8
Artemis
“I thought you were here to give me fashion tips, where do you get off talking to me about respect?” Easton said as he approached me. He started circling me.
“I’m trying to. You aren’t being very cooperative.” I turned around so I was facing him, but he was walking in circles around me, like a vulture waiting for something to die.
“You walking around in that frilly skirt, you think it makes people respect you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m just curious where you think you got your credentials.”
My knowledge came the best way any knowledge is gained. Through infinite swipes of my credit card, and a standing invitation to the front row of every international fashion show that mattered. I wasn’t going to tell him that though because he would just laugh in my face. He didn’t respect my work.
“Sorry, but any high schooler could tell you the difference between appropriate formal wear and what you’re wearing now.”
“So, nothing?” he asked.
“I know fashion. I was on the staff of a magazine previously and I have a growing list of satisfied clients.”
“Is that what passes as experience in your field?”
I straightened my back. He was trying to intimidate me. He was using the most obvious method to try and do it. Walking around me the way that he was, he was making the room smaller and limiting my exit options. He wasn’t scary. At this point, he was annoying me. In addition to that, he was also wasting my time. Ideally, we could have been done by now. He, for whatever reason, I was going to guess a bruised ego, wanted to throw his weight around. We weren’t even in competition; I didn’t know what he was on about.
“Does your husband like the way you dress?” he asked. Ah, so this was what he was doing. It wasn’t enough to try and intimidate me, so he had resorted to personal attacks. I knew that he didn’t like me. I knew it, and I didn’t care. I wasn’t there to be liked; I was there to do my job. Rather than let me do my job, he was letting his pride get in the way and was making this whole process longer and worse than it needed to be. All things considered, I didn’t much like him either. I wasn’t sure how he and his business partner had managed to have such an enduring relationship. He was temperamental, he was petty, he had a chronic foul mood, no matter the occasion, and he thought my career was a joke.
It was a little late to regret taking Toby up on his offer, but the regret was making itself known.
“I dress very well, but for your information, I am not married.” He laughed and it made my stomach clench. He wanted that. He wanted ammunition and I had just given it to him.
“Boyfriend then.”
“None of this is any of your business,” I said.
“Alright, no boyfriend. Girlfriend perhaps?”
I rolled my eyes. “If you are making your way towards a point, hurry up and get there.”
“You’re single. How surprising.” He had some nerve trying to talk to me like this. I didn’t know his situation, and I didn’t care but any self-respecting woman in this city would turn their nose up at him with the way he presented himself. If they hung around him long enough to get a whiff of his foul personality, that would send them running if his general aura didn’t. He really wanted to attack me for being single? I was twenty-seven, not eighty. So what I didn’t have anybody yet? Was there someone keeping count? Had the hourglass been turned over? I didn’t have anything to prove to him or anybody else with a significant other. Rather than jump into something unfulfilling, wasn’t it better that I was waiting?
As if I actually needed his approval! I didn’t care what he thought.
“Your point, Easton. Make it now or I’m leaving.” He hadn’t stopped circling me. I tried to calm my breathing down because I knew he was just trying to rile me up. He had decided that this was some sort of competition. We were opponents, and he was trying to win, whatever that would earn for him. I never could have predicted this when I took the assignment. Toby had warned me that Easton would be di
fficult, but he forgot to mention that his partner was needlessly hostile and chose violence when he didn’t get his way.
“Why should I respect you?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?” I asked. I didn’t want respect from a man like him. He was exposing himself as more and more detestable as the minutes passed. We needed at least some sort of rapport in order to work together, but I wasn’t even keen on that anymore. He was difficult and argumentative.
“I said, why should I respect you? What are your qualifications? Awards? Degrees? These are the things that people care about. What are yours?”
He came back around me making his circle and I grabbed his arm so that he stopped walking. It was hard, completely solid muscle under my fingers.
“Stop that, you’re making me dizzy.”
“You have none then.” I dropped his arm.