Page 58 of State of Ruin

He frowns. “Shit. That’s on me. That was a cautionary measure when I didn’t know you, darling. If we’re going to make a go of this, I don’t want to gag you, obviously. I trust you.”

I nod. “Okay. Thanks. That’s good. The thing is”—I clear my throat—“I found out just now that I very nearly got the Voss campaign.” I feel like I’m going to throw up. I’m so nervous. “I never mentioned it because I didn’t want to bother you about it, but it sounds like I got super far—except that you vetoed me.”

Heart hammering, I watch his face. He is watching me just as carefully, his eyes growing wider and wider. I’ve taken him by surprise, and I’m glad of it. I’m glad I get to watch him react in real time.

“Um, that wasn’t quite how it went.” He frowns. “Your name came up, from what I remember, but I thought it would be a bad idea for us to work together, given our personal relationship. So… I believe the team ended up going in another direction.”

He’s lying.

Well, either he’s lying, or Vanessa was lying—and, while I wish like hell I didn’t, I believe Vanessa.

“What I heard,” I begin, trying to sound like I’m relaying information and not interrogating him, “is that I was the only candidate. I was locked and loaded. And you did everything you could to make sure I didn’t get the job.” I’m shaking so hard, but I’m determined to stand my ground. I don’t know why, but I’m suddenly afraid of Sinclair—not the man sitting next to me, holding my hand, but the man Vanessa painted as some kind of tyrant.

“That’s not true,” he blusters. “It would have been a conflict of interest, and it would have made things messy. My priority was protecting my relationship with you. I assume you would have wanted the same.”

It’s the “assumption” that has me barking out a kind of disbelieving cough. “I was told that campaign could earn me at least a hundred thousand dollars, possibly more. That is a very big assumption to make on my behalf.”

He rears back a little, eyebrows winging up, as if he’s surprised that I’m challenging him. “Well, it was early days, so it’s not like I knew you that well then. I was simply trying to advocate on your behalf.”

I snatch my hand away and stand up. My body is coursing with all this nervous energy, and I cannot sit there and snuggle with him while I have this conversation. “Exactly! From what I heard, you saw the pitch before I even went to your apartment for the first time. It was super-early days! So, what, you thought you’d turn down the biggest career opportunity I’ve ever had in nine years of trying to cut it in this industry on the back of two fucks at Alchemy?”

His face goes kind of stony. When he speaks, his voice is cold too. “If you’d gone along with my proposed rate for sessions at my apartment, you would have made that money back already. I was trying to look out for you. I’m not completely devoid of morals. Of course I didn’t want you out of pocket.”

My jaw drops. Oh, no, he didn’t. “Sessions? Are you freaking kidding me? Just out of interest, how much could I have gotten for a whole weekend at Fairwater?”

He pushes to his feet like he’s had enough and towers over me, shoving his hands in his pockets. “That’s not what I meant, darling, and you know it. What I’m trying to say is I would have looked after you.”

“Oh, right.” I’m nodding my head like an out-of-control bobblehead dog. “Of course. I don’t need to work or look out for myself when I can let you look out for me instead.”

“You’re twisting my words.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Look.” Angrily, he raises one hand and pushes his fingers through his hair. I wish it wasn’t so hot. “I have the utmost respect for your professional ambitions, but I don’t have to defend the calls I make in my job to you. If we want this thing between us to go anywhere, then we have to be able to leave work stuff out of it.”

“Like killing a campaign I’d won on my own merits at the eleventh hour?” I challenge. He’s talking down to me, and he’s trying to intimidate me, and I don’t like it, even if it’s working. There’s no way I win against Sinclair in a battle of wits. Still, he’s going all CEO on me, and it reminds me of what Vanessa said about her not liking men who make women small. It’s time to show my trump card. “I met Vanessa this morning. She joined us for coffee. It was very informative. She said you told her I was meh and unmemorable and that you guys could do better, so I guess it’s no surprise you can never remember my face, right?”

He scoffs loudly and throws his head back, staring at the ceiling in a Give me patience-type way. “That’s bullshit, and you know it. Vanessa has a vendetta against me, for some unknown reason. She’s also not legally at liberty to discuss any of this. Ignore her.”

I squeeze one hand so hard with the other that I’m cutting off my circulation. I don’t know much, but I’m pretty sure vendetta is a term you throw out there to undermine someone who has a legit grievance against you. “That’s not what she said. She said you’d try to get her to sign more NDAs later this week so she can get her payout, which was why she wanted to talk to me immediately.”

I have his full attention again. His blue eyes zero in on me with such terrifying force that I feel like they could turn me to a pile of ashes on this thick rich-guy carpet. “She said what?”

I’m hoping he’s not expecting me to say it again. Instead, I say something worse. “She also said that she point-blank asked you if you’d talked to me about killing the campaign and that you could barely look her in the eye.” I swallow. I can’t feel the fingers in my left hand anymore. “So I’m asking you. Why the hell did you play God with my career? That job would have changed everything for me. Do you have any clue how badly my family needs that money? Of course you don’t! You don’t waste your time thinking about poor-people problems.”

He’s staring at me in horror, and I have the weird feeling that only now is he realizing what sins he’s actually committed against me here. He steps forward, gripping my upper arms and searching my face. “Elyse, I⁠—”

“No. You treated me like an object, like—Ugh, I don’t know!” My nose is running, and I sniff hard and wetly, which isn’t sexy at all, but I don’t care. “Like I was some stupid little toy that you didn’t want anyone else to play with. You crushed my career under the heel of your stupid, pretentious Gucci loafers like an insect and then tried to pay me off—which didn’t work, by the way! Because I have actual integrity! And worst of all”—I wrench myself angrily out of his grasp and take a step backward—“I bet you didn’t lose a moment’s sleep over it until this very second. Because I guess you do things like that every single day to people you don’t consider important. Am I right?”

“You are very important to me,” he insists brokenly. “Jesus, darling, you’re all I care about. That’s why I⁠—”

Bingo.

“That’s why you what?”

“That’s why I nixed the job,” he admits, breaking my gaze. “I thought it would be too much, too soon. I wanted to get to know you without you going stratospheric—it could have ruined everything. So I did what I needed to do.”

I was right.