I take the folder. “You really want me to say yes.”

“Yes I do, because I think you’re talented. But I also don’t like hearing the word no when it comes to business.”

A laugh escapes me. “That probably doesn’t make you very popular.”

“No, but it does make me successful.”

I can’t argue that point, given the office that we’re currently sitting in.

Opening the folder, I glance at the top sheet which summarizes what’s in the document in further detail, and my jaw drops—fully drops—when it gets to the salary. “You’re joking.”

“Not in the slightest.”

“You can’t pay me this much for just…writing.”

Chance smirks again. “Of course I can. Your work is going to be highly visible within the company. You’re going to be the brand new voice of Heart Makers, and you deserve to be paid for that. Granted, you’ll also see that there’s an exclusivity clause. You’re being compensated highly so that you don’t lose money from not having the ability to write for other publications. Of course you can still update your blog. In fact, I encourage it, even though I don’t want you to go on anymore bad dates. It sounds like you’ve been on more than enough.”

I start to flip through the contract. There’s a lot of legalese, and even though my instinct says that I can trust Chance, it’s not so short that I can read it while I’m sitting here. I do want this though. “I want to accept,” I say. “But I hope you’ll understand if I take this contract home to read and come back in the morning to sign it.”

He smiles again. “I do understand. It’s good that you want to read it. Smart.”

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“Okay then.” Relief flows through me. “So I guess I’ll see you in the morning? Boss?”

Chance gives me a long, serious look. So long that I start to worry that I said something wrong. “You certainly will,” he finally says, and a perfect little shiver runs across my skin. That voice—I’m going to dream about it all night.

“Okay,” I say, standing. “Have a good night.”

“You too, Caroline.”

Five

“When I tell you that this guy didn’t stop talking the entire three hours we were at dinner, you have to believe me. Whoever said that women talk more than men never met this guy. I think I may have said fifty words during the entire date, and in the mean time, I learned about this guy’s cat, his mom, his grandma, his cousins and extended family, his hopes, his dreams and possibly his predictions for the next fifty years of his life. There’s a possibility I might be asked to write his biography using only the information that I learned on this date.”

—Rock Bottom Caroline

When I get home I spill every detail of the day to Alice, who’s dying for details after a full day at the bank. Which, she assures me, is boring as fuck. I find some pictures of Chance online and Alice can’t stop staring, and when I tell her that the pictures really don’t do him justice, she just shakes her head. This is all crazy, right?

When Alice heads to bed, I read the contract until my eyes feel like they’re going to fall out. It’s not a bad contract from what I’m gathering. A lot of it is standard employment legal stuff limiting Heart Makers’ liability and making sure that I understand that what I write on behalf of the Heart Makers’ brand belongs to them, but they don’t own anything else that I write, now or in the future.

Then there’s the explanation of my exclusive contract and my compensation. With money like this I’ll be able to pay off what’s left of my student loans and get my own place in just a few months. I can’t screw this up, because money like this could really change my life.

I can’t screw it up by doing something like fucking the boss, even if he is the most gorgeous piece of man candy walking around downtown Manhattan. Ugh. Seriously, how do you even get to be that hot? Is there some sort of vitamin you can take? Did the hotness fairy appear out of the sky and hit him with the hotness wand until it broke?

Great. Now I’m thinking about him again and how delicious he smelled leaning over me and that last long look before I said good night. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Hell, every day is going to be a long day of keeping myself—and my hands—off of him. But I think that it’s a good trade off.




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