Chapter 3
Quinn
“ M r. Vance would like to see you in his office,” says the man with the haughty voice over the phone. “Can you come in at eleven?”
This is not good.
This is so, so not good.
Yes, I can come in at eleven. But hell no, I don’t want to.
“Um, any chance we could reschedule?” For, say, never. “I have a lot of?—”
“Mr. Vance is a busy man, Miss Monroe,” says the man, now with an even haughtier voice, who identified himself as “Brant, calling from the office of Harlan Vance,” when I answered my cell. “You wouldn’t want to know the level of disappointment that would cause.”
Oh-kay. That’s terrifying.
I get the feeling that by disappointment he might actually mean punishment .
“I understand. Yes, I’ll be there.”
“Wonderful. Vance Tower. Financial office. Tell security you have an appointment. Don’t be late.” He hangs up on me.
I guess Harlan Vance’s staff are about as friendly as he is.
I maybe shouldn’t have answered when the call display said Vance Industries .
But what good would avoiding him do?
The Vance family owns this whole building. And everything in it.
While they don’t own me , per se, the insinuation was clear.
The Vances have the power. At least, if I want to keep working for them.
It’s Thursday morning, Crave bakery opened a couple of hours ago, and I’m in the back room, filling cream puffs with pastry cream. Or at least I was. I have my iPad set up on a stand while I work, and I’ve been chatting with Nicole all morning, too.
Now, I panic text the squad, He just called me into his office!!! And while I wait for their replies, I proceed to sweat about it while filling cream puffs and replaying my coworker’s words from last night.
Maybe the man who hates everything finally found something he likes.
And my personal favorite: If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from him.
Believe me, I’m trying.
I thought it would be easy enough, considering he’s a billionaire and I’m just a baker/waitress. But I had an unnerving feeling that our paths would cross again.
Maybe because my girlfriends seem so convinced of it.
Ever since I messaged them early this morning to tell them what happened at Velvet last night, Nicole can’t seem to come down off this cloud she’s on that Harlan Vance is going to get down on one knee for me. I adore Nicole, but she is desperately delusional when it comes to attractive men.
Dani sent me a detailed rundown of what to say to my employer—any of them—if he threatens my job. There are a lot of colorful swear words in it.
But now that Harlan Vance has called me in for a meeting, I’m seriously thinking I might need them.
My plan to break up with Justin tonight after I put in that overtime for him—while asserting my position that I’m staying here at Crave whether he likes it or not, and I expect no animosity at work from him—has taken a distant backseat in priority to my growing worry that I made a terrible first impression on one of my new employers, and my job at Velvet is now on the line.
Fearing that I’m about to imminently get fired is somehow worse than finding out Justin is screwing someone else. At least I haven’t seen Justin yet today. He hasn’t even come in yet this morning, but that’s not unusual.
For all I know he’s sleeping in late with chocolate girl.
Finally, my iPad chimes with a Squad response.
Nicole: SQUEEEE. He probably wants to ask you out!
Damn, it’s just Nicole. Again.
Me: Please. I’m his employee, not a Tinder match.
Nicole Lalonde is way too boy-crazy blind to help me with this. Dani said she’d be pretty tied up with a client today, though, so I guess I’m shit out of luck.
Me: I’m freaking out. He was supposed to be too busy with his very important life to remember the weird girl with turquoise hair who tried to read his text!
Nicole: You mean the dazzling hottie who crushed his will to live without her? Who melted his ice-cold heart into a roaring crotch fire?
Ugh. The ice-cold thing. As it turns out, that reputation precedes him, big time.
Not only did I serve drinks to a member of the Vance family—and piss him off—it had to be that member of the Vance family. The one who seems the scariest.
I don’t exactly have oodles of time to dig into it myself, but Nicole has all morning, apparently, and has been alerting me every time she finds something interesting online. Which isn’t much. It seems the Vance family is ultra private. Even Nicole, whose friend Megan is engaged to one of the Vances, and who was the reason I even heard about Velvet and the Vances in the first place, knows nothing about Harlan.
Except now that I met him and he tipped me two hundred bucks, she’s fully on board with Team Harlan, if he wants to marry me.
My iPad jingles with another Squad message.
Nicole: Finally found a clear pic of his face. He’s stone cold gorgeous!!
As if I didn’t know.
Though Nicole is usually a pro at stalking men online, she’s been struggling to come up with a decent photo of Harlan’s face. In the rare few public images of him with his family or at some event, he’s always way in the background, out of focus, and/or turned away.
