“Also cleaner.”
Nobody laughed loudly, but the tension shifted.
For the first time since entering the room, I stopped thinking about my skirt, my shoes, my bare face, or Veronica’s designer dress.
I thought about the work.
That was territory I understood.
The meeting began in earnest.
For the next twenty minutes, the discussion moved through shipping obligations, payment schedules, liability language, and termination rights.
Preston spoke little.
When he did, everyone listened.
But twice, he asked for my interpretation before giving his own.
The first time, I assumed it was generosity.
The second time, I understood it was deliberate.
He was not letting me hide.
More importantly, he was not letting anyone reduce me to the woman who carried his folders.
Veronica hated every second of it.
I could see it in the way she held her pen without writing anything.
In the tiny flare of her nostrils whenever one of the Benedettis addressed a question directly to me.
Eventually she interrupted.
“I’m sure Preston’s legal department can handle the finer points after the principals settle the business terms.”
The eldest Benedetti at the table looked at her.
“Is Miss Hayes not part of your contract team?”
Before I could answer, Veronica said, “She’s Preston’s assistant.”
The word assistant came out like an accusation.
Preston leaned back in his chair.
“She is my executive assistant.”
Veronica brightened as though he had supported her.
Then he added, “Which means she has access to more of my operations than most people in this building and has earned more of my trust than many people with larger titles.”
Her expression collapsed again.
I stared at him.
Trust.
That word hit harder than praise.
In Preston Marchetti’s world, trust was not casual.
Everyone knew that much.
The meeting continued, but Veronica became reckless.
She challenged a note I had placed beside a delivery provision.
When I explained it, she suggested I had misunderstood the legal team.
Preston slid his copy of the contract toward her.
“Read the note from legal.”
She looked down.
The language matched my summary almost exactly.
Silence.
“Anything else?” Preston asked.
“No.”
The humiliation she had tried to give me returned to her without me saying a word.
That should have satisfied me.
It didn’t.
Because I knew Veronica’s cruelty had found its target precisely because part of me had believed her.
I had spent six months loving Preston in the safest way possible: silently.
I never flirted.
Never engineered reasons to touch him.
Never let my gaze linger when he removed his suit jacket late at night and rolled his sleeves above his forearms.
I knew the rumors surrounding him.
I knew the kind of power attached to the Marchetti name.
I knew how absurd it would be for a woman still paying business-school debt to imagine herself beside a man whose private elevator opened directly into a forty-second-floor office.
So I buried it.
Work was manageable.
