When the Cold CEO Falls First

The chair outside the executive suite was designed to make people uncomfortable. Kade was sure of it. Too upright, too polished, the kind of leather that squeaked if you shifted even an inch. She had shifted like forty times in the last ten minutes. She checked her phone. 2:47 p.m. The interview was scheduled for 2:45. She was never late. She was never early, either. She timed things exactly. That was her thing. Control the variables, control the outcome. But today the variables were a fitted blazer she'd ironed three times, a portfolio she'd rebuilt from scratch at two in the morning, and the fact that she was sitting in the one building in London she had wanted to sit in since she was nineteen years old. Sartori. The name alone made her palms sweat. She wiped them on her skirt, then stopped herself, because the skirt was silk and she was not going to leave handprints on her one good interview outfit. She looked down. The skirt was navy. The blazer was navy. She had chosen navy because navy was professional and serious and did not scream please like me. Her glasses slid down her nose. She pushed them back up. It's fine. You're fine. You did the written test. You did the group round. You did the departmental interview and the head of design looked at your portfolio for eleven full seconds without blinking, which is basically a standing ovation in fashion. So why did she feel like she was about to throw up? Because Owen was here. That was the whole problem. That was the stupid and hopeful reason she had applied to Sartori in secret, built her portfolio in secret, practiced her presentation in the bathroom mirror with the door locked so her flatmate wouldn't ask questions. Owen Hinks. Her boyfriend of three years. Sartori's up-and-coming menswear designer. And, if everything went according to plan, her new colleague by five o'clock today. She hadn't told him. She wanted it to be a surprise. She had imagined the moment maybe eighty times: her walking into his office, portfolio in hand, watching his face when he realized she wasn't just visiting—she was staying. They'd commute together. They'd have lunch together. They'd be one of those couples who met in the stairwell and smiled like they had a secret. Maybe then he'd finally see her. Not as the girl who needed his advice. As an equal. Kade crossed her ankles. Uncrossed them. Looked at the abstract painting on the opposite wall and tried to slow her breathing. Three years ago, she never would have believed she'd end up with someone like Owen. Not that she'd thought about it much. In university, she'd been the quiet one in the back of the studio, headphones in, cutting patterns while everyone else went for coffee. She wasn't shy exactly. She just didn't see the point of talking when she could be working. Her scholarship paid for tuition. Her grades paid for her confidence. She graduated at the top of her class with honors and a portfolio that her professors called singular. She was proud of that. She was allowed to be proud of that. But Owen, Owen was different. Owen had walked into the studio in second year like he owned it. Tall, friendly, everyone's favorite. He was two years above her, and he had chosen art school over the finance degree his family wanted for him, which meant every dinner at his parents' house was a small war he'd already lost. He joked about it. He joked about everything. People gravitated toward him like sunlight. When he asked her out, she'd actually looked behind her to see who he was talking to. "You," he'd said, laughing. "You. Kade Cooper. The girl who made that coat. The one with the buttons." She'd made the coat in forty-eight hours on no sleep. She'd almost failed her seminar for it. She'd worn it to class and no one had noticed except the professor, and then Owen Hinks had stopped her in the corridor and said, "That's the best thing anyone's made in this building all year, and I'm including the building." She'd thought she was the luckiest girl alive. She still did, mostly. He was good to her. That was the thing people didn't understand. Owen remembered her coffee order. He held her hand in the rain. He told her she was beautiful when she woke up with her hair sticking up. He never raised his voice. He never gave her a reason to check his phone. Except the other thing. The other thing was that Owen didn't really see her. He saw a version of her—one he was kind of... curating. He suggested she order the salad instead of the pasta. Not because he cared about salad, but because "you'll feel better after, babe, trust me." He mentioned, casually, that a little toning would open up more design work for her. "Industry's brutal about fit," he'd say, and then kiss her forehead and ask what she wanted to watch. He'd look at her portfolio and say "good starting point" in a tone that made her feel like she was a student and he was the visiting critic. And when she'd asked him, once, in the quiet of their kitchen, why he never said he thought her work was better than his, he'd laughed. Not mean. Just surprised. "Babe. You know I love your