You’d think he was a legit vampire, she texted me early this morning in frustration. Like no one ever gets a photo of him!
Now, she sends me a photo.
I click on it. And holy Christ, he’s smiling .
He wears a dark suit with a white collared shirt, the collar splayed open to reveal a hint of collarbone. His arms are draped around the two people standing on either side of him. One is a dark-haired woman I now know is his twin sister, Savannah, thanks to Nicole. The other is Damian Vance. The two other Vance brothers flank them. Harlan isn’t looking at the camera; none of them are. It seems like a candid shot.
I really shouldn’t be feeling what I feel when I look at—and save—this photo of him.
I close the photo and get back to work, carrying several large trays out to the front of the bakery, restocking the display cases with filled and glazed treats. Then I get set up in the back room to decorate a new dummy cake—a fancy but fake cake that will sit in the window display. I change it out every few weeks.
As I take out some fondant and start kneading it, I have to stop myself from looking at that photo again.
I’ve already learned the brutal life lesson that dating your boss sucks . Because it gives him way too much power over you.
And anyway, I don’t even know if Harlan Vance is single.
Nor do I care to.
I mean, Nicole says he is, but what does she really know?
It doesn’t matter.
I am not crushing on him in the slightest.
How could I crush on a man who detests me?
The employees-only door at the back of the room opens, and Justin hurries in. His blondish hair is still damp from his morning shower.
I wonder if he had to wash her off of him.
I wonder if he feels guilty when he says, “Hey, babe,” barely meets my eyes, and brushes a hand over my arm as he strides past me.
“Morning,” I say as neutrally as I can, pretending to be laser-focused on rolling out fondant. I was the first one in this morning, which means I got to set the music for the day. Thanks to my mom, I’ve got a sweet spot for the music of her glory days. But I’m deeply regretting putting on my Lorraine Forever playlist as the man who’s cheating on me slides into his white chef jacket to the tune of Honeymoon Suite’s “New Girl Now” playing over the bakery’s sound system.
I pretty much hold my breath until he heads out front to micromanage his other employees.
Breaking up with him now, while imperative, will be even stickier. After what happened at Velvet last night, I shouldn’t be doing anything to endanger this job. But I really can’t continue on like this.
When my iPad jingles, I can’t resist checking it. What if it’s another photo?
Nicole: I can ask Megan about him for you.
It’s not the first time she’s offered. Her friend Megan recently became engaged to one of Harlan’s brothers, Jameson Vance. But I feel icky about the whole thing.
Me: That’s okay. I don’t think even she could save me if he already hates me.
Nicole: Fine. Then just show some cleavage. Lead with an apology and next thing you know… you’re getting railed by a billionaire!
I can feel her excitement through the iPad.
But maybe she’s right about one thing.
Maybe I should lead with an apology.
I finish my dummy cake and check the time; it’s almost ten o’clock. The fake, three-tier cake is covered in a sleek flat-black fondant, and dusted with some edible gold leaf. It’s darkly elegant. Manly, even.
It only occurs to me when I stand back and look at it what inspired me. It’s not the approach of October and Halloween season. It’s Harlan Vance. If ever there was a cake for that man, this would be it.
Too bad it’s not a real cake.
On that thought, I slide the completed dummy cake into the window display, then head into the back room again to pull a fresh cake out of the fridge. It’s a vanilla cake, already stacked, filled with white chocolate ganache and crumb coated with pale-pink strawberry buttercream.
I place the cake on my turntable and smooth it with more strawberry buttercream, to get a perfect finish, and nice, sharp edges.
While I’m working, Justin disappears into the small back office, without a word or a glance in my direction. I can tell he’s in a bad mood. He’s always stressed out at work.
I pull a tray of my signature buttercream roses from the fridge, these ones turquoise, and start adding them in a swirl across the top and down the side of the cake, watching the time as I go.
I pop my head into the office, to tell Justin I’m running a cake over to a client. He frowns distractedly, and I hurry out the back door before he can complain. I carry my pink-and-turquoise cake in a Crave-branded bakery box, and wear my cleanest white chef jacket with the Crave logo embroidered above the breast. I smell of cake batter and sweat. I wish I could shower, but at least I look official.
I’ve learned that even the grumpiest people get excited and open doors for you when they see baked goods coming.
It’s three blocks from Crave bakery to Vance Tower, along busy sidewalks and busier streets filled with workday traffic. The drive in front of the tower loops away from the street to the black glass entrance, where the name VANCE stretches in gold above the triple set of tall doors.
