The words hang in the air.
The company owner’s eyes bug out.
I can’t even swallow. I want to crawl under the table.
“I take it from the silence that no one else has anything to say? Looks like the meeting is over.” McCarthy stands up. “I’ll let this well-dressed ankle bracelet show me out.”
“What the hell was that?” I hiss out in the hallway.
McCarthy shrugs. “You want to keep your job. I want to keep you happy. Therefore, I secured your job. You don’t have anything to worry about now, plus I made your supervisor look like a moron. You’re welcome.”
“Bad, bad, bad.”
The red flags are popping up out of the ground like daisies, and the fairy-tale-obsessed part of me is dancing around in a field ,collecting them in a bouquet.
“No.” His hands circle my waist. “Good.” He kisses me hard. “This means I don’t have to listen to you complain that you’re going to lose your job when I want you to stay over.”
The VP passes us, giving us a cheery wave. “See you at the HopeWorks event!”
“Oh my god.” I groan. “The charity ball. I have a girlfriend lined up for you… It’s fine. It’s going to be fine…”
“I’m not going with another woman.” His face darkens.
“Fine. We’ll—I don’t know. We can’t arrive together.” I run a hand through my tangled hair. “We’ll pivot. You can… You can go with a sibling. Everyone likes fun sibling content. It makes you seem relatable and human.”
“We can just go together,” he says, his voice honed to a cold edge all of a sudden. “That’s why we had this meeting. Your company is okay with it. Now, come home. One of the local boutiques is bringing dresses over for you to pick out. Don’t worry. I won’t let you keep it on long, so you don’t have to consider it a fancy gift.”
43
MCCARTHY
Iwant to take her upstairs and eat her out until she’s moaning and begging for my cock, until she finally tells me she loves me.
But the banquet is soon, and I have a show to put on.
Sifting through the HopeWorks files was like raiding a honeybee hive.
There’s a whole email chain from Rex about a sex dungeon, joking about how he needs the HopeWorks charity to do something good for him.
Nathan’s cheating on his current baby momma with the wife of a major donor.
Jenna’s dad, Devin, is funneling money to small charities that his frat brothers’ wives run as their personal shopping funds.
The bestpart? The shady-ass financials throughout the whole organization—and Joseph and the rest of the board of directors are in on it.
The whole rotten house of cards is coming down tonight. Then Jenna will be well and truly mine. Forever.
I run product through my hair. It’s stuff I swiped from Salinger the last time I was at his place. No, I’m not copying his hairstyle—mine’s parted on the left, not the right.
In the bedroom next door to mine, a hair dryer runs.
I smooth down the front of my tuxedo jacket and check the breast pocket to see that my notes are there. Then I pick up the blue leather jewelry box.
The stylists pack up busily as Jenna walks out into the hallway.
I stare at her, transfixed.
“So, this is the one I picked,” she says finally. “Truman’s got a matching bow tie.”
