Wrong Place, Wrong Man

BONNIE
“Absolutely not.”
I didn’t bother looking up from my laptop as I clicked through the presentation for what had to be the twentieth time that evening. Somewhere behind the partition separating my desk from hers, Sophie made a sound suspiciously close to a laugh.
“Come on, Bonnie.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask.”
“I do.” I frowned at the sponsor logo in the bottom corner of the slide, shifted it slightly to the left, stared at it for a second, then moved it back to exactly where it had been.
When Ethan didn’t answer, I finally looked up.
He stood on the other side of my desk with one hand tucked casually into the pocket of his trousers, his tie loosened after a long day and that familiar, hopeful smile playing around his mouth. It was the expression of a man who had somehow convinced himself that repeated rejection was merely an unusually long courtship ritual.
“You were going to ask if I wanted to get a drink with you.”
His smile widened. “Maybe.”
“You asked me yesterday.”
“That was yesterday.”
“And I said no yesterday.”
“People change.”
“Not that quickly.”
A badly disguised snort came from the neighbouring desk. Ethan turned toward the sound just as Sophie’s head appeared above the divider, her dark ponytail falling over one shoulder.
“Do you mind?” he asked.
“Not at all.” She settled her chin on the partition and smiled sweetly at him. “Please continue. This is the most entertaining thing that’s happened all afternoon.”
I pressed my lips together, trying not to laugh.
Ethan looked back at me with admirable determination. “One drink.”
“No.”
“Dinner?”
“No.”
“Coffee?”
“Ethan.”
“Dessert?”
I gave him a long look.
“Fine.” He placed a hand dramatically over his chest. “I can take a hint.”
Sophie laughed outright.
“Can you?” I asked.
“Eventually.”
That finally pulled a smile from me. The truth was, I liked Ethan. I genuinely did. He was funny, attractive in that polished corporate way, and one of the few people in the building capable of making a three-hour client meeting tolerable. He remembered how I took my coffee, always held the elevator when he saw me coming and had once sacrificed half his lunch break to help me locate twelve missing boxes of promotional samples that had somehow been delivered six floors below us.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with him.
I simply didn’t want him.
Apparently, that distinction remained a work in progress.
“Go home,” I told him. “It’s after seven.”
“So come with me.”
I stared at him.
He raised both hands immediately. “Right. Taking the hint.”
“Progress.”
He grinned as he began backing away from my desk. “Goodnight, Bonnie.”
“Goodnight, Ethan.”
He made it halfway across the office before turning around again. “If you wake up tomorrow with dramatically lower standards, my offer still stands.”
“Sleep well, Ethan.”
“Dream of me.”
“I’d rather not have nightmares.”
Sophie choked on a laugh behind me.
Ethan pressed a wounded hand to his heart. “Jesus, Powell.”
The elevator doors slid open behind him.
“Goodnight!”
He disappeared between them, and the moment the doors closed, Sophie rolled her chair around the partition and stopped beside my desk.
“You’re cruel.”
“I’ve told him no.”
“Repeatedly.”
“Exactly.”
“And yet he keeps coming back.”
“That sounds like an Ethan problem.”
Sophie leaned an elbow against my desk. “You know, most women in this office would commit minor crimes for that man to ask them out.”
“Then I’ll happily donate him.”
“To charity?”
“To whoever collects persistent men.”
She laughed and spun lazily in the chair before stopping herself with the toe of her shoe. “You haven’t dated anyone since I’ve known you.”
“And?”
“And I’ve known you for two years.”
“Congratulations.”
“I’m serious, Bonnie. Not even one terrible Tinder date?”
“No.”
“Secret married billionaire?”
“No.”
“Woman?”
I looked at her.
“Also no.”
“Nun?”
“Tempting.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re weird.”
“I’ve been telling you that for two years.”
The truth was considerably less interesting than Sophie wanted it to be. I wasn’t secretly nursing a broken heart, I hadn’t sworn off men after some catastrophic relationship, and there wasn’t a tragic ex hiding somewhere in my past waiting to explain why my romantic life was practically nonexistent.
I had simply never wanted anyone badly enough.
Men had interested me. I wasn’t blind, and I certainly wasn’t immune to attraction. But there had always been a difference between noticing a handsome man and actually wanting him close enough to disturb the comfortable order of my life. So far, nobody had managed to cross that distance.
I liked my life exactly where it was.
Mostly.
My attention drifted back to my laptop, where the final slide of tomorrow morning’s presentation stared accusingly at me.
Sophie followed my gaze and immediately pointed a finger in my direction. “No.”
“What?”
“Do not touch it again.”
“The sponsor logo looks slightly off.”
“The sponsor logo has looked slightly off for forty minutes because you’ve been staring at it for forty minutes.”
“It needs to move.”
“It needs therapy. And so do you.”
I laughed and finally removed my hands from the keyboard.
