Anyone But Nick (Anyone But... #3) - Penelope Bloom Page 0,20

looked down with a sad little smile.

“Is that what this job is for you?” I asked.

“No. Maybe part of it, I guess. But it’s important to me. Ever since high school, people figured I’d go on to do something important. My parents always joked about how I was going to be a doctor or a CEO. It was like a foregone conclusion. But all that matters to them is the title. That’s their expectation. For me, I want more than that. I want to get the job they thought I’d get, but then I want to crush it. It’s not just getting there. It’s getting there and then doing it well.” She looked down again and licked her lips. “And I’m oversharing,” she said quietly.

“No,” I said. “It’s okay.” I sounded calm, but my thoughts were racing through everything she’d just said. A slowly forming realization was settling around me like a cloud of icy air. Miranda’s dream was in my hands. If I gave her the opportunity to earn the job I’d be leaving behind when I went back to Sion, she could have everything she ever wanted. If anyone so much as suspected we were romantically involved, on the other hand, I’d be destroying that same dream. It’d look like she got the job because of favoritism, and then everything she’d already accomplished would be called into question too.

If I cared about her, I had to make her think I didn’t. I had to strictly be her boss.

I’d thought the Mount Everest challenge was winning Miranda over, but now I saw that it was going to be holding my real feelings in check. I wanted her to have her victory, and I wanted to give her the chance to earn it, because I knew that was the only way it would matter for her.

“Well,” I said, letting out a big breath. I tried to inject some cheeriness into my voice. “I guess this is really the first day for both of us.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Sort of.”

“I asked you to meet me this morning because I’m putting on a bit of a party tonight, and I’ll need you to be there.” As much as I tried, I couldn’t stop my eyes from wandering across her smooth, tanned skin and trailing down her neck to the hint of cleavage her blouse showed. I gripped the armrest of my chair tighter and willed myself to focus.

Her eyebrows twitched up. “A party?”

“It’s a professional event, and several key investors will be there. I’ve also invited all of the Bark Bites management because—”

Miranda leaned forward with slightly narrowed eyes. “You’re looking for problems, aren’t you?”

I laughed softly in surprise. I’d gone through this routine with dozens of companies, and nobody had ever seen through to my intentions so quickly, if at all. They’d always thought I just wanted to make a nice gesture and get familiar with the staff. I was instantly reminded of why I’d been so interested in Miranda all those years ago. I’d always felt like I moved through life on a different frequency than everyone else. It made it nearly impossible to connect with anyone, but Miranda was different.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding her confirmation after something she must’ve seen in my face. “I was trying to puzzle out how you must do what you do. I bet you start with the most likely problems and work your way down to the least likely. So people problems are the most common causes of a failing business, huh? Or maybe they are just the easiest ones to rule out first.”

I had to make an effort not to smile like a teacher who had just witnessed their student pass a test with flying colors. Miranda wasn’t my student, but I felt alive just talking to somebody who thought about these things the way I did. Again. I remembered bitterly that it had always been like this between us. Only now I had seven years of experience to show me that I couldn’t find that kind of connection with anyone else, no matter how hard I might try.

I made sure my voice didn’t betray any of what was going on in my head when I finally spoke. I needed to draw a line in the sand now, before it got too tempting to let things between us develop. “Interesting theory, but maybe you should leave the planning to me. Your role as my VP is to execute my orders, not to analyze or