Chapter 64 – Pleasing the Boss

Eye on the prize, Hadrian.

I hired Brystin because she’s good for SNC, and I want to earn this job. I want to prove myself. I want the board to know I was the right choice. I want my father to be proud. That’s the goal. The fun with her was an added benefit, but now it’s taking too much of my attention. What I said to Hunter should be said to myself—this is done now.

This has to be done.

Brystin POV

“…Then when that dick kept refuting you with national policies, and how the president is trying to make these mandates, but you shut him down like a badass. ‘We’re specifically talking about local policies, Doug. This show is only about local policy. Please don’t bring up the national government again.’ I swear people cheered in the viewing room.” Shiloh finally takes a breath. “And we get to do this again tomorrow. This job is f**king A-mazing, B.”

She’s talked nonstop since we left the production floor, recapping every moment of the debut episode of Our Nation Now. She’s in fangirl mode, and I appreciate it more than she can know because I barely remember anything that happened. “Is that really what I said?”

“Damn straight you did! Like I said—total badass.”

The whole thing is a blur to me. I went on autopilot and let my instinct guide me. Adrenaline is still coursing through me, and my body is shaking and my mind is dazed as we follow the rest of the crew to Panache for the celebratory reception. The one conscious thought I have plays on a loop in my mind. I f**king just hosted my first national news show. I f**king did it.

Pinch me, because is this really my life?

I vaguely note the Closed for Private Event sign as we walk through the lobby of the restaurant, and then we’re rounding the corner to the main room, and applause erupts.

“Oh wow.” My throat feels tight. This is not how I imagined this would feel. It’s different…and better. Harder to process than I’d expected. Impossible to actually be in the moment because I’m too buzzed to absorb the emotions.

At my side, Shiloh sq***zes my hand then lets me go so Elvis and I can embrace.

“We did it, sweet girl.” He pulls back to k**s me on the l*ps, but it’s the kind of k**s I’d exchange with any producer. No passion or romance involved. Just excitement and celebration.

Nevertheless, another round of applause breaks out, like someone’s just announced the bride. I suppose that’s natural when the creative duo in the spotlight are also married, but it feels untrue when I’m scanning the room for the only person I want to see right now, and dying a little inside because he’s yet to appear.

And it’s not like I can go looking for him. I’m quickly inundated with congratulatory praise from people I know and even more people I don’t know. Important people. People whose names I need to remember. People who had a big part of making this happen. Axle Morgan, the head of programming. Scott Seymour, the head of public integrity. Adly Seymour, the head of HR. Then so many more Seymours with titles I can’t keep straight.

So many Seymours that aren’t Hadrian.

Almost an hour goes by before I first see him, but he’s across the room, deeply wr*pped up in a conversation with someone I don’t know, and the stream of people wanting to talk to me still hasn’t died down. I don’t see him again until Elvis’s assistant hushes the room to announce that the early viewing numbers surpassed what we’d expected, and then it’s like I have to go through all the rounds again so people can congratulate me for and comment on this specific achievement as well.

Two hours later, my heels are pinching, I haven’t managed to eat more than two bites, and Hadrian has yet to talk to me, though we’ve exchanged a couple of glances, always from across the room.

“He’s avoiding me,” I whisper to Shiloh when she comes to refresh my champagne. At a natural volume I refuse the refill. “I’ve barely eaten. I better not.”

“He’s not avoiding you. He’s busy doing his job like you’re busy doing your job.”

I glance toward Hadrian who is talking to Elvis now. Across the room, of course. The conversation appears involved, and as I’ve finally had a break from my own circus, I’m sure I could easily join them without Hadrian running away.

But I don’t want to see Hadrian with my husband. I want him to myself. I want him away from this room and this crowd, and I want things from him that I shouldn’t want.

It’s the most intense this longing for him has been. Maybe because I haven’t seen him for more than five minutes in the last two-plus weeks since he came to my house. I wanted to believe I hadn’t seen him because of the grueling media promotion schedule he had me on in preparation for tonight’s debut, but now that we’ve been in the same room for two hours, I know it’s not that. “He’s definitely avoiding me. I think he’s done.”

She raises one of her perfectly penciled thick brown eyebrows. “Every time I look his way, he’s staring at you. He is not done.”

But that’s just our chemistry. We have no control over that. I feel that same tug to look for him. It’s not even conscious, how my head turns in his direction. It’s an instinct.

The ability to act on that instinct, however, is in our control, and I know in my heart that he’s purposely staying away. And I know why, too. Because after the last time we were together—when I almost gave him everything, when he almost took it all—I don’t think it’s possible for us to not be different with each other.

We got too close, and he’s being the responsible adult about it.

Why don’t I have that same impulse?

“He’s done.” I’m sure of it, and my throat tightens again, like it did when we first walked into the reception, but this time the threatening tears are not happy.

“Don’t do that.” Shiloh reaches for a passing tray, grabbing a napkin, which she dabs under my eyes. “Waterproof mascara only goes so far.”

I shrug, afraid speaking might bring on a flood.

She purses those enviably plump l*ps. “Then don’t let him be done.” Like it’s that easy, and to be fair, it probably is easy for her, no-nonsense rebel that she is.

I wonder what it would be like to be her as I watch Hadrian wr*p up with Elvis. Believing I deserved what I wanted. Having the courage to unabashedly pursue my dreams.

Then I remember that my national news show just debuted because I went after it like I was Amari. I do have the courage. It’s been proven, and so when I see Hadrian sl*p into a private dining room in a section of the restaurant we aren’t using, I hand Shiloh my empty champagne glass and follow after.

It’s not a direct path. I’m stopped no less than three times, but I’ve lost my patience, and instead of nodding and smiling, I excuse myself from each encounter. At the dining room, I cast a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is paying attention, then push through the double doors, quickly shutting them behind me.

It’s dark, but light sl*ps in around the curtains on the glass doors behind me and reflects in the mirror on the other side of the room. It’s enough for me to be able to make out Hadrian’s figure, a few yards in front of me, just standing there.

He’s so committed to not talking to me that he’s hiding in a dark room by himself. I’d laugh if it didn’t hurt. I almost turn around and leave, but force myself to confront him, if it can be called a confrontation when I can barely make out his face. “You’re avoiding me.”

---