Anything You Say: An Enemies to Lovers Standalone Romance Read online

  Chloe Finch

  Anything You Say

  Copyright © 2020 by Chloe Finch

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  First edition

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  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Grace

  By the time Grace reached the office, she was soaking wet. As she crossed the lobby, high heels slipping on the slick marble floor, she cursed New York and its inability to handle a little rain. For a city that prided itself on grit and relentless energy, it certainly ground to a halt the moment the weather turned.

  She flashed her ID badge to the security guard and hustled toward the elevator bank. At the end of the row a door was closing and she called out to hold it. In the first stroke of luck that morning, a hand reached out to stop it.

  There was one other person in the elevator, a portly bald man with a beard. He was wearing a suit with a raincoat and was holding a huge golf umbrella like a cane. He was perfectly dry.

  “Did your train get canceled too?” He asked companionably. He was a senior salesperson at her company, but she didn’t know his name.

  She nodded, catching her breath. “With no notice, of course.”

  The commute from Westchester County, the ritzy suburb where she lived with her parents—long story—took an hour and a half on a good day. And rain was always a surefire sign it would be a bad day. She should have planned ahead.

  “The mayor’s got to do something about the MTA,” the salesman said.

  She made a noncommittal noise, preoccupied and not wanting to get into a political discussion. She checked her watch. She was four minutes late already. Shit.

  He must have noticed her anxiety at the time. “You’re in the sales fellowship, right? Don’t worry too much about being late. They talk a big game, but all they really care about are your numbers. If they’re good, no way in hell will you get in serious trouble. And if they’re bad, well, getting here on time won’t save you.”

  “Thanks,” Grace mumbled. She had no idea what her numbers were. The complicated statistics kept on the fellows were guarded like a state secret. And moreover, as a matter of principle, she was never late.

  “You look like you need a glass of wine,” he said. It was hard to say if he was hitting on her or just making conversation. There was a silver wedding band on his left hand, but she had quickly learned that didn’t necessarily mean anything with some of the creeps on the sales team.

  “I’m just a little stressed is all.” She ran her hand through her wet hair and it got caught in the tangles.

  The elevator dinged for the forty-fifth floor. Sterling Group International. The doors opened and Grace bolted toward the training room.

  “Good luck,” the salesman called behind her.

  The cutthroat sales fellowship at Sterling was led by mentors who had previously gone through the program themselves. Her class had three: June, Brad and Zach. All of them were young, hot and ruthlessly ambitious. It was unclear if this was a coincidence or not. June and Brad were fine enough, not particularly nice but fair and quick to laugh. But Zach was an entirely different story. Like a high-proof version of the other two, he was the hottest, most successful and meanest of them. And unfortunately for Grace, he hated her.

  She paused for a split second outside the training room to run a hand down the front of her sheath dress and adjust her blazer. With any luck at all, Brad or June would be leading the session. If it was Zach, she might as well go home and start brushing up her resume now. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Up front, they were just getting started. A tall, handsome guy in an impeccably tailored navy suit was introducing the speaker, leaning casually against the podium like he was in his living room.

  Her heart sank. It was the icing on her shit cake of a morning. Zach.

  When she wasn’t at work, it was easy to ignore how hot he was. The memory of his good looks faded, overpowered by the sharp bite of all the awful things he said. But every morning, without fail, her breath caught when she saw him, shocked all over again that anyone in real life was that attractive.

  “Pay attention to MaryBeth’s presentation,” he was saying. “We don’t have a lot of nonprofits in our book of business, so there’s a lot of opportunity there.” There was the faintest note of sarcasm in his voice. He flashed a dazzling smile at MaryBeth, who nodded appreciatively. If she noticed the sarcasm, she didn’t say anything.

  Grace attempted to cross the room inconspicuously to her usual spot, but with everyone already sitting, it was nearly impossible to shimmy through the aisle unnoticed.

  “Gracie.”

  She cringed at the sound of his voice. She hated being called Gracie, and Zach made a point of ignoring her corrections. “We were just doing introductions for our guest speaker. You’re up.” He was going to make her go first when she hadn’t even sat down. Typical. At least he wasn’t firing her. Yet.

  The introduction prompts were projected on the screen: name, sales background, current project. She addressed MaryBeth. “I’m Grace Lockwood. My background is in software development and sales. Prior to the fellowship I was the founder and CEO of GiveAnalytics, a software platform for charities, and raised four million dollars in funding when I was nineteen. Right now, I’m shadowing the analytics team.”

  “Thank you,” said MaryBeth serenely. She was wearing a purple turtleneck with a big flower brooch and looked more like a school librarian than a salesperson.

  Grace continued toward her seat, relieved to have the spotlight off her, when she heard Zach’s voice again. “Sorry, Gracie? Did you finish the part about your background? Or maybe I missed it. Can you explain to MaryBeth why you left your four-million-dollar company?”

