I turned to Rocco and flashed him my best attempt at a smile as I very quickly tried to roll with the bomb Gail had just dropped on me.
“I’ll be happy to fill you in on whatever you need to know.” I glanced over at my boss, who was starting to look a little pale.
He dipped his head, with that smirk that I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to kiss or bite off his face. Either way, teeth would be involved.
“Excellent.”
I managed to produce a nod and some upward movement of my lips.
“Sure,” I choked out as he beamed at me.
The programs, the funding, and my job now depended on me not fucking this up. On me not making a fool of myself with this man, whose mere presence made me act like a full-on wreck.
Forget before, this was perfectly terrible.
Chapter Two
Rocco
Julia Ortiz was throwing me off my game. Just my luck to finally take a project out of the Tristate area and I land in a place that was literally crawling with New Yorkers.
One of them in particular was bringing me to distraction a lot more than was advisable. Julia was a Queens girl through and through—and a diversion I could not afford. Her flawless skin was like a beacon every time I saw her around the office. It was like the woman walked around with the access code to all of my fucking buttons. My plans to be the hard-ass on this job had been utterly blown out of the water once I learned I’d be working with her.
It wasn’t like she’d given me any reason to think I had a shot with her. Julia knew I was the enemy and she treated me as such. The look on her face when her boss told her she’d have to show me her programs was acidic enough to melt the paint off the conference room wall. She’d twisted her mouth to the side and narrowed those gorgeous brown eyes, looking just a little bit murderous. I couldn’t blame her either. I was here to disrupt her life and possibly shut down her job and the entire fucking foundation.
It was what I’d been sent here to do.
Sure, we could pretend I was “assessing,” but the truth was that even though technically we’d been hired by all three Sturm siblings, Duke Sturm and the board brought in Davidson and Partners for one reason: to get this company ready to go public.
My promotion and more depended on making sure it happened. No matter what Julia Ortiz’s luscious ass and full mouth did to me, there was too much riding on this for me to fuck it up. There was just too much depending on this for the firm and for me to let my head get turned by a woman who looked like she could barely stand the sight of me. The only sensible thing to do was to focus on my work and keep my thoughts as far away from Julia’s curves as possible.
I looked at my monitor and saw there were two new emails. One was from Julia, probably to arrange times for me to go see the programs. Instead of opening it like I was dying to, I ignored it. Nothing good could come of giving in to my urges when it came to this woman. Instead I clicked on the email from Tariq Ozuna, one of my team members, who was usually distracting in ways that wouldn’t get me fired. It was a forwarded evite and the subject line was “Gotham Exiles Club.” It looked like it was for some kind of happy hour.
The title of the meetup was a little extra, but I could use a drink and some time with people who took the edge off the homesickness I’d been feeling since I’d been in Dallas. Before I got a chance to look at the link to the event, I heard the staccato of killer heels coming down the hallway to my office, and prepared for the incoming barrage of “y’alls” and “sweethearts” headed my way.
“Oh, Muffy, he’s still here.”
As soon as I heard the Southern drawl of two of my new bosses, I turned my chair around to face them. Mitzy and Muffy, two-thirds of the Sturm empire.
“Ladies, how can I help you?” I stood up to greet them as they made their way into my office. I didn’t have to fake