An Innocent Obsession

“Yes,” I breathe. “That was the first time I saw him. In the Sunday gossip section.”

“Your father had only dropped you off the week before, so you must have been…”

“Fourteen. I was fourteen.” My hands are still trembling as I apply a coat of balm to my lips and press them together. “It’s been five years, Karen. I should have put the infatuation behind me by now, but I can’t. I…think it’s even getting stronger.”

Karen gives me an assessing look. “Maybe you should leave the files to someone else?”

I should. I have no idea how I’ll react when the object of my obsession is mere feet away. Will I faint? Will I break into a giggling fit out of sheer nerves?

Worse, what if Clarke Carroway—the man who rules the fantasy world in my head—looks straight through me? I’m not sure my heart could withstand it.

Still, if I pass up this chance to be near him, I could regret it forever.

I reach over and pat Karen’s hand. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” I push back my chair and stand, scrutinizing my reflection in the mirror. Normally, I would be wearing baggy clothes and my waist-length blonde hair would be tucked up beneath a hat. When I arrived on the orphanage doorstep, Karen took one look at me and declared I wouldn’t be safe on the streets alone and proceeded to help me hide my appearance. I’m not sure what she found so dangerous about how I look, but I trust my friend.

Today, however, I’m not hiding.

“Thank you, Karen,” I say softly, turning and pulling the older woman a fierce hug. “For finding me this dress and doing my hair. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

Karen pats me on the back. “I just hope I don’t regret it.”

Half an hour later, I’m even more grateful for Karen’s presence in my life. On my subway ride to Carroway-Silver, several men attempt to speak to me. They give my body lecherous looks and don’t even attempt to hide it. Even the grandfatherly security guard in the Carroway-Silver lobby licks his lips and grunts as I flash my badge and pass through the metal detector, when normally he would have given me a friendly smile. By the time I get to the files room, my heart is rapping against my rib cage and I’m wishing I’d stuck with the baggy clothes. But I don’t have time to dwell, because before I know it, it’s time to bring the files to Clarke’s office.

“Oh my God,” I manage, fanning my face and picking up the stack, holding it tight to my chest. He’s going to be right in front of me. Right there. “It’s really happening.”

Clarke

I press a thumb to the center of my forehead, attempting to lessen the pounding. How long is the conference call going to continue? Speaking to our product distributors or my research team is what I enjoy, but this? I’m not sure why the board of Carroway-Silver decided I required a publicist, but the woman doesn’t seem to understand I hate cameras. Her sole mission seems to be getting me in front of them as often as possible.

“Ms. Sterns, I have another call. Please email my assistant and I’ll discuss the interviews with her, but I can’t promise I’ll agree to any of them.”

“Oh, but Mr. Carroway! You’re simply amazing on camera.”

“It’s true,” chirps the second woman on the line, whose only function appears to be agreeing with the first woman. “She’s so right.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and pray for patience. When did my career become less about the technology and more about social media clicks? Progress is what I’m passionate about. Cultivating a better future through the use of clean energy.

My gaze ticks over to the picture on my desk. I’m a decade younger, standing in front of a hill covered in wind turbines. The man standing beside me in the shot, my late business partner, is shaking my hand, his expression brimming with optimism. He’s also a decade younger in the photo, but he would only live another three years. If Gary Sterling could see me now, stuck behind a desk, getting pitched on an Entertainment Tonight piece, he would never stop laughing. Can’t say I would blame him.

“If talking interviews aren’t your thing, Forbes has been begging me to run a feature. It would only require a quick photo session. Maybe, I don’t know, some of you in the gym pumping iron or hitting a speed bag—”

“Oooh,” chimes the other one. “I love that!”

“Or more serious shots of you could work? Checking operations in the field…”

The idea of being in the field makes me sit up straighter.

“If we sent you to Egypt for the shoot, you might even get hot enough to take off your shirt. Who says sustainable energy can’t be sexy?”