The office had emptied around us while I worked. During the day, the twenty-fourth floor was filled with ringing phones, overlapping conversations, the smell of coffee and perfume, and the constant click of expensive shoes across polished floors. Now the lights had dimmed automatically in the empty sections, leaving only the low hum of computers and the occasional muted chime of an elevator beyond the glass doors.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city had already surrendered to evening. Hundreds of lights glittered between the buildings, their reflections shimmering on streets still wet from the rain. Beyond them lay the waterfront, little more than a dark stretch interrupted by scattered points of light.
From twenty-four floors above the ground, everything looked orderly. Almost peaceful.
Sophie checked the time. “Please tell me you’re done.”
“I’m done.”
“You said that forty minutes ago.”
“This time I mean it.”
“You have a deeply unhealthy relationship with PowerPoint.”
“I have a deeply unhealthy relationship with people who change the guest list three days before an event.”
“That sounds less treatable.”
“It is.”
I saved the final version and shut my laptop with more satisfaction than the action deserved.
Three months of planning for a luxury property launch had somehow come down to deciding whether two competing brand directors could be seated at the same table without creating an international incident.
Corporate Events and Brand Partnerships Manager.
The title looked impressive beneath my name on a business card, and sometimes the job lived up to it. I organised champagne launches, charity galas, private dinners and rooftop events for people who could spend my annual salary on a watch without checking their bank balance first. There were beautiful venues, designer dresses, impossible guest lists and enough expensive champagne to fill a swimming pool.
Other days, I spent forty-five minutes listening to six adults debate whether the shade of gold printed on a dinner menu was sufficiently aspirational.
Today had definitely been one of those days.
I stood and stretched, lifting my arms above my head until the muscles along my spine protested after nearly eleven hours behind a desk.
“God.”
Sophie glanced at me. “You’re twenty-four.”
“I’ve been sitting here since eight.”
“You’re still twenty-four.”
I smoothed my skirt over my hips. It was one of my favourites, black and fitted neatly around my narrow waist before following the curve of my hips and falling just below my knees. A slit angled slightly toward the front of one thigh, high enough to soften the otherwise severe cut without making it inappropriate for the office. I had paired it that morning with an ivory silk blouse, delicate gold earrings and black heels.
Simple, elegant and normally comfortable.
After eleven hours, the heels had become instruments of torture.
Sophie looked me over critically. “You know what I hate about you?”
“Only one thing?”
“You’ve been here all day and you still look put together.”
“My feet are dying.”
“Good. Humanity restored.”
I reached for my handbag and slipped my laptop inside before checking my phone. My car was supposedly three minutes away.
“I’m leaving before somebody sends me another email.”
“Run while you still can.”
“Excellent advice.”
Sophie pulled on her coat. “Want me to wait downstairs with you?”
“My car is three minutes away.”
“You said that with dangerous confidence.”
“I think I can survive the lobby by myself.”
“You say that immediately before things are very much not fine.”
I gave her a look.
She smiled, stepped closer and kissed the air beside my cheek. “Text me when you’re home.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“Somebody has to keep you alive.”
“I’m twenty-four.”
“Exactly. Practically an infant.”
“Goodnight, Sophie.”
“Goodnight, heartless woman.”
The elevator swallowed her before I could answer.
I gathered the last of my things, switched off the lamp on my desk and glanced through the windows once more. The waterfront was barely visible from this height, but I could make out the marina lights scattered along the edge of the darkness.
My phone vibrated.
Driver arriving in 3 minutes.
I turned away from the window.
Three minutes became six, and by the time I reached the lobby, six had become eight.
I stood beneath the wide glass awning outside the building and watched the tiny car icon on my screen remain stubbornly stationary. The city had taken on the polished quality it always had after heavy rain. Streetlights stretched across the wet asphalt in ribbons of gold and white, neon signs trembled in puddles, and tires whispered over the road as cars sent fine sprays of water toward the curb.
The worst of the storm had passed more than an hour ago. The August evening was still warm, although the breeze drifting in from the waterfront carried a cooler edge that slipped beneath the thin fabric of my blouse.
I shifted my weight from one aching foot to the other and checked the app again.
The little car finally moved.
“Thank you.”
It travelled perhaps half an inch across the screen before stopping.
Then it disappeared.
Your driver has cancelled.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Through the glass behind me, the security guard looked up from his desk.
I pretended I hadn’t just argued with my phone.
I requested another ride. Eight minutes.
Fine.
I could survive eight minutes.
Nine minutes later, the second driver had barely moved. I stared at the screen in disbelief, wondering why getting home from work had suddenly become a logistical operation.
There was another main road on the opposite side of the waterfront, lined with bars and restaurants, where getting a taxi would be much easier. It was about fifteen minutes away on foot, perhaps ten if I cut through the old marina.
I glanced through the glass doors behind me. The sensible option was obvious. I could wait in the warm, brightly lit lobby, surrounded by security cameras, until someone eventually decided I was worthy of transportation.
Then I looked at the app.
12 minutes.
“Oh, screw you.”
I cancelled the ride.