stuff. But you don't have my eye. That's not a dig. It's just—you're a technician. I'm a stylist. Different strengths." She'd wanted to argue. She'd wanted to say, I've won scholarships you didn't win. I graduated with honors you didn't get. I've been doing this since I was eleven, for reasons you don't fully understand. But she didn't. Because he wasn't wrong about everything, and he was never cruel, and maybe she was a technician. Maybe he did have the eye. Maybe she was lucky he was willing to help her. The other other thing. She'd brought up exactly once and then buried under three years of "I trust him"—Owen had no idea where the line was. He was friendly. He was genuinely, enthusiastically friendly. He talked to everyone at parties like they were his oldest friend, and it wasn't flirting, not exactly, but it was close enough to make her stomach twist. When she'd told him she needed a little more distance from the girl in his cohort who kept calling him at midnight, he'd apologized immediately. He was so sorry. He understood completely. He would fix it. And he did fix it. He stopped calling that girl. And then he found another one. And then another. Every time, the same conversation, the same apology, the same promise. It was whack-a-mole. She couldn't ask him to change who he was. He was an attention seeker; she'd known that from day one. But he never did anything. She'd checked. She'd looked at his messages once, felt sick with herself, and found nothing. He was just... hungry. Hungry for eyes on him. So she'd decided to be mature about it. Trust was the thing. Trust was what made relationships work. If she couldn't trust him, what was the point? She'd asked her best friend, Lena, and Lena had said, "Break up with him. I'm serious. He's not a bad guy but he's a bad boyfriend for you." She'd asked her parents, and her father had said, "No one's perfect, Kade. He's kind to you. He just doesn't express himself well. You'll find your rhythm." Her mother had said, "He only wants what's best for you. You know, you did look really good at Christmas. That pale pink dress—maybe you could get it in one size down for the wedding season." "Why would I need that?" Kade had asked. Her mother had sighed. "Sweetheart. You're lovely. But if you were thinner, you'd have options. You know. Other boys. There's a reason Owen was the only one who asked you out." Kade had gone home that night and looked at herself in the mirror for a long time. Then she'd opened her laptop and revised her portfolio for the Sartori job. Because that was the other thing. The thing Owen didn't know about her. She was good. She was really, really good. The portfolio she'd built for Sartori was the best work of her life. She'd spent six weeks on the collection. Six weeks of after-hours sketching, of sourcing fabric in the East End, of draping on a dress form in her bedroom until 3 a.m. The line was for women like her. Women with hips and thighs and softness. Women whose bodies had been treated, by the industry, as a problem to be solved. She hadn't told Owen about that, either. She hadn't told anyone. She just wanted one room, one interview, one chance to be seen for what she was. She shifted in the chair again. The leather squeaked. She winced. "Can I get you anything?" The receptionist was looking at her with polite concern. She was probably twenty-two, with the kind of effortless confidence that came from never once questioning her place in a room. "No," Kade said. "Thank you. I'm fine." She checked her phone again. 2:51. Her palms were sweating. She wiped them on her skirt, then remembered the silk, then gave up. Okay. Deep breath. Let's go over the presentation. One more time. She'd prepared a pitch. Not just a review of the portfolio, but a proposal. A real one. An opening for the industry: an extended sizing line, designed from the ground up, not just patterns graded up from a sample size. She'd done the research. She'd done the market analysis. She'd done three sample garments to prove the construction was sound. She was going to walk in there and say, I know what this company needs. I know what the market needs. I need you to see me. Well. She was going to walk in there and be professional. She was going to be calm and articulate and not accidentally mention her boyfriend. She wasn't going to tell the CEO that she'd applied because Owen worked here. She wasn't going to tell him that she'd spent three years shrinking herself in Owen's shadow and now she wanted to see if she could cast her own. She was going to say, “Thank you for your time. I'm proud of this portfolio. I'd love to show you what I can do." And then, maybe, she was going to walk out of this office with a job offer, walk into Owen's office, and watch his face light up. Surprise. The double doors at the end of the corridor opened. Kade's head snapped up. A woman in a sharp grey suit stepped out, holding a tablet. She looked at Kade like she was reading a file. "Ms. Cooper?" Kade stood. Her knees felt like they belonged to someone else. "Yes. Yes, that's me." "They're ready for you. Mr. Sartori will see you now."