Page 8 of Tempted By the Safety
I don’t answer that, because I am not telling him he’s dead on, word for word, off a deck Amanda made me sit through four times before I signed off on it.
The reception desk sits in the middle of the floor, glass and steel, two women behind it who both look up when we step off the elevator. Georgia’s the one who smiles first, professionalexcept for the half-second where her eyes drop to Milo and stay there a beat too long. Kirsten’s more discreet about it, but she’s cataloging him too.
“Morning, Mr. Rhodes,” Georgia says, then, “And who’s this?”
“My PA,” I say. “This is Milo.”
Milo gives them the full-wattage version of his smile, the one I’ve clocked by now as his default setting, no extra charge. “Milo Shaw. I’m the new best thing that’s happened to his schedule.”
Georgia laughs, and Kirsten’s mouth twitches at the corner like she’s deciding whether to allow it.
Milo’s phone goes off in his back pocket before either of them can say more, and he checks the screen, his mouth thinning, and holds up a finger. “Sorry, one sec, gotta take this,” he says, walking off toward the window with the phone at his ear, voice dropping low the second he’s out of easy earshot.
I watch him go a beat longer than I should.
“Okay,” Georgia says once he’s out of range. “Where did you find him?”
“Long story.”
“Is that code for you’re not telling me?” She leans in. “At least tell me if he’s single.”
I open my mouth, because the honest answer is I have no idea, I’ve known him about a day, but Kirsten cuts in before I can say anything.
“He’s not going to be interested in you like that,” she tells Georgia, like she’s saving her the trouble.
“You don’t know that. You can’t tell that from looking at somebody.”
“It’s not the looks. It’s the way he—”
Kirsten stops, because Milo’s already turning back toward us, phone tucked away.
“That was fast,” I say to him, mostly to cut the silence Kirsten just left hanging.
“Fastest hands in the East,” Milo says, and gives the desk a little wave goodbye. “Where to, boss?”
“This way,” I say, and don’t look back, though I know the women are still watching us go.
The office space past reception is open-plan, exposed brick on one wall, glass-walled conference rooms lining the other side. Milo’s got my calendar pulled up on his phone, thumb scrolling, brow furrowed at the screen.
“Okay, so it says nine-fifteen, Sustenance,” he reads, then looks up at the row of glass doors, each one labeled in the same clean sans-serif. “Which one’s Sustenance?”
“Third door.”
“Why would you name a room Sustenance?” He’s already moving toward the second door, hand halfway to the handle. “Why not just call it Conference Room Three like a normal company? This one says Performance, that one over there says Energy, and none of them tell you anything.”
“Third door,” I say again, and he course-corrects, muttering something about how a number would kill nobody, and I don’t tell him I fought this exact fight in the branding meeting and lost.
I reach past him to open the third door, and he steps through ahead of me. Andy, my business partner, is there, sleeves rolled, laptop open, the brand consultant beside him, and our financeguy on a video call from Chicago, up on the screen at the head of the table.
“There he is,” Andy says, not looking up from his laptop. “Thought Amanda finally buried you somewhere.”
“Traffic,” I say, and take my seat, and Milo drops into the chair just off my shoulder, phone face-down on the table in front of him.
Thankfully, the meeting starts on time. Packaging schedules, a co-packer complaint about the protein powder clumping in humidity, numbers on a slide Andy’s narrating with more energy than the topic deserves. I’m three minutes into a discussion about shelf-stable formulations when Milo’s phone buzzes against the table, but he ignores it.
Four minutes later, it goes again.
He ignores that one too. But the third time it buzzes, right as the brand consultant is walking us through a chart, his hand twitches toward the phone before he stops himself and pulls it back into his lap.
