Page 8 of Not Safe For Work

“Want? Definitely not. But I’ve got thirty minutes to kill.” I look down at Churro as I say this, realizing my Monday-nightplans consist of Netflix and cuddling this guy. But she doesn’t need to know that.

“You’re sure you don’t mind? I already took up half your night.” She sounds so apologetic I want to reach through the phone and hug her.

Instead, I grab the tweezers, break up a few small pieces of meat and inspect for cheese before feeding them to Churro. He’s still curled up in the sling as I sink down in my bed and flip the phone to speaker. I can’t show Liv the smile I get from helping her, so I show him instead.

“Tell me what you need, Sparkles.”

CHAPTER THREE

OLIVIA

“What’s this?”I ask to the deserted space around my desk.

I arrive to an almost-empty office right at seven-thirty in the morning, giving me two more hours to prep for my meeting. I shouldn’t need to do anything else. I’m pretty sure I’ve memorized all my notes, but I still want to show Mitch how much effort I’m putting into this, for him to see how ready I am for this promotion.

But when I get to my desk there’s a coffee sporting the Fog & Foam logo. I take a sip, surprised to discover it’s my typical sugar cookie latte, extra everything. How?

“Oh, hey, Sparkles.” Gavin approaches from the kitchen and runs a hand through his hair. It still looks wet from a shower.

“Did you…” I raise the cup between us. “Did you get me coffee?” I feel like an idiot even asking because of course he didn’t get me coffee. It’s much more likely that it came from Andie, or a stalker I don’t yet know about, or maybe the tooth fairy trying to up my sugar intake to get more loot.

“Yeah, I umm…had a feeling you might be too rushed this morning. Didn’t want you to screw up the meeting just because you didn’t have a buzz.” He sits down at his desk and throws on his headphones, completely ignoring the shock on my face.

Yesterday was the most Gavin and I had talked in months, maybe ever. I know he only helped me out for the good of the team, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. Gavin’s brilliant. The way he speaks about our product, all the analogies he uses to help marketers understand the why, how, what—“always in that order, Liv!”—of what we do, the sheer confidence in everything he says, I was captivated by it.

Working in Silicon Valley, I’m surrounded by intelligent people. But there are different types. Most common are the ones who want you to know how smart they are, who drop hints at their Stanford degree every chance they get and love to humble brag about their money, their stock options, whatever else they can think of, really.

Unfortunately, my ex is the leader of this group. The brilliance and the status sucked me in. And then it became an actual chore to stroke his ego.

Gavin definitely has a chip on his shoulder, or at least I thought he did until last night. He’s great at his job and clearly smart, but he falls into a group of his own, one without arrogance and elitism. And I’m still in shock that he got me coffee.

I wave a hand to get his attention and he drags the headphones down around his neck. I don’t know why exactly but the move is so sexy I can’t stop my mouth from parting. Since when am I a neck person?

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Why did you…how did you…umm…how’d you know my order?”

He raises a brow. “I’ve got my ways.” And his headphones go right back on.

“Thankyou so much for meeting today,” I say, shaking Tristan’s hand. I grab the tray of coffees I pre-ordered from Karla and set them on the table. “This is Mitch Stevenson, our VP of Sales.”

Photos of Tristan were commonplace when I was compiling my research on him and Surf and Stream. But I wasn’t prepared for how intimidating he’d be in person. He’s wearing all black and looks like he stepped out of a Tom Ford ad. He has one of those perfectly square jaws I thought only existed in romance novels and photoshop.

We go through a quick round of introductions as Tristan has brought two team members with him to the meeting. Priya runs their social media department while Darnell is their creative director.

The meeting goes well. I take Gavin’s advice and encourage the team from Surf and Stream to do all the talking. This whole meeting is about information gathering so when I do schedule them for a platform demo, I can personalize it as much as possible.

Darnell is the most engaged. He is in charge of their current marketing platform and gives me a lot of info on what he likes and dislikes about it. It’s already easy for me to see where we can fill in their gaps and provide services they’re missing out on.

We agree to schedule the demo for next week in our office, but before we conclude the meeting, Tristan speaks. “I’m looking forward to seeing more, but I have to say, I heard Sizzl was the most expensive platform on the market.” He leans in and his cologne hits me like a drug. I could swear it’s intentional, meantto knock me off my game. It smells like money and power and hands tied to a headboard. “I know you said you’d be putting together pricing options once we decide on which features we’re interested in, but can you give me a range to consider before we move further?”

My brain circles back to my conversation with Gavin last night as I try to rid the aroma from my senses. We went over so much pricing info that it’s all jumbled. And then there were the talking points about why we cost more, or how to customize the package to make it more cost-effective. Fuck, I can’t remember the details of anything.

Pressure starts to build in my chest, the tell-tale sign of my anxiety taking over. I take a deep breath, thinking of Gavin’s words on the phone last night and will myself to get through this.

Mitch is eyeing me like he just can’t wait to see me mess this up, so I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Tristan, do you mind if I ask what car you drive?”

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