Page 59 of Mr. Perfect

I suddenly have the desire to walk out of this office just the way I am. Let everyone see how this man affects me. Let them all know what’s been going on.

“No, Ellie,” I say with a smile. “That will not do.”

So I take a few moments to put myself back together, smooth my dress down with the palms of my hands, grab my clutch, and open my office door.

A round of applause echoes throughout the seventh floor and I feel my whole body go hot.

“Oh, shut up!” I say. But I’m smiling with satisfaction as I walk over to the elevator and press the call button. I guess I got my wish after all.

Mac is waiting for me at the bottom of the airstairs when I make it over to the tarmac. “I texted you, didn’t you get it?”

“I was in the train tunnel,” I say. “Sorry. Did I take too long?”

“Twenty-seven minutes, Miss Hatcher. You made it just in time.”

“Just in time?” I ask, having a hard time keeping my grin hidden from him as we turn towards the jet and walk up the stairs.

“Just in time to avoid the punishment if you were late.”

“Something tells me that might’ve been fun.”

“Test me next time, and find out. The reason I texted was because we have a change of plans. My… father called and says Brutus is expecting us at his house this afternoon.”

“Brutus? Why?” This can’t be good.

“Senior wants that interview and he says we fucked it up, so we have to fix it. So we’re on our way to Santa Fe to talk Brutus into it.”

“Oh, for the love of God. This will not be fun.”

“Well, sometimes we all have to do things that aren’t fun. Brutus specifically asked for you, so if he reams you a new one for trying to kill him last week, you need to be good.”

“Be good?” I sneer. “You ask like I’m some kind of ridiculous person!”

“Ellie,” Mac says with eyebrows up and a crooked smile. “Please. You and I both know the level of crazy you’re capable of. So just be good.” Mac repeats this in his bossy authoritative tone.

Which only gets my hackles up more. He’s known me a week and he thinks he understands my level of crazy. “Number one, Mac, I’m not ridiculous. I think we just agreed that you had no business inserting yourself into my fantasy life. Which is completely, one hundred percent healthy. It was harmless fun before you came along and tore my world apart.”

“Tore your world—? Ellie, come on. I came to work, you sent me messages. I didn’t do anything other than react. But anyway, we can talk all that out later—”

“Talk all what out later?” I’m genuinely confused. We just had makeup sex, right? What’s to talk about?

“Because Stonewall Senior has heard rumors about us.”

“No!” Aw, shit.

“Yes. He said he’s going to come into town to talk, so we need to be on our best behavior today and get this guy to agree to reschedule the interview.”

How could things go so wrong in twenty-seven minutes?

Chapter Twenty-Four - Ellie

Mac is on the phone the entire two-hour ride down to Santa Fe while I sit in the seat across from him bored out of my mind. Typically, when I fly I take something with me. An e-reader and those noise-cancelling headphones.

But I have my purse and nothing else, so I keep myself busy eating Life Savers and thumbing through an outdated People magazine that the flight attendant hands to me out of pity. Probably because Mac is so busy. And it isn’t even interesting busy, either. It’s a very boring one-sided conversation that I can’t make heads or tails of. It’s like he’s talking in code, purposefully making sure I can’t glean any information about the topic under discussion.

I don’t understand why they have to sell Stonewall Entertainment. It’s so successful. I mean, I guess I don’t know all the inside numbers, but they certainly don’t spare any expense courting big names for interviews and appearances on the shows they care about most.

Mac is still on the phone when we land, and only pauses long enough to point me to the door. We exit at a small airport with no jetway, just airstairs. So we walk across the tarmac, enter the terminal, and make our way out towards baggage claim where a man in a dark suit is waiting with a sign that says ‘Stonewall.’