The best idea wins

(Zara) I made it to my desk before I let myself breathe again. The meeting had gone on for almost an hour, and for most of it I'd kept my eyes on my notebook like it held the answers to everything wrong in my life. It didn't. It just gave me somewhere to look that wasn't him. I set my laptop down and dropped into my chair. Priya appeared a minute later with two coffees. She placed one in front of me like we'd been friends for years instead of days. "You survived," she said. "Barely." "You did more than survive. He agreed with you twice." I wrapped both hands around the cup. "That's the part I don't understand." Priya leaned against the edge of my desk. "What's not to understand? Your idea was good. He said so." I wanted to tell her the truth. That the CEO agreeing with me had nothing to do with my idea and everything to do with the fact that I'd left his bed before sunrise and told him not to miss me. But I couldn't say any of that. So I drank my coffee and let her believe I was just nervous about a new job. "He doesn't usually do that," she said. "Agree with new people, I mean. He makes them earn it for months." "Lucky me." She laughed and pushed off my desk. "Enjoy it. Most of us would kill for him to remember our names." She walked back toward her side of the floor, and I sat there feeling worse than before. He remembered my name. He remembered a lot more than that. I opened my laptop and forced myself to focus on the assignment. Three campaign directions before Friday. I could do this. I'd been doing work like this for years, long before Sebastian Wolfe existed in my world. I wasn't going to let one reckless night take that from me too. I opened a blank document and started typing. For an hour it actually worked. The ideas came, and my hands kept up, and I forgot to think about anything except the words on the screen. This was why I'd wanted this job. Not for him. Not for the building or the marble or the salary that finally let me stop counting every dollar. For this. For the feeling of being good at something again. Then my phone lit up on the desk. Ryan. I turned it face down and kept typing. It rang again. I turned it off completely and shoved it in my bag. That was another life. I wasn't going back to it, no matter how many times he called. He'd made his choice in that bedroom, and I'd made mine when I threw the cake and walked out. There was nothing left to say that a locked door hadn't already said for me. By noon I had two directions drafted and the start of a third. I got up to refill my coffee and nearly walked straight into a man I didn't recognize. He was older, maybe forty, with a gray suit and a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You must be the new one," he said. "Zara, right?" "That's me." "Marcus Reid." He didn't offer his hand. "I run strategy. I hear you're on the CEO's project already." Something about how he said it made me want to step back. "I am." "That's fast." He tilted his head. "Most people wait a while before they get that kind of attention. You must be very talented." The way he said talented made it sound like an accusation. "I guess we'll find out on Friday," I said. He kept smiling. "I guess we will." He walked off before I could decide whether I'd just made an enemy. Probably. It was that kind of day. That kind of week. That kind of life lately. I got my coffee and went back to my desk, but the good feeling was gone. Marcus had said out loud the exact thing I'd been afraid of since I walked into that hallway and saw Sebastian's face. That people would look at me and wonder how I'd gotten here so fast. That they'd assume the worst. The worst, in this case, happened to be true. Just not the way they'd think. I stared at my screen for a long moment. Then I did the only thing I could do. I made the third campaign direction better than the first two. I made it undeniable. If Marcus Reid or anyone else wanted to whisper about how I got here, I was going to make sure my work was too loud for anyone to hear them. By the time I looked up again, the floor had emptied out. It was after six. Most people had gone home. I saved my files and started packing my bag. That was when I saw him. Sebastian stood near the glass wall of his office at the far end of the floor, phone to his ear, watching me. Not pretending to look somewhere else. Just watching, the way he had across that bar, like he already knew something about me I hadn't decided to tell him yet. I held his gaze for one second longer than I should have. Then I looked away, slung my bag over my arm, and walked to the elevator without letting myself glance back. The doors closed. I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. We'll talk after Friday's meeting, he'd said. Three days. I had three days to remember exactly who I was and why this couldn't happen. Three days to build a wall high enough that his voice couldn't get over it. The elevator dropped, and my stomach went with it. I already knew three days wouldn't be enough.