  Grace wasn’t normally a violent person, but she was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to punch him in the face. Everyone here knew exactly what happened to her company. If you read the Wall Street Journal, you knew what happened to her company. He was making her say it again just to humiliate her.

  She plastered on a fake smile before answering. “It folded. Last year.”

  MaryBeth nodded again in acknowledgement.

  “Thanks, Gracie,” Zach said. His shit-eating grin gave her middle school flashbacks. Still, it was hard to ignore the dimples on his left cheek that gave him a sexy, lopsided smile. “And one more thing. Next time make sure you’re here on time. It’s disrespectful to MaryBeth.”

  She nodded with her jaw clenched so tight it might crack a tooth. She was likely the only person here who was actually excited for the presentation.

  Some of the other fellows snickered at the comment. Most of the them idolized Zach and looked for any opportunity to kiss his ass. Sh
e called them the bros because they all looked like clones who pledged frats and played lacrosse and she couldn’t be bothered to tell them apart.

  A few rows ahead of her, Jessica, the only other woman in the program, turned around and shot Grace a concerned look. Grace rolled her eyes in response, as if to say it’s nothing.

  What none of them understood was that she’d already been through worse than anything these trust fund kids could imagine. She was tougher than every single one of them, and there was no way in hell she was letting a jackass on a power trip slow her down.

  * * *

  Zach

  Zach finished the introductions and reclined in a chair at the mentor table. He was seething. The wunderkind college dropout was late and he was under strict orders not to fire her. What was the point of even having mentors if they weren’t allowed to fire people?

  She thought she could just stroll in here late, looking like a drowned rat, just because everyone knew her name. Everyone was always fawning all over her, asking her embarrassing questions like what it was like to be on the cover of Forbes. They treated her like Mark Zuckerberg junior when she couldn’t even run her own company.

  Unlike some people, Zach earned the respect he had now. And he sure as hell wasn’t coasting off name recognition.

  Grace was taking notes and watching with rapt attention like a good little student as MaryBeth went through her presentation about, of all things, selling to nonprofits. A ridiculous topic if there ever was one. There was no point in selling to nonprofits, they didn’t pay shit. And yet the goody-goody was acting all interested. Her damp dress was sticking to her back and the delicate ridge of her spine was just barely visible. He was suddenly overcome with the desire to rip the dress off and run his tongue down it.

  Brad leaned over. He was one of those guys you could tell went to Harvard from a mile away, with his loafers and talk of “the Cape” and assumption that everyone read The New Yorker. A rich asshole. The type of guy Zach used to pick fights with at bars, before he became a rich asshole himself. Brad was actually one of his closest friends.

  “I thought you were going to blow a gasket up there when Grace walked in,” Brad said.

  “You have no idea, man. She looks like she just got out of the shower. Completely disrespectful.”

  “It’s kind of hot though, right?” Brad said, eyebrows raised.

  “That is so not the point.” Grace did look hot as hell, totally drenched with that dress clinging to her banging little body in all the right places. But that didn’t change the fact that she was annoying as shit.

  June hissed, “Would you two shut the fuck up?” When she leaned forward, her cleavage was on full display, her shirt unbuttoned one too many buttons to be totally office appropriate. Zach admired the view, even if it was off limits.

  “Why, are you dying to learn about nonprofits?” He said.

  Brad snorted, and clamped a hand over his mouth to cover the ensuing laughter. Zach grinned. There was a reason he loved Brad, and it was because Brad admired him so much he practically took notes on their conversations.

  “No, because some of us have real work to get done.” She flipped a piece of sun-kissed-blonde hair over her shoulder.

  “What, emailing guys from Tinder?” Brad said.

  Zach cringed at the comment, but didn’t say anything. June could take care of herself.

  She flipped Brad off.

  The door to the training room opened and Joe, the head of sales, leaned in. He pointed at Zach and motioned for him to come into the hall.

  Joe was the kind of guy you wanted to like you. Tall, funny and overflowing with confidence, he could sell water to a drowning man. He had salt and pepper hair and wore suits that were a tad too big in Zach’s opinion, but all the women in the office flirted with him anyway. Not that he would take them home; he had a big house and a hot, college professor wife in Connecticut.

  Zach groaned and stood up, buttoning his suit jacket.

  “Looks like my sexual harassment suit finally went through,” June said brightly.

  “You’ll never get rid of me that easy,” Zach said. He squeezed her shoulder as he passed. In response, she turned around and slapped his ass. It was way too loud in the dark room and MaryBeth paused for a moment, startled.

  Zach shook his head and kept walking as Brad and June dissolved into barely concealed laughter. MaryBeth resumed the presentation, pretending not to notice.

