His Naughty Lessons

** Harper **

It was hard to keep the constant grin off of her face when Harper arrived at work on Monday. The weekend had been full of checklist completions, everything moving so fast and effortlessly that she could barely believe it. Her seduction game was coming to fruition ... How long before she could graduate to a level matching what was in May’s books?

Not to mention that the actual game at work was about to take off to new heights as well. The official announcement for the investment partnership should be coming any day now, and she wondered how much shock the final results would bring to the entire team.

The answer, as it turned out, was immediately obvious the moment she stepped out of the elevator.

Monday morning was usually a quiet time at Miracles, with most people still in weekend mode and slow to settle back into the work routine. But today, the room was buzzing, crackling with energy and filled with murmurs of conversations in every corner. As Harper made her way down the hallway toward her cubicle, she noticed a few too many heads pausing in their chatters and turning her direction. Each of those faces looked ... a bit overly excited, and one of the guys from the software team even gestured a tip-of-the-hat to her with a flourish.

Then she rounded the corner and was almost run over by her boss, who was hurrying into a meeting room with such obvious enthusiasm that his whole person looked jittery.

"Oh, morning, Harper." He stopped for a brief second, just enough to recognize Harper and greet her with a pat on the shoulder. "Great job. We’ll talk more in an hour?" He didn’t give any more context or leave any time for a response before quickly disappearing into the packed meeting room.

Harper had yet to process that odd greeting when the marketing director Fred followed from down the hall, doing a double take when he saw her and almost spilling the cup of hot coffee in his hand.

"Oh, morning, Harper," he said in the exact same tone — surprised, pleased, and a little ... awed? He nodded importantly at her before proceeding into the same meeting room and closed the door behind him.

Hmm. Obviously, some version of The Big News must’ve already been going around, and this was quite a dramatic response from the crowd.