1. Now
ONE
now
“Mr. Stryker? You have a call on line four.”
I glower at the intercom. There’s always some stupid fucking call on line four. Which I hate for many reasons, but mostly because it means there are also stupid fucking calls on lines one, two, and three.
At seven in the goddamn morning.
I press the talkback button. “Just take a message, Beth. On all of them. Obviously.”
Obviously, I’m not going to pick up.
Obviously, I don’t care enough.
Obviously, I’m just a prisoner in this never-ending corporate purgatory.
I shove back from the smoked-glass expanse of my desk, ramming both hands through my hair. Damn it .
I feel bad about snapping at her already. My shit mood isn’t my seventy-year-old secretary’s fault. Beth is the best of the best—my father saw to that when he hired her, ensuring I had someone who could keep my clueless ass in line.
An unfortunate necessity.
Tension pulls at my shoulders and traps. I’ve worked out too hard all month, trying to burn away excess energy. The two-a-days leave me inordinately sore. And they don’t really help, anyway.
I just need to get laid. Again. More.
But the New York City dating scene is impossible in August, with half the city shut down and everyone fucking off to the Hamptons on a weekly basis.
I hate the Hamptons.
Almost as much as I hate dating, in general… but especially in the fall. Women always use the holidays to try to turn nothing into something.
It doesn’t help that I hate the actual holidays themselves, too.
Bored with the thought and frustrated by my own tedium, I spin my chair back to the window. Staring out at the city usually helps me re-center. This time, it just mocks me.
Look at you all high and mighty , my conscious sneers. Best view in the place.
When I convinced my father to move Stryker & Sons’ headquarters to Midtown, I did it almost entirely for the view. We made sure to capitalize on it, of course, sculpting the top two levels of our fifty-story cylindrical monument out of concave glass, giving the rounded offices panoramic floor-to-ceiling views.
My half of the executive floor faces southeast—the Chrysler Building and a slice of Grand Central. My father has the northwestern side, with the spire of St. Patrick’s Cathedral looming two blocks away .
Other than the world outside my window, there isn’t much else to look at. The firm’s decorator insisted on “sparse” furnishing to give the view priority. Apart from my black desk chair and the two matching Eames pieces facing my desk, everything else is fashioned from smooth, smoked crystal.
Someone passes by my door, and I glance over. The heavy glass always makes me do a double take. “GRAYSON STRYKER,” the etching brags under our new Stryker & Sons logo and above three words that curdle my stomach: “Chief Executive Officer.”
I hate that title.
Hate that it no longer belongs to its rightful owner, my father. Hate what I had to do to get it. Hate that, despite all my work, there are dozens more seasoned, better-qualified employees who have worked for my family for decades—people who deserve that designation way more than I do.
But there it is. Here I am.
My iMac pings, alerting me to the never-ending stream of emails awaiting some response. Sighing, I resign myself to another day as GRAYSON STRYKER and open the email app.
The first unread message stops me cold.
A Google alert. One I set up years ago and completely forgot because nothing has ever triggered it.
Until now.
Google Alert—Ella Callahan .