Page 36 of Forty, Flirty & Fired

I’ve learned a lot of lessons in the corporate world. One lesson I haven’t learned is how maintain professional composure the morning after almost kissing your CEO during a power outage. Especially when you've spent twenty years building a reputation as someone who would never, ever do something so cliché.

"Your 9 AM staff meeting needs an agenda," Lucia announces, dropping into my visitor's chair. "Unless 'pretending last night never happened' counts as a discussion topic?"

"We're focusing on Keith's feedback initiative." I type furiously, determinedly not thinking about how Alex's hands felt on my waist or how the lightning had made his eyes look impossibly green. "Specifically, his creative approach to corporate criticism."

"You mean the poetry slam he's organizing in the meditation room?"

"His methods are unconventional, but?—"

"Mac." She leans forward. "You almost kissed AlexanderDrake in Brad's Crying Corner. During a storm. That's like, peak smutty novel material right there."

"I'm not discussing this."

"Fine. But your inbox might have other ideas."

I glance at my email, and my heart stops. There, between meeting requests and HR alerts about Keith's "concerning behavior," is an email from Roberto.

Subject: Important News - Please Read

"No," I mutter, even as I click it open. "No, no, no..."

The words blur together, but certain phrases stand out like neon signs of karma's twisted sense of humor:

"...wanted you to hear it from me first..."

"...Katie and I are expecting..."

"...due in six months..."

"...hope you can be happy for us..."

Katie. His twenty-eight-year-old girlfriend. The same Katie who was his "mentee" during our marriage. The same Katie who's now carrying the baby he always said he didn't want because "children would interfere with our careers."

The same Katie who's fourteen years younger than me and apparently capable of making my ex-husband forget every argument we ever had about work-life balance.

"Mac?" Lucia's voice seems far away. "You look like you just found out Nonna's secretly pole-dancing on the weekends. And…forget I said that, because I just gave myself a scarring visual, and I really can’t-“

I turn my laptop around wordlessly.

"Oh." She reads quickly. "Oh shit."

"Yeah."

"Want me to call Sofia? She still has Roberto's mother's contact info. We could start some really interesting family rumors..."

"No." I stand abruptly. "No, what I want is to do my job. Starting with this staff meeting where we will absolutely notdiscuss meditation room incidents or ex-husband revelations or?—"

My office door opens, and because the universe hates me, Alex walks in.

"Ms. Gallo." He pauses, taking in what must be my completely professional and not at all devastated expression. "Is this a bad time?"

It's the worst time. It's the absolute worst time for him to be standing there in his perfectly tailored suit, looking concerned and solid and nothing like Roberto with his midlife-crisis sports car and his younger girlfriend and his sudden desire for parenthood.

"Actually—" Lucia starts.

"It's fine," I cut her off. "The staff meeting, right? I was just finishing the agenda."

His eyes narrow slightly. After last night, he seems to have developed an annoying ability to read my mood. "We can reschedule if?—"

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