"You've been late every day this week."
"Traffic."
"You live six blocks away."
"Terrible, terrible traffic." I smiled. His frown deepened.
"Three assistants have quit." He leaned forward, hands folded on the desk. "You haven't read a single report I've sent you. You've taken two-hour lunches every day. Yesterday, you left at three o'clock to get a haircut."
"It was an emergency." I touched my hair. "Split ends."
Sebastian stared at me. His expression didn't change, but something dangerous flickered in his eyes. "This is your warning, Xavier. Get your act together."
"Or what?"
"Or this conversation will go very differently next time."
I left his office and had a three-hour lunch. Just to prove a point.
The second conversation happened two weeks later. Sebastian didn't call me to his office this time. He found me in the break room, flirting with one of the marketing interns, and his hand closed around my elbow.
"Walk with me."
It wasn't a request.
He steered me down the hallway, into an empty conference room, and shut the door. When he turned to face me, his expression was thunderous.
"I told you to get your act together."
"And I heard you." I leaned against the conference table, arms crossed. "I just chose not to listen."
"This isn't a game."
"Everything's a game, Sebastian. You just don't know how to have fun playing."
"Listen to me carefully. I don't care if you fail. I expect you to fail. But while you're busy self-destructing, you're taking my company down with you. And I will not allow that."
"Your company?"
"Mine." His eyes bored into mine. "I run it. And if you think I'll let you destroy it just to prove some point to Grandmother, you're even more foolish than I thought."
"What are you going to do? Fire me?"
"No." He stepped back. Straightened his jacket. "I'm going to make your life miserable in ways you cannot imagine. Get your act together, Xavier. This is your last warning."
He left. I stayed in the conference room, staring at the door, and told myself I was still winning. They'd realize I was hopeless. They'd fire me. This nightmare would end. Grandmother would bluster, threaten, but she wouldn't follow through.
But that didn’t happen. She summoned me to Gerald’s office on Thursday, and I showed up twenty minutes late just for the fun of it.
My grandmother was waiting in the conference room. Gerald sat beside her, leather briefcase open, papers spread across the table. The stack of documents was thick enough to make my stomach drop.
"Sit down, Xavier." My grandmother's voice was pleasant. That was a bad sign.
I sat.
"Do you know what this is?" She tapped the documents. Her rings clicked against the paper. "This is the paperwork for removing the Positano property from your inheritance."
My chest constricted. "What?"