As I approach the grand main entrance and glance up, I can see all fifty-six floors of the tower soaring above me, a spear of black glass thrust into the sky.
I enter through one of the glass doors, recalling how nervous I was the first time I had to approach one of the doormen, and show my ID for my first training shift at Velvet.
I’m way more nervous now.
Maybe because that time I was getting hired, not fired.
This time, the doorman sends me over to an elevator bank on the far side of the enormous, polished lobby. A gorgeous woman in yoga wear walks a well-dressed chihuahua past me and out into the sun. I know most of the upper floors of the tower are residential, and several of them house the head offices of Vance Industries. The lobby and sprawling mezzanine feature luxury retailers, a fine restaurant, and of course, Velvet Lounge.
When I tell the security guard at the desk by the office elevators that I have a meeting with Harlan Vance, he calls ahead to check that I’m expected, then presses an elevator call button for me.
The one that points down.
Once I step into the elevator, he presses the LL button labelled Finance for me, sending me down.
I didn’t even know there was a Lower Level.
As the elevator sinks, my stomach lifts. I ponder the mindset of a billionaire whose family owns a majestic tower in downtown Vancouver choosing to locate his office in the basement.
The elevator doors slide open to reveal a small, empty lobby with dark walls.
As I step off the elevator into the enclosed space, I feel like I’m entering the underworld. A security camera watches me like a dark eye from the corner.
I ask myself for at least the dozenth time since I was called in for this meeting what the hell I’m even going to say to Harlan Vance. He has to be planning to fire me or reprimand me or something. Why else would he summon me to his office?
I don’t know this man. But I do know he has power.
Which means he could be capable of anything.
I enter through the solid wood door in front of me into the office space—which is nothing like I expect it to be. It’s bright and inviting. Past the reception area, a wall of glass separates the receptionist’s desk from a sea of cubicles, the entire office bathed in daylight. The ceiling is transparent; it’s the glass floor of an exterior courtyard above.
I can see people walking on it.
Like the rest of Vance Tower, this office space is beautiful and has probably been featured in architectural magazines.
Before I have a chance to approach the reception desk, I notice a man approaching me with intent from a single, distant desk at the far end of a long hallway to the right. I wait obediently.
Through the glass wall, eyes flicker my way with interest. The bakery box is drawing attention.
“Miss Monroe?” The man greets me. “I’m Brant. We spoke on the phone.” He looks at the box in my hands. “And what’s this?”
Might as well go with the truth. “It’s an apology cake.”
He raises a sharp eyebrow. “Well.” He looks me over. “You seem… sweet.” He lowers his voice. “Let me prepare you that Mr. Vance is not.”
“It’s okay. I totally get it, and I can handle him. I’ve met him before.”
What am I saying? I’m so nervous, I could pee. Right here. In the immaculate reception area of the gleaming subterranean financial offices of Vance Industries.
Brant seems surprised to hear that I’ve met his boss, and completely unconvinced that I can handle him, but leads me along the hall toward the single, imposing door at the far end nonetheless. This man walks fast. I hurry to keep up as he remarks on the nice day we’re having. Somehow he makes even that sound haughty.
I’m too nervous to make small talk.
The door at the end of the hall is black. It’s not encouraging.
Brant knocks crisply, then opens the door and leans in. “Mr. Vance, your eleven o’clock is here,” he announces, then steps aside and shoos me into the room.
The door shuts behind me with a heavy thud as Brant abandons me here, alone, with Mr. Black. I mean, Harlan Vance.
He’s sitting approximately a mile away from me across a cold expanse of gleaming polished concrete floor, behind a massive desk. His dark eyes meet mine like a switchblade opening, and my breath lodges in my throat like a wad of bubble gum.
“Good morning,” he says curtly.
It practically echoes in here.
If it’s such a good morning, why isn’t he smiling?
I swallow the gob of trepidation in my throat, thinking of Mom. “Good morning.”
I glance around with discomfort. This room is not bathed in daylight. The ceiling is a regular ceiling and there are no windows. There’s a small sitting area to the right of his desk with dark, stiff-looking furniture at sleek angles, that looks like no one’s ever used it. To the left, a wet bar is inset into the seamless dark cabinets that line the wall.
It’s compulsively neat and pretty much empty. No art on the walls. No plants.
There’s really nothing much to look at.
Just him.
