“Yep. Then you tried to get me fired from the best job I’ve ever had and decided to remind me of it every time I see you. I had one rough night. I’m sorry it messed with you so much,” I say, hands on my hips, entirely ready to shred this man. “I could be like Nick and tell you that what happens in my personal life is none of your damn business, but...you’re trying to protect your family’s brand. I get that what I do in my personal life could affect that, and I take it seriously.”
His eyebrows pull down like storm clouds. “Miss Holly, you—”
“Let me finish. I had one bad night before I started this job. One, Wardhole.” I hold up a finger. “So unless you’ve never had a bad night, please just—fuck off. Leave me alone about it.”
His eyes snap open, and so do mine.
Part of me can’t believe I just said that, but I’m not exactly sorry.
Sucking in a breath for support, I mash the OPEN button. I’m sick of sharing a cell with this anti-gentleman.
As soon as the doors open, I dart out.
“Pai—” he starts to say. I slow a step before he yells. “Miss Holly, wait!”
Right.
Because I’m such a peon he can’t even use my first name.
I spin around to face him.
Of freaking course, my heel tilts, and I go tilting mid-turn.
Lovely. As if I’m not in deep enough trouble, suddenly I’m sprawled on my back against a marble floor in the executive lobby of Brandt Ideas.
Ward steps toward me, offering a hand. I shrink back, salvaging my tattered pride.
No way in hell is he helping me again so I can hear about it for the rest of my life.
Hand up, palm out, I push him away with the most force I can muster.
“Don’t. Seriously.”
“But—”
I scrape myself off the floor and stand. “Unless you have more models for me to dust, or a hundred more unreasonable requests before morning, I have real work to do.”
Later, after lunch, I walk to my desk in silence.
Ward looks up from talking to Andrew and stomps into his office without speaking to me, the door slamming shut behind him like a vault.
I go back to reviewing some files a messenger left Beatrice for the next hour. She needs to see them, so I put them with a stack of stuff to deliver before I leave the office today.
Come to think of it, I haven’t heard from her since she left this morning. Weird.
She must not know the big news about the Winthrope deal. Otherwise, she would’ve said something or sent me an email, if not a company-wide memo.
I pick up her stack for delivery. If she doesn’t know, I can tell her about the tentative acceptance from Winthrope and enjoy the smile on her face.
I peek in her frosted glass door. There’s a shadow behind her desk. Someone’s in there, but the shape, the posture, seems strangely off somehow.
I tap on the door.
She doesn’t answer.
“Beatrice?” I call, my heart climbing into my throat.
Then I hear it.
Thud!
And a smaller thud on the heels of the first.
I shove the door open, ready to burst inside. I get two steps in before I’m gasping and covering my mouth.
Beatrice Brandt has collapsed on the floor behind her desk, her chair tipped on its side.
Everything I ever learned about CPR gallops through my brain as I rush inside.
Shit! Please be okay. Please be okay.
Mrs. Brandt, wake up!
6
Slippers (Ward)
Paige’s words from earlier sting like a scourge.
She hates me so much she wouldn’t even let me help her up.
Nick’s annoying question floats back at me. What the hell did you do to Paige?
Now, I wonder what my clumsy ass did do, and I hate it.
Since I have time between afternoon calls, I open her notes to see what happened before I joined the meeting. The notes are impeccable as usual.
She loves to antagonize me, no question, but there’s no disparaging her work quality.
She calls me Wardhole throughout the document. Did she clean it up before she sent it to anyone else?
It’s another fucking eye roll, but I prefer the whole senior staff not knowing me as Wardhole. That juvenile Warden nickname they fling around behind my back is bad enough.
Holly’s right, though.
I did my share of stupid crap in my youth, especially before I enlisted in the Army. A decade older and so much wiser, and I still do stupid shit.
I almost married Maria Duchessny, for one, only the most self-absorbed witch on the planet.
Apparently, I also can’t shut my yap when it involves repeatedly savaging a gorgeous, smart, and talented young woman. Even if I can’t stand Miss Holly, perhaps I’ve been too harsh.
With the worst of securing the Winthrope contract over, maybe I should back off.
Lighten up.
Can I handle being less of a Wardhole? Her nickname almost makes me smirk for once.