Page 17 of His Good Girl

Ben looked at me, then at Callum, then back at me. “Tomorrow?”

“Problem?”

“I have never had a problem in my life,” Ben said. “Only opportunities to prevent other people from causing them.”

Callum’s eyes narrowed faintly in amusement. “Get her the onboarding packet, temporary credentials, and the correct HR forms. Have Marina set up a workstation near operations.”

“Near operations,” Ben repeated, tapping into his tablet. “Not near your office?”

“Benjamin.”

“I am clarifying for architecture.”

“Near operations,” Callum repeated.

Ben’s fingers moved. “Probationary?”

“Ninety days.”

“Reporting?”

“To you and Dana Keene.”

Ben looked up. “Oh. Dana bites.”

“Dana is efficient.”

“Dana once made a vice president apologize to a spreadsheet.”

“And did he deserve it?”

“Yes,” Ben admitted. “But still.”

Callum turned to me. “Dana heads operations. She’s excellent. She’ll be direct. She won’t be warm in the traditional mammalian sense, but fair.”

“Wonderful,” I said faintly.

Ben gave me another one of those almost-smiles. “You’ll enjoy her if you survive.”

“I keep hearing that word today.”

“Survival is underrated in corporate environments,” Ben replied.

Callum stood, and so did I, because my body seemed to have decided mirroring powerful men was now part of my employment strategy. He came around the desk again, and the movement sent a fresh pulse of nerves through me.

“I’m glad you came,” he said.

“Me too.”

“Be here tomorrow at nine. Not at 9:01 damp and sprinting through my lobby.”

“I was not sprinting.”

Ben made a noise.

I turned. “Wait. Was I sprinting?”

“You moved with the haunted urgency of a woman pursued by consequences,” he said, eloquent with his surreptitiously barbed observations.