Merideth Gardner smoothed the black wool pencil skirt over her abdomen and hips. It was snug. She recognized it was too tight for a job interview, but it was also the skirt. All women owned one piece of clothing that both looked amazing and boosted their confidence. The pencil skirt was that article for Merideth. If she could see a way to justify wearing it, she did. It had made appearances at both weddings and funerals. And one brunch, but that was only because it was laundry day, and she used the excuse of not having any clean clothes.

She swiveled in front of the mirror, checking her appearance for the smallest flaw. The tailored cotton blouse didn’t have a single wrinkle and the stockings she opted for instead of pantyhose were straight and smooth. She tried out various postures and facial expressions until perfecting a look she called controlled disinterest. The only thing left was keeping up the facade and not bursting into a fit of giggles from at the absurdity of it all.

After graduating from Columbia with a degree in journalism, Merideth slogged her way through one internship after another until she found her way into a junior researcher position paying only marginally better than the unpaid internships. After three years of gaining experience in what everybody—including her parents—claimed was a dying industry, she landed an interview with one of the largest print publishers still holding ground. Granted, it was a junior copy editor position in the online entertainment department. But anything was better than checking other reporters’ facts and sources.

She breathed in deeply and slipped her feet into the disturbingly high, black heels. If she wanted to work in an entertainment department, she needed to look like she understood entertainment and trends. With a final look in the mirror, on the hunt for a speck of lint—or God-forbid a flaw necessitating a change of clothing—she nodded in satisfaction at her reflection.

Merideth grabbed her messenger bag and purse before hurrying from her apartment. Normally she rode the subway everywhere, but tackling the congested trains was the last thing she wanted to do. Once on the street she hailed a cab and gave the driver the address. And then promptly realized the downside of taking a cab. She had plenty of time to fret about what would happen if she didn’t get the position.

Her meager savings crept closer to double digits each day. Her present salary barely covered the rent on her studio apartment, and groceries had long passed into the realm of luxury. Merideth needed this job. Not only because she liked eating, but also because without it she’d have to move back to Iowa and live in her old room at her parents’ house while she wrote for the small-town weekly. Not a thought she wanted to dwell overly long on.

The city passed by the cab’s windows—people rushing to offices, panhandlers waving near-empty cups at intentionally oblivious pedestrians, and cars slogging through traffic. Before silencing the problems running roughshod through her thoughts, she permitted herself one last concern. She’d miss the city.

The journey in the cab took less time than Merideth expected. She planned on arriving the requisite fifteen minutes ahead of time, but the taxi pulled in front of the Daily building with over thirty minutes to spare.

Merideth stepped out of the vehicle with a deep breath and handed the fare to the driver. It might well be her last cab ride in the city. She searched the block, hoping to find the dark green circle guaranteeing an expensive cup of coffee. Not that she could afford a fancy drink, but a few dollars for coffee was a more favorable prospect than loitering outside the building and being asked to leave the premises before she even had her interview.

Of course, the chain didn’t disappoint. Not that she expected it to. In a big city, you could hardly go one block before seeing the telltale green sign. The store sat across the street, so she hurried toward the crosswalk and waited for the white stick figure to appear on the light. Sure, some pedestrians braved the traffic and crossed against the light, but Merideth wasn’t one of them. She liked to tell people she had a healthy aversion to cars, or more specifically, to being hit by cars.
Customers lined up almost to the door. Each person waited patiently as they moved forward with the efficiency of an assembly line. Merideth stepped behind the last person and dug out her wallet from her purse. Two dollars for a cup of coffee and if she took the subway home instead of a cab, she’d be under budget for the day. Besides, it didn’t matter what she looked like after the interview.

While she overestimated the time it took for the cab to make its way through the city, she dramatically underestimated the time getting a simple cup of coffee took. By the time Merideth added the necessary cream and sugar to make the coffee palatable, she had five minutes to spare. She raced out the store and to the corner. The light turned just as she approached the street, and she hurried across with the rest of the crowd.

Merideth found herself walking into the Daily Herald building behind a small group of important looking men. At least she thought they looked important. Bespoke suits, natural tans from spending time outdoors, five-hundred dollar haircuts—she assumed—and each man held a cell phone to his ear, carrying on four different conversations. The fifth man, the one leading the platoon of Fortune 500s under forty, was the only one not holding a phone. Instead, he charged towards the elevators. And Merideth followed in their wake.

She stepped into the elevator behind them.

“Floor?” One of the men held his finger over the panel and waited for her response.

“Ten. I think.” Merideth fumbled with her purse, struggling to keep her coffee steady so she could pull out her phone and confirm what she already knew. But just as she needed to check the iron was turned off at least three times that morning, she needed to check her calendar to assuage any doubt.

The man in front of the panel lifted his eyebrows at her. “You think?”

“Well, I believe I am right in thinking it’s the tenth floor, but maybe my mind is fooling with me.” Merideth snapped her mouth closed. Her blurting out the first thought that came to mind wasn’t one of her better habits. God help her if she had to leave a voicemail because inevitably, the recorded voice cut her off long before she worked her way around to the reason for calling in the first place.

A masculine chuckle came from behind Merideth, and she willed herself not to turn around and glare.

The man at the panel pressed the tenth floor. “Tell you what? You figure out if you’re right or not while we move.”

She wanted to roll her eyes, but between her purse, the messenger bag, and the cup of coffee, Merideth was too preoccupied to deliver an appropriately scathing glare. Without a second thought, she turned to the man behind her, the chuckler, and handed off her coffee and bag. Burrowing through her purse, she finally found her phone at the bottom. Her fingers wrapped around the smooth plastic and she pulled her prize from her purse. Thumbing through her calendar, she eventually smiled.

“See.” Merideth reached out with her phone and held the screen in front of the man who mocked her. It was only when she looked up from the screen at him that she noticed the other lit button on the panel.

Thirty-four.

The Daily Tower only had thirty-four floors.

The offices on the thirty-fourth floor belonged to the owner and his grandson. But the owner spent most of his time at his other publishing holdings, and no one had seen his grandson at the office in several weeks. Not after the latest scandal with the real-estate mogul’s daughter. Merideth did her research. She knew all the current social gossip around the city because she took a crash course in the tabloids once she got the call for the interview.

She pulled her phone away and shoved it back into the depths of her purse before turning around and reclaiming her items from the man she handed them off to, all without looking directly at him. A quick assessment of the situation left her with really only one course of action. Stare ahead at the closed elevator doors and pretend nothing happened. She even tried not to fidget. But trying not to fidget was like telling a little kid not to eat any of the cookies sitting out on a plate on the kitchen counter.

The same masculine chuckle she heard when she started her babbling about the tenth floor rolled through the ever-shrinking elevator car. Merideth closed her eyes, but the gesture didn’t stop the blush of embarrassment from creeping up her neck and over her cheeks.

Of course, her mocker would laugh. She just hoped the chuckler wasn’t Ian Stirling. And if she looked over her shoulder and confirmed what she suspected, her humiliation would be increased a hundred times over.

Merideth Gardner, the almost but not quite broke, hopefully soon-to-be intrepid junior copy editor was standing in the elevator with Ian Stirling, the heir to the multi-billion publishing company. And she more than likely used him as the equivalent of a coat rack.

Maybe, if she wished hard enough, time would go backwards and she could have opted for loitering in front of the building instead of buying a cup of coffee.