Pity none of the important ones checked out. Faithful, nope. Committed, nope. In love, nope. This last one goes both ways, to be fair. Was I really ready to marry a guy only because he met my stereotype of a “good” catch? To be stark honest, I was. Not once I questioned my love for him, because he was too perfect, too sensibly right for me to debate loving him. Oh, no… I was turning into my mother without realizing it.

I wince.

“Everything all right?” Richard asks.

I try to compose my features. “Yeah.”

He keeps the door open for me and shows me inside the office.

Once we’re both seated on opposite sides of his desk, he asks, “So, what do you think?”

I try to come up with a diplomatic answer. “I shuffled through your newsfeed yesterday. You have some cool pieces and a fresh perspective.”

Richard leans back in his chair. “You have any questions?”

I brace myself. Before any shop talk, I need to clear the air and make sure he’s going to take me seriously. “Actually, I think we should address a personal issue first.”

He seems surprised, but waits patiently for me to elaborate.

“I wanted to apologize for what happened at your house yesterday and for the night before… it wasn’t… I wasn’t…”

Richard’s lips twitch, but he keeps a straight face as he says, “Like it never happened. You had a rough day, and I shouldn’t have called for an interview at ten in the evening. From now on, we can have a one-hundred percent professional relationship.”

The speech is meant to be reassuring, but the girl within me—the one crushing on him—can’t help being disappointed. Anyway, he’s right. If I come to work here, I can’t have a thing with the boss. Also, for the first time, I spot a hardness behind Richard’s gaze I hadn’t noticed before. A coldness that says, I’m not into any other kind of relationship.

“Good.” I nod. “Now down to business, can you share your advertising and traffic data?”

“No. Unless you work here, those are confidential. But I can tell you traffic had a year-over-year growth of two hundred percent and advertising went up by one-hundred and fifty percent.”

“Okay.” Those numbers aren’t too bad. “What would my editorial budget be?”

“Ah.” Richard rolls his sleeves up, a habit, it seems, and rests his elbows on the desk. For a moment I’m distracted by prime forearms display. I never thought it was possible to have a thing for forearms, but Richard’s are proving me wrong. I miss the first part of his speech. “…it’s basically on a contribution base.”

Those last two words are enough to leave me horror-stricken and to force my eyes away from Richard’s arms. “Come again?”

Richard takes a deep breath; we both know this is a hard sell. “In a nutshell, each editor’s budget depends on how much advertising he or she can bring in.”

I swallow. “Mhm, but since I’m starting a brand new section, you must have something set aside for me to build on.”