“You don’t have to tell me twice,” he said. “I hear the Knydus employee lunch today is Persian. I’m going to run down to the cafeteria before the line becomes atrocious.” He extended his hand for Mal to shake. “Looking forward to working with you very soon.”
Then he grinned, as if he fully understood the presumptuousness of his statement, and marched out the door. Leaving Mal alone with Renata.
With Amelia and Rudy present, Renata had seemed almost human. Now, without them, he found himself caught in her inquisitive stare, wondering how one could be blessed with cheekbones so sharp. He muttered anexcuse meunder his breath, shoveling his laptop into his bag.
“Thank you for giving us a chance, Malcolm,” Renata said, and Mal looked up at her, astonished.
“Givingyoua chance,” he repeated, dumbfounded. “No, no, thankyou. I... honestly can’t even believe that I’m here right now.”
Renata’s smile dimmed.
“Stop saying that,” she said. “You deserve to be here. I read your book from cover to cover, all in one night. I’m not surprised that you have multiple offers, and likely from all sorts of reputable companies. En Garde is new. We’re not based in LA with the rest of the hotshots. As you can see, we don’t even have our own physical location—I’m mooching off my husband’s office space right now.She Blooms at Duskwill be our first major project. You are the one investing in us, not vice versa. And you better start acting like it.”
Thoroughly admonished, Mal stood straight. Up until this point, he’d seen Renata as larger than life, a living statue of sorts. Right now, however, she reminded him of his mom.
“Got it,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing too,” she said, pointing at him. “One of the first things I learned when I came to this country was that I needed to be audacious. The second was to never apologize for anything that wasn’t clearly my fault.” She walked over to her desk in the far corner of the room and settled into her white leather chair, and Mal followed, sensing that their conversation wasn’t quite over. “I thought Josephine would’ve taught you that by now.”
Mal sputtered. Yes, Jo had been the one to hand him off to Renata, but she’d made it clear that they’d just met at Ezra’s birthday party. How did she—
“Jo told me about your date,” Renata provided, smiling at him knowingly. “Don’t worry. She said you were a perfect gentleman.”
“Ha. Thank goodness,” Mal said. His attention snagged on a sole framed photograph on Renata’s desk: a picture of her, Jo, and Ezra, several years younger, judging by the roundness of Jo’s face and Ezra’s shaggy hair, dressed to the nines, with their armsaround each other. Paul Adelman, her husband, was notably absent. When he looked back at Renata, she was regarding him carefully.
“She’s special, you know,” Renata said. “An exceptionally strong, exceptionally brilliant young woman. Fiery. If she decides to love you, she does it with her whole heart.” She propped her head on the heel of her hand, and Mal swallowed under the intensity of her assessment. “Make sure to earn her, Malcolm. It won’t interfere with our business if you don’t, but it would make me very happy.”
“I—” Mal started, his face warm, but another voice from the doorway cut him off.
“You’ve seen Jo, then.”
Mal turned to find one Ezra Adelman standing behind him. In casual dress, he perfectly encapsulated the small-town-pretty-boy aesthetic, his artfully tousled hair perfectly ruffleable, porcelain skin unblemished. Mal hadn’t watched any of Ezra’s shows, but he’d once caught an episode ofOne True Kiss, the popular teen rom-com in which Ezra played Zachary, a simple and happy-go-lucky baseball player vying for the affection of the nerdy-hot female lead. Mal couldn’t imagine a person further from his character. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Ezra smile—which, he supposed, might be his fault.
I have feelings for Ezra. He doesn’t have feelings for me, Jo had said. If only she knew how dead wrong she was.
“Jo?” Mal said. “Yeah, I’ve seen her.”
Ezra nodded to himself, placing a delicious-smelling paper bag onto the table.
“How is she?” he asked.
“You still aren’t talking? Jo and I just caught up the other day,”Renata said, surprised. She’d hustled back to the table and had pulled a takeout box and a pair of chopsticks from the bag. Mal wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the fact that Renata Kovalenko willingly consumed carbs, or that she would speak so candidly in front of him.
“Nope,” Ezra said, not elaborating further.
“She’s fine. Great, actually,” Mal said. He held back the urge to exaggerate, to tell him exactly howfineshe had looked that night.
But Ezra nodded, looking wistful.
“Glad to hear it,” he said. “I worry about her, is all. She’s tough, but sometimes she struggles, and...” He looked at his mom, then back at Mal, the corner of his lip curling up. “Sorry, I didn’t realize we had a guest, or I would have ordered more food.”
That, Mal thought, was the most politeget the fuck outI have ever heard.
“No worries, I was just about to leave,” he said, throwing his backpack on. He nodded to Ezra, then to Renata, who was watching the exchange with barely contained amusement. “Thank you again for your time, Renata.”
“Anytime,” Renata said, raising her chopsticks in salute, and Mal deemed now the time to go.
Chapter Eleven
