I nearly broke out in a sweat as I quickly looked away from him. I had to stop thinking about him like this. It wasn’t appropriate, and it wasn’t like we would ever get together anyway. He was a billionaire bachelor. He probably dated models and rich influencers. A broke college intern was no match for them.
“So, tell me about your business idea. On the spot. In your own words,” Tyler suddenly said as he looked up from my rough draft.
I threaded my fingers together in my lap, feeling my palms grow damp. I wanted to explain the idea that my friends and I came up with correctly. It was a great idea, but it was a little complex.
“So, we basically want to connect college students and recent graduates to helpful resources like mental help services, career assistance, and housing resources. There are so many opportunities and resources out there, but hardly anyone knows about them. We want to be that connecting middleman for them,” I explained to him.
Tyler nodded as he listened to me. He looked down at my rough draft again, taking a minute to read through it some more. The silence was killing me. Finally, he flipped back to the first page and looked up at me.
“It’s a good start. I can see where he wants it to be reworked, but I don’t think a 75 was accurate,” Tyler told me.
I looked at him in surprise at first. I couldn’t believe that I actually heard praise come from his mouth, and it was directed toward me. Honestly, his opinion meant more to me than my professor’s. My professor was knowledgeable, but he didn’t run a billion-dollar business. Tyler had more practical experience.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. I didn’t want to show it too much, but his words meant a lot to me. I didn’t feel like a complete failure. If it was a good start, then my friends and I did something right. We just had to build on it. “It was our first shot, so I figured we had some work left to do.”
Tyler grabbed a pen and placed the rough draft in the middle of the desk. He leaned over the desk slightly, pointing at the financial projection section of my business plan.
“This definitely needs some work. You have to dig deep and figure out how you’re going to make a profit from this idea. It’s a great idea. You’re helping people who need guidance, but you have to keep yourself afloat with income,” he pointed out.
I leaned forward slightly to see where he was pointing to with his pen. My body tensed up slightly when I realized how close we were to each other. Our shoulders nearly brushed as we leaned over the desk together. I could smell the bold scent of his cologne, and it nearly dizzied me.
“Okay. I’ll develop that more,” I said. It was actually a good point. We focused too much on what we were providing and not enough on what we could get out of it financially. Businesses needed revenue.
Tyler went over a few more points with me, highlighting some areas that I needed to improve. As expected, he gave me more helpful advice than my professor did. He jotted down some notes and questions that I could look back on if I got stuck drafting up new responses to the sections. I wasn’t completely lost any longer, and it was all thanks to Tyler out of all people.
I almost wanted to ask him what was wrong since he was acting so nice, but I held my tongue and decided to embrace his sudden kindness instead. There was no telling when he would go back to his usual snappy self, and he wasn’t as helpful when he acted like that. I didn’t want to miss this chance to get advice from someone at his level of success.
“That should do it. Let me know if you have any questions or get stuck,” Tyler told me as his eyes shifted to mine.
I dared to look at him back, swallowing hard as the few inches of space between our faces seemed even smaller. If I focused really hard, I could feel the slightest flutter from his breath against my cheek. It would be so easy to lean forward and bridge the gap, to see if his mouth was good for something besides uttering rude remarks.
I couldn’t do it, though. Too many consequences followed that action, and I didn’t have enough reason to do something so insane as kiss my boss besides pure desire. I had to have a better reason than that because I would risk everything.
“Thank you. I really appreciate your help,” I told him sincerely. He didn’t have to go out of his way to do all of this. I knew that he was a busy man. I supposed it was out of the goodness of his heart, or maybe he felt bad for how things had been between us since my first day.