  Joe looked over Zach’s shoulder into the training room at June and Brad collapsed in silent laughter and addressed Zach with his hands held up. “I don’t want to know,” he said, referring to June and Brad. “Where’s the analysis for Cooper and Associates?”

  Shit. It wasn’t that Zach wasn’t intending to do it, he just had a lot on his plate. Joe, of all people, should know that.

  He thought fast. “I assigned it to one of the fellows. Let me go get her.”

  He stepped back into the training room and emerged with Grace trailing behind him, looking grim.

  “Cooper analysis,” Joe repeated to Grace. “Where is it?” He wasn’t one to waste time on pleasantries. He didn’t even ask why she was sopping wet, which was a shame, because then he would have heard about her lateness, too.

  Grace looked confused for a moment, then realized what was happening and glared at Zach incredulously. He had to suppress a laugh. It was worth it just for that look. Served her right for showing up late. She was lucky he wasn’t allowed to fire her.

  “With so much else going on, I must have forgotten. I’m so sorry,” she said. Smug satisfaction rolled through him like a drug. It must be killing her to go along with the lie and make herself look bad. Who’s the hotshot CEO now?

  Joe looked at his watch and frowned. “That meeting is tomorrow morning. You know this isn’t a forty-hour-a-week gig, right? Doesn’t matter if you’re busy, the work has to get done.”

  “I know,” Grace said. “It won’t happen again.”

  Zach was feeling so good, he decided to lay it on thick. “Joe, it’s their first month. Don’t be too hard on her.”

  Grace looked at him with pure hatred in her eyes. It didn’t look natural on her pretty face, with those pouty pink lips and big, round eyes. Like watching a puppy try to be mean. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he told himself to hold it together.

  “Yes, very chivalrous,” Joe said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve got an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar client who needs an analysis tomorrow morning. Grace, go do it now.” He waved a dismissive hand in the air.

  “I’m on it.” She glared at Zach one last time, then went into the training room to gather her things.

  He was actually impressed with how she handled all the shit he threw her way. She took whatever he doled out without flinching and was actually doing a pretty decent job in the fellowship. Her numbers were way better than most of the idiot guys in the program at least. There wasn’t a day that went by without him giving her a hard time, but the girl had nerves of steel. It was actually surprising she hadn’t had some sort of breakdown yet. And he was glad she hadn’t, because that would ruin all the fun.

  * * *

  Grace

  Grace slammed her laptop on the dock and stabbed a finger at the power button on the monitor. Around her all the other stupid, little low-walled cubes were empty. Everyone else was still in the training room, watching the guest speaker.

  At GiveAnalytics she’d had a real office with glass walls and a button that turned them frosted. In the center of the room there had been a huge mid-century desk her mother found at an estate sale that made her feel like Don Draper. She didn’t miss the office, not really. But it was hard to go from CEO of a forty-person company to being at the bottom of the ladder, getting bullied by some asshole on a power trip. If she didn’t need the money, she would have already told Zach exactly how she felt about his little games and been out the door in a heartbeat.

  There were twenty-four tabs to complete on the
analysis spreadsheet. She typed the client’s name in cell A1. She was so screwed.

  She was so lost in thought she didn’t notice Zach walk up to her cube until he kicked the wheel of her chair. She jumped.

  “How’s that report coming?”

  “Leave me alone. I’m busy doing your job.” She didn’t stop typing.

  He leaned over the back of her chair, and she could smell his smoky, vanilla cologne. It smelled like pure sex. It overwhelmed her. She realized she was typing nonsense.

  “You work for me, so technically it is your job,” he said. He was so close she could feel his breath in her ear.

  Technically he wasn’t even her boss.

  “Is it also your job to be a dick?” She tried to push the chair out, but his weight against it had her pinned there. Her stomach fluttered.

  He lowered his voice even further. “You play it tough, Gracie, but mark my words. I am going to break you.”

  I am going to break you. The phrase conjured images of Zach holding her down with those big strong hands, breaking her in an entirely different way. She flushed at the thought, glad she didn’t have to look him in the eye. Who the hell gets turned on by their sadistic coworker tormenting them? There was no way he meant it like that, anyway. He hated her. Not to mention he was way out of her league.

  “And then I’m going to get all my prospects back.” The statement pulled her back to the present.

  “Wait, what?”

  He straightened up and crossed his arms. “Joe gave you all my good prospects for some fuck-knows-why reason.”

  At least she knew why he hated her now. Why would Joe do that? The fellows were supposed to get easy prospects to work on, not the best potential clients of the top salesperson.

  “I didn’t ask for your prospects,” she said.

  “I don’t care how you got them. You stole two hundred thousand dollars in potential commissions from me, and you’re going to pay me back one way or another.”

  “Can you just let me work on this report? I’m barely going to be able to finish as it is.”