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I shifted on my feet. “Don’t do this to her,” I said quietly. “Please. She’s the one that got me this job, and I can’t… None of this was her fault. I swear she… Alba had nothing to do with what happened on Halloween. That was all me.”
My thoughts felt incomplete and fragmented as I stood there, struggling to form full sentences. My throat had started to burn as helpless desperation bloomed in my stomach. Everything ached, from my stiff muscles to the emotion twisting in my chest. I felt like shit.
I felt like a piece of shit.
“You’re angry at me so take it out on me,” I pleaded. “Do whatever you want. Cops, lawyers, whatever. Just leave her out of this because she really,reallydoesn’t deserve to be punished for a crime I committed.”
Nothing. He gave me absolutely nothing. Just sat there and stared at me with bland distaste.
“Do you want me to beg again?” My voice and lips trembled with that one. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this… anything. Tired, frustrated, desperate, sad, angry.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like crying.
“What do you want?” I asked again. “Seriously, there’s got to be something I could do—”
“Time,” Adrien said.
“What?”
“Time,” he said again. “I’ll allow you to earn your sister’s job back with your time.”
I let out an unsteady breath and tried to blink away the fog of mental exhaustion. “Okay. All right. Sure. What… what does that entail, exactly?”
Adrien leaned forward, intertwining his fingers on his desk. “I spent months working on securing the deal you managed to ruin in under twenty seconds with your unwarranted physical assault. Six months of schmoozing, presentations, redeye flights to the other side of the world, and late-night meetings to make up for time differences—all of which your sister helped with, by the way. It wasn’t just my efforts that went up in flames after your little stunt.” He paused, tapping an index finger on the back of his fist. “You’ve set me back six months of hard work, seven hundred million investment dollars, and a shit ton of contacts and resources that would have come with that partnership. Not to mention the damage-control hell I’m still being dragged through with the media.
“Your selfish carelessness has cost me time, money, my sleep, and my sanity. You’ve gone through my things without permission, wreaked absolute havoc on my office, and I have yet to hear anything even remotely close to an apology come out of your mouth.” The muscles in his jaw had tensed during the recap as if just thinking about it pissed him off.
A heavy and expectant silence followed, and I knew what he was waiting for. The apology was at the very tip of my tongue, urging to be let out. But I just… couldn’t do it. I physically couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud.
So, I dropped my gaze instead.
“One month,” Adrien eventually said. The words were tight and strained like he’d barely been able to shove them out from between his clenched teeth. “I want one month of your undivided time, starting next week. You’ll be at my beck and call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. If you make it to the end of the thirty days, I’ll reinstate your sister’s position and she’ll be compensated for the full duration of her maternity leave.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. “What about… what about the next thirty days? Will she be compensated for that too?”
“Yes.”
“And I’d need to be available for the full twenty-four hours every single day?”
“Without exception.” Firm. Nonnegotiable.
“Okay. Can you… give me an example of what you might need from me at two in the morning?”
Adrien shrugged. “You’ll find out.”
He was insufferable.
“The reason I ask is because I live kind of far from here. I don’t have a car and I don’t think the buses run in the middle of the night, so I’m not entirely sure I can—”
I cut myself off as Adrien reached into his pocket, took out a set of keys, and tossed them to me. “Keys to a two-bedroom apartment in my building, where you’ll be living for the next four weeks. Any other concerns?”
My mouth flapped like a freshly caught fish. Surely, he was joking. “You want… you’re expecting me to move into your building? The one you live in?”
“I’m expecting you to be available to me at all times.”
I looked down at the keys, then up at him, then back down again. And then I pinched my forearm as hard as I could.
“Not a nightmare, I’m afraid,” Adrien said.
