Four hundred people stopped talking when I walked into that ballroom. Not the way it happens for him. Someone guessed my weight into a microphone and the room laughed.
Then a man I had never been introduced to raised his hand and said: five million dollars.
He doesn't know we've met. Four years ago I ran into the wrong locker room, and he came out of the shower, and he kissed me, and he asked my name — and I ran before I could give it to him. So he bid five million dollars on a date with a stranger, and the stranger is me, and he has no idea.
I didn't get the date. They stepped on my trouser leg until it tore open. They poured champagne over my head. I walked out of that hotel and out of the country and nobody saw me for four years.
I came back in a suit that was made for my body instead of bought for a rumour. Same face. Same size. Not one of them recognized me — because not one of them ever actually looked.
Now there's a lanyard around my neck that says INTERN, and a name on it that is only barely a lie, and I sit two desks down from the man who bought me. My father wants to merge with his company. I'm here to find out if it's worth it.
I am not here to fall for him.
He kissed me by the copier three weeks ago.
He's known exactly who I am since.
