “I hope you know what you’re getting yourself into, Ezra. I’m not going to go easy on you.”
He leaned in, surrounding me with his delicious scent. “That is exactly why I want you.”
My mouth went dry at his words, dropping open with surprise. Thankfully, Ezra had already turned around and headed for the door. Tucker Junior just happened to be there.
Henry held the door open for Ezra. They chatted in the doorway and I overheard Henry offer to show Ezra out. For some reason, I was relieved when Ezra declined.
It wasn?
??t that I thought Ezra would take his business elsewhere should Junior decide to get handsy in the elevator, but everything about Henry made me prickly and I found myself wanting to spare Ezra from all that potential awkwardness.
“Look at you, superstar,” Henry crooned when Ezra finally walked away. “Two major clients this month. Someone’s on her way to the top.”
He’d blocked me in, resting his hip against the table Ezra and I had never sat down at. “Coincidence,” I told him.
“Maybe it’s hard work,” he countered, giving me a look that made me feel sweaty. “Or maybe your boss just likes to look at you.” This time he winked.
I laughed nervously, trying to play it off. “Speaking of hard work…” I shuffled closer to the wall. “I should get back to it.”
His expression turned predatory. My shoulder brushed the wall as I tried to skirt around the room, officially nervous around Henry. “That’s a good girl,” he murmured as I walked by him.
Just after I’d passed him, he stood up. There was a moment when we were too close and something brushed over my butt. My heart started pounding and adrenaline kicked in. I walked quickly back to my desk, not breathing the entire time. But it wasn’t until I was at my desk that I finally let myself admit that he’d touched my butt.
Henry had patted me on the butt.
The space where we were had been small though. It could have been an accident.
I stared blankly at my computer screen for the next twenty minutes trying to decide what to do. But that didn’t lead to any answers. I had no precedent for this, no prior experience with an inappropriate boss or coworker.
I didn’t see Henry again for the rest of the day. He stayed in his office, and I stayed at my desk or escaped to the bathroom whenever I spotted him walking around.
By the end of the day, I’d convinced myself that I was making more of this than it was. I was uncomfortable around Henry, but he hadn’t really done anything overt. He’d put his hand on my shoulder. And maybe, accidentally bumped my butt. He was always polite. Always nice. He’d picked me to be on Black Soul out of an office of more experienced designers.