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This was it, wasn’t it? The tenth circle of hell.
I almost got up and grabbed one of the potted plants on his desk so I could throw it at his stupid face. The temptation made my fingers tremble, begging to reach for the closest cactus.
“I don’t know what that means,” I said. “How do you expect me toearnher job back?”
He shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Alba was never allowed to tell me I didn’t care about anything ever again. I wouldn’t have done this for anyone else. Myself included.
“Okay, fine. Then please, please,pleasegive me the opportunity to earn Alba her job back,” I said quickly, my tone flat.
“You’re really bad at this.”
“Bad at what?”
“Asking nicely.”
“I said ‘please’ three times. What else am I supposed to do?”
I could feel the heat trickle to my cheeks as Adrien watched me with a mix of arrogant amusement and… something I couldn’t exactly decipher. And it really pissed me off. So, I gave him my sweetest smile and said, “You know, you could always just show me how you’d like it done. I’ve always been more of a visual learner anyway.”
He cocked his head with a dimpled smirk, almost like I amused him.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Since you’re so terrible at this, I’ll let you make it up with something else.”
That didn’t sound suspicious at all. “Like what?”
“Be here at seven on Monday morning. I’ll tell you then.”
I pressed my lips together. This whole thing was so unbelievably frustrating. “Could you tell me what it is now?”
“No.”
Of course not. He wanted me to agonize over it the whole weekend.
“Fine, whatever,” I said. At this point, I just wanted to get out of here and drink this whole experience away. “I’ll see you then.”
Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe I’d walk out of here, buy a bunch of lottery tickets and win. Just one—I just needed to winoneso I could replace Alba’s annual salary.
What if I go and buy thirty of them? Or fifty? Or even—
“Oh, and Sanchez?” Adrien called just as I stepped out of his office. “I expect you to bring your own tweezers on Monday.”
Okay. But, like, what the fuck didthatmean?
6
Adrien Cloutier was a depraved sadist.That was what the tweezer thing meant.
I’d spent the entire weekend trying (and failing) not to think about what he was going to make me do with the stupid things, which was exactly what he’d wanted. The mental torment and anguish had been part of his malicious plan.
“He’s probably going to force you to pluck out all the hairs on your body, one by one,” Jamie theorized on Sunday night once we’d cracked open the second bottle of Shiraz. “Seven hundred million hairs for seven hundred million dollars.”
I’d been tempted to throw the stained cork at her head. “First of all, rude of you to assume I have more hair on my body than Chewbacca. Second of all, there is no way it’s going to be that easy. Or painless.”
Unfortunately, I’d been correct.
Because you know what was a lot more difficult and painful than plucking my entire body bare? Using a tiny pair of stiff tweezers to pick glitter out of dirt.
