Part of me is impressed that my grandparents’ small logistics company, the company I inherited from them after their recent deaths, attracted the attention of a hard hitter like Lombard. But what were they thinking, signing over so much equity to BLD, which now owns the controlling stake? Times must have been hard, even harder than they are currently under my leadership...
Ava tries hard but logistics isn’t her forte.
I stand taller. It doesn’t have to spin my wheels. I owe my grandparents everything.
I wander over to the windows, concealing my frustration with a serene smile. It’s pasted on my face as if I’m totally okay with flying solo at a glamorous party where I know no one and don’t belong. But needs must when it comes to safeguarding my business.
It’s all I have left.
Ignoring the lower Manhattan views of the Brooklyn Bridge lit up over the East River, I scour the forty-seventh-floor office once more. Familiar panic rushes through me like the fizz and pop of champagne bubbles. The same panic that keeps me up at night—I can’t let Pops and Nonna’s company fail.
I shake off the pessimism threatening to drag me under and eye the mezzanine level, which seems to be where all the top BLD executives are congregating. All I need is five minutes of Lombard’s time in which to convince him he wants to sell me back his shares. If only he were here...
After ten more fruitless minutes of cruising the entire room, I surrender to a final defeated sigh and drain the glass of champagne I’ve managed to make last over an hour. In the three months since Nonna died, when I discovered BLD’s investment in Hamilton’s from the lawyers, Lombard has evaded my attempts to secure an appointment. Trespassing his staff party was an audacious long shot I hoped might win me full ownership of Hamilton Logistics.
Not that you had anywhere else to be on a Friday evening...
Dejected, I leave the party and clip across the marble foyer towards the bank of elevators. What do I do now? I won’t just give up. My mission is deeply personal. Hamilton’s is my last tie to my family—my grandparents and, through them, my parents.
All four of them are now gone.
I was fourteen when my parents died and my grandparents took me in. Ever since, I’ve focused on helping out—working for them after school, interning as warehouse manager through college and eventually running their business after graduating, when Pops’s health took a downturn. Making Hamilton’s a success is what keeps me too busy to actually feel my life’s losses. Bone-deep exhaustion staves off any unhelpful comparisons: wondering what my life might’ve been like but for a drunk driver in a souped-up sports car losing control on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway one fateful night.
Failure drags at me until all I can think about is donning my snuggliest pyjamas and comfort eating my way through a huge bowl of pasta. I glance up at the digital reading for the elevator, craving my cluttered apartment—a Williamsburg brownstone in Brooklyn, filled with memories. I can’t bear to throw out any of my parents’ personal belongings—their books, their old vinyl collection and their favourite kitchen paraphernalia.
The electronic ping of the elevator’s arrival snaps me from ruminating how I’ve spent most of my adult life rudderless.
The brushed steel doors slide open and I step forward towards the car. I start, my eyes clashing with those of the only other occupant—the man himself, Sterling Lombard.
For a split second, I’m frozen with shock on the threshold, one stiletto-clad foot in and one out. The sparkle in his green-grey eyes makes me double-take. He’s way more attractive in person, taller than I imagined, his body lean and toned and his tailoring immaculate.
And he oozes power and success.
‘Going down?’ His deep voice somehow renders the innocent question sinful and seductive. He smiles and I’m jerked into action by the dazzling sight, the grooves in his cheeks and the sexy stubble on his strong jaw, the way he seems to fill the elevator with his commanding persona alone.
‘Yes, thank you.’ I step fully inside and clutch my purse tighter in an attempt to slow the gallop of my pulse. I can’t believe my luck. After an hour and a half of boredom at his party, my chance of a one-on-one with the boss has landed conveniently in my lap.
I stare straight ahead as the doors close, urgency gripping my throat like a vice. I have probably less than a minute to persuade him to hear me out. But I’ve got this. Work is pretty much all I do. I know all there is to know about Hamilton Logistics.
Say something. Now!
I turn and offer him a friendly smile. What is it about elevators and sharing an enclosed space with a total stranger that pushes us so far out of our comfort zone? In his case, it’s a good kind of discomfort, full of intrigue and possibility.
‘Leaving the party early?’ he says before I can engage my brain to speak.
I’m fascinated by his sexy, anglicised New York accent. I recall reading somewhere that he studied at university in London and spent years living there before returning to the States. I imagine his dirty talk, how that voice would sound strangled with desire...
What the hell? Focus.
‘Yes, I am leaving, although it’s a fabulous bash.’ I struggle to ignore his extreme masculinity and highly engaging charisma. I’ve seen him a hundred times in the business news, but in person he’s just so much more imposing, attractive and mesmerising. ‘Are you done too?’ I’m supposed to be propositioning, not seducing him. But there’s something about him that I wasn’t expecting.
He nods. His body fills his suit to perfection—wide shoulders, narrow hips and strong thighs. My eyes want to devour him. But that’s not why I’m here. I run through my opening spiel, trying to
