Chapter 2 #4
His gaze held mine. “This would be a real job and not a favor disguised as one. There will be real hours, real expectations, real deadlines, and real criticism. If you work here, you will report day to day to Benjamin and to the operations team, not to me. You will be expected to handle confidential information without drama, to be early, to take notes, to follow through, to ask questions before a mistake becomes expensive, and to learn quickly. If you are late because you overslept, that will matter. If you miss a detail, that will matter. If someone is hard on you, you will not assume cruelty before you examine whether the criticism is correct.”
My face heated, but I did not look away.
“You understand that?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Say more than yes.”
I hated that my pulse jumped at the instruction, but it wasn’t because he was harsh. In those words, there was command so natural it did not need to raise its voice, and my body, traitorous little she-beast that it was, noticed command before it noticed context.
“I understand it’s a real job,” I began, careful and clear.
“I understand that getting an interview because I know you is not the same thing as earning the position. I understand that if I embarrass myself here, I embarrass you too, and I don’t want that.
I don’t want special treatment. I want a place to do good work without having to survive someone’s personality disorder as part of the benefits package. ”
His mouth twitched. “That last part may be difficult. Benjamin is technically part of the benefits package.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Callum leaned back, studying me. “You’d start as an executive projects coordinator on a probationary basis.
Ninety days. It’s not glamorous. You’d support internal project communications, meeting prep, schedule coordination, proposal materials, and whatever else Benjamin decides is urgent enough to threaten civilization.
Some of the work will be tedious. Some of it will be stressful.
Right now, we’re moving into a complicated quarter, so discretion matters. ”
“Complicated how?”
His eyes narrowed very slightly, then eased. “Nothing you need to know today. Large public projects come with politics. Politics come with complications.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“It often is.”
“You sell it beautifully.”
“I’m not selling it. I’m just warning you.”
I should have been frightened by that. Instead, I felt something steadier begin to gather beneath the nerves. I had a job, a real one, in a place with structure and expectations and people who knew how buildings stood up. The thought felt enormous.
“Do you think I can do it?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“I think you can,” he replied. “I also think you will have to decide whether you’re done telling yourself the story that you’re the kind of person things just happen to.”
The words hit low and deep.
“I don’t like that,” I said.
“I didn’t imagine you would.”
“You’re kind of mean.”
“No. I’m honest. Mean is easier.”
I looked at him, at the calm line of his mouth, the gray in his hair, the impossible composure of him. “Marlena would have said the same thing.”
“Marlena would have said it to make you small.”
“And you’re saying it to make me what?”
His gaze did not move from mine. “Responsible.”
There were a dozen things I could have said, starting with something defensive, clever, or something designed to reduce the moment into banter before it asked too much of me.
Instead, I sat there with my folder in my lap and my visitor badge clipped crookedly to my blazer, and just focused on what he said, which was terrifying in an entirely new way.
“I want the job,” I stated, infusing my voice with a certainty I’m not sure I felt.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know that too.”
“Then why does it feel like you’re waiting for me to convince you?”
“Because I’m waiting for you to convince yourself.”
I looked away first.
Callum gave me a minute, then pressed a button on his desk phone. “Ben, come in.”
The door opened so quickly I suspected Ben had been standing on the other side with his ear against it, though his expression suggested he had been born professionally disinterested.
“Yes?”
“She’s going to start tomorrow,” Callum said.
Ben looked at me, then at Callum, then back at me. “Tomorrow?”
“Problem?”
“I have never had a problem in my life,” Ben said. “Only opportunities to prevent other people from causing them.”
Callum’s eyes narrowed faintly in amusement. “Get her the onboarding packet, temporary credentials, and the correct HR forms. Have Marina set up a workstation near operations.”
“Near operations,” Ben repeated, tapping into his tablet. “Not near your office?”
“Benjamin.”
“I am clarifying for architecture.”
“Near operations,” Callum repeated.
Ben’s fingers moved. “Probationary?”
“Ninety days.”
“Reporting?”
“To you and Dana Keene.”
Ben looked up. “Oh. Dana bites.”
“Dana is efficient.”
“Dana once made a vice president apologize to a spreadsheet.”
“And did he deserve it?”
“Yes,” Ben admitted. “But still.”
Callum turned to me. “Dana heads operations. She’s excellent. She’ll be direct. She won’t be warm in the traditional mammalian sense, but fair.”
“Wonderful,” I said faintly.
Ben gave me another one of those almost-smiles. “You’ll enjoy her if you survive.”
“I keep hearing that word today.”
“Survival is underrated in corporate environments,” Ben replied.
Callum stood, and so did I, because my body seemed to have decided mirroring powerful men was now part of my employment strategy. He came around the desk again, and the movement sent a fresh pulse of nerves through me.
“I’m glad you came,” he said.
“Me too.”
“Be here tomorrow at nine. Not at 9:01 damp and sprinting through my lobby.”
“I was not sprinting.”
Ben made a noise.
I turned. “Wait. Was I sprinting?”
“You moved with the haunted urgency of a woman pursued by consequences,” he said, eloquent with his surreptitiously barbed observations.
Callum laughed then, a real low laugh that transformed his face for one dangerous second. I felt it in my stomach and hated everyone involved, including myself.
“Tomorrow at nine,” I confirmed, because if I did not anchor myself to practical words, I was going to drift into noticing the shape of Callum’s mouth, and in that way lay ruin.
“Good.” His expression softened. “And Avery?”
“Yes?”
“You did the right thing by writing me.”
It should have been a small kindness. It was not. It moved through me with the force of absolution, which was unfair because I had not asked him to absolve me and he had not offered to. Still, it felt like my whole body unclenched.
“Thank you,” I said.
Ben escorted me out of Callum’s office back to the elevator.
People glanced up and away. Someone laughed near a printer.
A man in a hard hat passed a woman in heels and handed her a roll of plans like a baton in a relay.
On one monitor, a tower rotated slowly in three dimensions, all blue lines and white stress points.
It occurred to me, with a strange little twist of awe, that the people here spent their days thinking about weight and pressure and what could bear what.
I wondered what they would make of me.
At the elevator, Ben pressed the button and stood beside me with his tablet tucked against his ribs.
“Congratulations,” he said.
“Was that painful?”
“Deeply.”
“I appreciate the sacrifice.”
“You should. I had several objections prepared.”
“I’m sure they were beautifully formatted.”
“They had subheadings.”
The elevator arrived, and we stepped inside. This time, the descent felt slower, maybe because I was no longer rushing toward possible disaster, only away from one that had turned, inexplicably, into an opportunity.
Ben glanced at me. “A word of advice.”
“Only one?”
“I’m editing myself for charity.” He faced forward. “Do not mistake Mr. Rowe’s kindness for softness. People do that often and it ends poorly for them.”
I looked at his reflection in the elevator doors. “I don’t think he’s soft.”
“No,” Ben replied. “You don’t. That may be useful.”
There was something about how he said it that made my face warm. I turned toward him, but he was still looking straight ahead, his expression unreadable.
“Do you dislike me?” I asked.
He considered this with insulting seriousness. “I dislike variables.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is the answer. You are a variable attached to a sentimental obligation. Historically, those are expensive.”
“I don’t want to be expensive.”
“Everyone says that before becoming expensive.”
The elevator doors opened onto the lobby. For a moment, he did not move. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and handed me a business card so heavy it probably had its own credit score.