I got caught up in competing. I got caught up in the work. More than that, I got caught up in all the things that I perceived weren't working. I didn't look at the bigger picture of you and me. I saw how strong you were, how formidable, but it never frightened or intimidated me. It woke me up to my own potential. It excited every fiber of my being to be near you, and to see that same response excited in you.
I wish I had communicated that better before it was gone.
And here we are now, communicating, and I still can't express what I feel when we are together…and what I feel for you. You are everything I never expected to find. And suddenly this work, and this city that I love, seem somehow less without your perspective. Your dynamism.
Your passion.
If you receive this e-mail, it will be in the aftermath of a long war with myself. I'm afraid that I've said too much.
But I'm more afraid of not saying enough.
Yours,
Poppy
Chapter Thirteen
Poppy
Three days. All communication between them had ceased for three days after her last e-mail, and the silence was deafening. What was William thinking? What was she thinking? Why had she even sent him that last message…?
…and what did William's early morning invitation to meet with him today really mean?
Poppy's head spun with questions she fought to order as she stepped out of the car. Three days. Was it possible that Jameson Ad Agency had added on additional floors in that time? She didn't remember the building being this intimidating. True, even on a sunny New York City day it looked like a front for the operations of some hyper-efficient supervillain.
…all right, so that wasn't entirely true. Poppy had liked to think so back before she came to know the Jameson family, but she couldn't look at it—any of it—the same way now. The building looked taller than she remembered, but she remembered it fondly. Stepping into its halls had once been as exhilarating as stepping out of her own reality and into another. She had felt the pulse of industry there; the thriving business culture; the race to be the first and best, and it had been an exhilarating feeling.
It had been a short-lived feeling.
She passed through the doors and walked directly to the elevators. She was headed for the top floor. William had asked for a meeting. Poppy had no idea what he wanted to discuss, but her only consolation was that calling a meeting was so William. It wasn't that there was any particular relief to be found in his predictability, but…it was a side of him she loved. Desperately. His love of business, and his forthrightness in requesting something he wanted—these were all traits that she admired the hell out o
f, and found herself missing already after the three-day silence. She punched the button for the top floor, and the doors closed over her.
"Go right in, Miss Hanniford." William's secretary barely glanced up from her computer screen when Poppy entered. It was only a little past six AM, and the poor woman looked as if the coffee mug steaming beside her had been brewed pitch black and flavored with Wishful Thinking.
"Thank you." Poppy pulled William's office door open and walked in.
He was sitting behind his desk. Poppy hadn't really expected to find him anywhere else. Her heart trembled at the sight of him, but all thoughts of being intimidated fled from her in that moment; she couldn't get over how goddamn good he looked, and how much she had missed seeing him in the flesh. His messages were as professional and as poised as he was, but they were no substitute for the man himself. William glanced up when she entered. His dark eyes held her, and she wasn't close enough to see the blue in them.
She walked forward.
"You're early," he said.
"So was your e-mail," she pointed out. "Four-thirty AM? I thought you were in another time zone at first."
"I couldn't sleep last night." If that was the case, then William certainly didn't wear his fatigue like most mortals. His dark hair held the usual effortless coif, and the perfect angularity of his jaw was as distinguished as always by his careful stubble. He motioned, unnecessarily, for her to sit down. Poppy sat in the visitor's chair and crossed her legs neatly. She hated having the massive desk divide them more than she expected.
Because how else had she imagined this meeting taking place?
"Do you need coffee?" she asked. She wanted to invite him out…across the street…anywhere but here where he had to inhabit the role of CEO so fully. But she lost her nerve. She jerked her head back the way she came and offered a little half-smile. "I think your secretary brewed every bean in the building."
William's mouth flexed. It was almost a smile of agreement. Almost. "I won't deny how tempting that sounds. But I'll wait. I've worked out a presentation I'd like to give you, and I'd like to give it now, before we get into why I called you here."
Poppy's heart sank as he rose. "That e-mail I sent…" she began. "I know I owe you more…so much more than…"
"You don't owe me anything." William flipped the light off and switched on the projector. "You don't even owe me an audience. You can walk out at any moment, Miss Hanniford. But I hope that you don't." William clicked over to the title slide.
Poppy Hanniford: A Presentation, the first slide read.