“To be fair, your presence is unnerving,” I say, purposely neglecting to add that his looks are distracting. “But I think you came here to tell me you’re not superficial and I was wrong.”
“Close enough.”
We linger in some surreal sort of limbo, unmoving, eyes locked.
“Also, I’d like to remind you of the NDA you signed when you first started as well as the five-year noncompete clause in your contract.” He checks his phone and slides it away.
I’d almost forgotten about the noncompete clause, the one that prevents me from working at another magazine for a period of five years after leaving Made Man. When I first signed it, I was told it was an industry standard. Now I know it was just a manipulative tactic on West’s part to keep people from leaving. I suppose you don’t build a media empire by being Mr. Nice Guy.
Either way, I’m done with magazines.
I’ll write phone books if I have to.
Anything to keep from working for West Maxwell ever again.
CHAPTER TEN
WEST
“Who were you talking to on that bench earlier today?” I ask Scarlett when I get home. Of course I didn’t see her talking to anyone at the time, but now that I know about her little exchange with Elle, I want her to think I have eyes all over the city.
“Hey to you too, Uncle West.” She rolls her eyes, flipping through an old issue of Made Man as she reclines on the vintage leather Chesterfield in my study.
“I don’t want you talking to strangers anymore, you understand?” I loosen my tie.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stranger danger.” She fights a teasing grin.
“It’s not a laughing matter, Scarlett. The city’s full of insidious types who’d love nothing more than to make your life a living nightmare. Gangbangers. Traffickers. People ready to exploit you without a second thought. Or worse.”
As much hell as this kid gives me, I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her.
Taking care of her is the only thing anyone has ever asked me to do in this life—and that’s exactly what I intend to do. Keep her safe. Educate her. Prepare her for the real world while also ensuring she’s molded into a respectable (and self-respecting) member of society.
“Anyway, no more talking to people you don’t know.” I jerk my tie from my neck.
“That lady was really nice.” Scarlett licks a finger and flicks to the next page. There’s nothing in that magazine that could possibly be of interest to a high school freshman. “She said she just quit her job . . . that her boss was a jerk.”
Sounds about right.
An image of Elle flashes in my mind’s eye—the way she stood there on the sidewalk in her pink satin pajamas, her cardigan barely covering her nearly transparent camisole and her hair a bedheaded mess at five o’clock in the evening. While she stood there giving me what for (and then some), the woman didn’t have a care in the world. She stood up for herself and her beliefs, and whether or not I agree with her, I have to admit it was sexy as hell listening to that pretty little mess with great big opinions put me in my place in a way that hasn’t been done since a lifetime ago.
“Inspiring,” I say before moving on. “You have homework, I presume?”
She lifts a shoulder. “Eh.”
Smart-ass.
“Uncle West, can I go back to Nebraska this summer?” Her round eyes plead as she softens her tone. “Please? I miss my friends. I literally have zero friends here . . .”
“Maybe if you weren’t so busy skipping class, you’d actually have some by now. Kind of hard to get to know people when you’re never there.”
“They suck.” She pouts. “And the feeling is mutual because they all think I suck too.”
“And you know that how?”
“No one talks to me. Sometimes people stare,” she says. “And most of the time I eat lunch in the bathroom, but on the days when someone blows it out, I can’t, so on those days I just don’t eat at all, and then by the middle of the afternoon my stomach is growling super loud, and it’s so embarrassing.”
She shrinks back against the leather with a dramatic groan.
“Some people have real problems, Scarlett.” I fold my tie and shove it in my pocket. “Pretty sure my day was worse than yours.”
I’m not one to one-up a teenager, but I’m making an exception today in hopes that sharing some common ground might help her relate to me a bit more. It doesn’t matter who someone is or how much money they have; no one is immune to bad days.
“Try me.” She flicks to another page.
“I’m in the middle of an enormous merger, and my best staff writer quit without warning,” I say. “And not only that, but she made it clear on her way out that she thinks I’m the worst kind of human being.”