ONE NIGHT ONE BOSS

Chapter five

She nodded back with identical professionalism and focused on the computer screen.

The second time was when he came to her desk to leave three folders with a list of instructions attached that were detailed, specific, and left absolutely no room for interpretation. He didn’t say good morning. He went back into his office.

The third time, at ten forty-five, he stopped at her desk on his way somewhere and looked at the work she’d completed.

“The Henderson file,” he said.

“Reorganized by date and cross-referenced with the contract archive, as the note said.”

He looked at the file. Then at her. “The note said it was organized by date.”

“The cross-referencing took four minutes and will save considerably more than that the next time someone needs to pull the contract history.”

A pause. Not a long one. “Fine,” he said. And walked away.

Sophie watched him go and thought about a rooftop bar and a man who had listened to her like the world had gone quiet.

Then she turned back to her computer and got on with the work.

By the end of the first week, she had developed a functional understanding of the job and a comprehensive map of the office’s social ecosystem. She understood that Marcus Webb, who occupied the large office two doors down and smiled every time he passed her desk, was someone to watch carefully. She understood that the two members of the finance team who lunched together every day knew more about the company’s internal politics than anyone else and said none of it out loud. She understood that Janet was a more important person in this building than her title suggested.

And she understood, with the particular clarity of someone who has no choice but to see things accurately, that Aiden Thomas was watching her too.

Not, obviously. He was not an obvious man. But she had spent five days in proximity to him, and she had learned the grammar of his attention, the way it operated, where it landed, how long it stayed. And it stayed on her, occasionally, a half-second longer than professional necessity required.

He didn’t know why.

She did.

She went home on Friday evening and sat in the kitchen and ate dinner with her mother and said the job was fine, yes, the CEO was professional, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Yes, she was tired. Goodnight Mum.

She went to bed and lay in the dark and thought about how this was perfectly manageable.

It was Friday. She had survived five days. She could survive all the days after that with equal composure.

Her phone lit up on the bedside table. Dara: How was week one??? Tell me everything???

Sophie typed back: Fine. Completely fine.

Dara: That means it’s not fine at all, doesn’t it?

Sophie put her phone face down and stared at the ceiling.

Vivienne Cole arrived on a Wednesday and the entire atmosphere of the office changed. Sophie had scheduled the visit herself, V. Cole, investor meeting, 2pm, and had prepared the boardroom and the documents and the refreshments with her usual thoroughness and thought nothing of it beyond the logistics, then the glass doors opened, and she thought considerably more of it.

Vivienne was the kind of woman who entered a room and recalibrated it. She was beautiful not in an accidental way but in the deliberate, maintained way of someone who understood beauty as an instrument and kept it sharp. Her coat probably cost more than Sophie’s rent. She moved through the office with the ease of someone who had been here many times and had never once found it unwelcoming.