I cross the empty expanse of the room toward his desk, my sneakers squeaking a little on the shiny floor. His gaze drops to the bakery box in my hands.
“Before you say anything,” I blurt, “please let me apologize. For last night. I work with cakes in the back room at a bakery most of the time, alone, so I’m rusty with front of house service. But,” I add hastily, realizing he could take that as yet another reason to fire me, “I’ve waitressed before. It was only my fifth shift at Velvet last night, though. I’ll get better.”
“Get much better,” he says grimly. “Fast.”
“For sure. I mean, I will.”
He leans back in his seat, regarding me in sharp silence. Probably wondering why I appear to be delivering him a cake no one ordered.
I’m starting to sweat in my chef jacket. Maybe Nicole was right about showing cleavage; if I’d done that, maybe I wouldn’t be overheating right now.
“Also…” I press on, determined to right my wrongs. “I shouldn’t have given you my real name. I thought you were just a regular patron, so I should’ve given you the fake name I’m supposed to use at Velvet. It’s Dominique.”
“And who decided that?” His voice is low and resentful. “My brother?”
“Um, I’m not sure. The name was just sort of handed to me along with my uniform.”
“It doesn’t suit you,” he informs me. And I swear I feel the touch of his gaze, his strong fingers sifting through my hair from across his desk.
Does he suddenly look thirsty, or is it just me?
I feel mildly panicked as heat starts to prickle between my thighs.
No. Damn it, no .
I am not crushing on my new boss.
I haven’t even broken up with Justin yet. Dating one boss at a time is more than enough.
“You know what… this is really heavy. Do you mind if I put it down?” I edge forward to rest the box on the edge of his desk.
“What is it?” He regards it as if it could very well be a bomb.
“Oh. It’s a cake. Here.” I peel open the box to show him the lovely pink-and-turquoise cake with the words I’m Sorry piped onto it in turquoise icing. It is, in a word, gorgeous, but at total odds with the vibe of his sleek, cold office; the room and its furnishings are minimalist and masculine, and this cake is everything but.
I really should’ve gone with a black one.
“I work in a bakery,” I repeat, feeling awkward.
Has anyone in history ever been less excited to see a cake?
Damn, it’s hot in here.
Why did I think I could sweeten his opinion of me? What did I expect him to do, thank me profusely for the flowery cake he didn’t ask for, and lavish me in promises of job security? Offer me a raise?
“Why don’t I put it in your fridge for you,” I suggest. I take the cake to his impeccably clean—actually, empty—little bar fridge, and set it carefully inside. “There. You can enjoy it whenever you like. It’ll keep for a few days.”
When I turn to face him again, his eyes are dragging over my white jacket.
Okay, wait.
That.
That thrill across my skin.
I’m not supposed to be feeling that . Not right now. Not here.
Not with him .
“The thing is…” I clear my throat. “I really like working at Velvet.” Okay, just a small lie. “I’d like to keep working there.” Truth. “I really need the job. And I’m afraid I made a bad impression.” More truth.
His eyes narrow as he takes that in.
He emits the empathy of a blade, the kind that resharpens itself every time you withdraw it from its case. I get the feeling that if he reached out to touch me, he’d slice right through me.
I don’t know why it turns me on.
“So you think I’m going to fire you. And that cake, it’s a bribe?”
“It’s an apology cake.” When he just stares at me, I add “It’s a thing.”
“And what am I supposed to do with an entire cake?”
My face must be as pink as the cake now. “You could share it with your family? Or your staff? Or… your… girlfriend?”
We stare at each other for an uncomfortably long stretch of time while I wait for him to say something, I try to think of something more to say, and his office phone starts ringing.
Without breaking eye contact, he picks up the receiver and sets it back down, hanging up on whoever was calling.
“You’re busy. I’ll go.” I turn to leave.
“We’re not finished here, Quinn,” he says in that low, sexy voice of his.
The heat that whooshes through my body like brush catching fire when he says my name is insane.
I take a breath and turn to face him again.
Right. He called me into his office.
Probably to fire me.
I kinda hoped we’d forgotten about that.
“Am I being fired?” I ask him . “I’m, um, just wondering if I should be contacting my lawyer.” I choke out that last bit on Dani’s advice. She was very up my butt about my legal rights this morning.
I don’t even know why I bother. I don’t have a lawyer, nor can I afford one.
I’m sure the Vance family’s legal team would make dog meat of any lawyer I could scrounge up anyway.
“No, you are not being fired,” he says. “Quite the opposite. You’re going to do a job for me.”