Book 1 - Page 50 (1/2)

I waited, toying with a cuff link, but she apparently wasn’t going to address the latter part of what I’d said. “My dad doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

She laughed, appropriately. Dad had been on every top-twenty-five list of CEOs practically since before I was born.

“It doesn’t have to be a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b. I could f**k you against a wall,” I whispered, clearing my throat and looking around to be sure no one was near enough to hear. “Or I could lay you down on the floor, spread you wide, and make you come against my tongue.”

She s.h.i.+vered, smiled at the student near the next poster, and walked closer to read it. The man held his hand out to me. “Excuse me, but are you Bennett Ryan?”

I nodded, distracted as I shook his hand, watching Chloe move farther away.

The aisle we were in was practically deserted but for the students standing near the posters. Even they had begun to wander off to more interesting areas of the room, where larger companies—conference sponsors, mostly—had put together s.h.i.+ny, trademark-filled posters in the interest of getting the inaugural student-led session off the ground successfully. Chloe bent and wrote something on her notepad: Rebranding for Jenkins Financial?

I stared at her hand and then up at her face, fixed in a thoughtful expression. The Jenkins Financial account wasn’t one of hers. It wasn’t even one I handled. It was a small account, occasionally half-a.s.s managed by one of the junior executives. Did she actually know how much it was struggling with the dinosaur marketing campaign we had?

Before I could ask, she turned and moved on to the next poster, and I was mesmerized with Chloe at work. I’d never let myself watch her so openly—the surrept.i.tious stalking I had done only told me she was brilliant and driven, but I never realized the breadth of her company knowledge before.

I wanted to compliment her somehow, but the words got tangled in my head, and a strange defensiveness surged in my chest, as if to praise her work would somehow break strategy. “Your penmans.h.i.+p has improved.”

She smiled up at me, clicking the end of her pen. “f.u.c.k off.”

My d.i.c.k twitched in my pants. “You’re wasting my time here.”

“Then why don’t you go glad-hand some executives over in the reception hall? They have breakfast there. Those little chocolate m.u.f.fins you pretend not to like?”

“Because it’s not what I feel like eating.”

A small grin pulled at her lips. She watched my face as another student introduced herself to me.

“I’ve followed your career ever since I can remember,” the woman said, breathless. “I heard you speak here last year.”

I smiled, shook her hand as briefly as I could without appearing rude. “Thanks for saying h.e.l.lo.”