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I was tempted to keep staring toward the windows of Dominic’s office to get a look at his dad, but I knew I needed to play it cool. I needed to be smart. That meant keeping my head down and working my ass off.
Thankfully, I had plenty to work on. Even though Dominic had shot it down, I was still working on tweaks to my pitch. He complained it was too local, and maybe there was some merit to his complaint. I’d been mostly focused on local scholarships and programs in my example within the pitch. If Dominic wanted the magazine to be more global, I needed to show him I could scale my pitch to match his vision.
Admittedly, I’d taken it personal when he first turned down the idea. I knew Jasmine was going to approve it because she trusted my eye for stories, but it didn’t make sense to expect Dominic to trust me like that already. If I wanted to seriously think about becoming more than just an employee to him, I needed to learn to separate work from our relationship–if that’s what it was. So that’s what I was doing. I was taking his criticism objectively and trying to think about ways to make my pitch more global.
When I wasn’t working on my weekly assignments or poking at the slowly growing interview piece, I was scouring the web to find the best scholarships across the country. I was emailing professors and academic advisors at colleges from the UK to Dubai and gradually compiling a list of the best of the best opportunities.
Whether he liked it or not, Dominic was going to approve my pitch. He was many things, but he really did care about what was best for the magazine at the heart of it all. Pretty soon, I knew I’d have a revised idea that he couldn’t turn down, even if he wanted to.
I was a few minutes into work when an email notification popped up on my screen. The subject line told me all I needed to know. “Come to my office, now.”
It was from Dominic, of course. When I glanced toward the window, I saw all four figures were still, as if they were waiting for me.
With a pit in my stomach the size of a large movie theater popcorn, I got up and smoothed out my dress. I’d put on something extra nice today because I wanted Dominic to notice it. It was stupid, probably. I should’ve been trying everything I could to stay under the radar, but I did it anyway.
When I opened the door to his office, I felt impossibly small. All four men were well over six feet tall, broad, and imposing in their own ways. The weight of their combined gazes made me want to shrink into a corner, but then the stubborn part of me resented that. I straightened my shoulders and held my head up high, making an effort to meet each pair of eyes. “Yes?”
“You’re Darcy McClain?” the older man asked. I recognized him from a little bit of internet stalking. He was Mr. Gregor Lockwood, a Dutch native who came to the US as a child with nothing and became a self-made millionaire. He was tall, fair-skinned, blue eyed, and had dusty blonde hair. He might have been in his late sixties, but several signs of a handsome youth still clung to his sagging face. He had the same strong chin and chiseled nose as Dominic, even if their complexions were different. There was a similarity in how intense the eyes were, too.
“Yes,” I said, staring up at him. My blood was already boiling. I didn’t realize how much I’d want to punch this man in his face and balls at the same time until I was finally face to face with him–the asshole who got me expelled because I bruised his ego.
“I remember you,” Gregor said calmly. “You wrote a slanderous piece on my family a few years ago.”
I clenched my jaw.Don’t say something stupid. Don’t say something stupid.“Yes,” I said carefully. “Although I wouldn’t call it slander. That would imply something in the piece was false.” I smiled as sweetly as I could, even as I was internally yelling at myself to shut up and stop drawing attention. I managed to shut my mouth before I said more.
Dominic looked like he was about to say something, but his father stepped a little closer to me. I could smell the scent of cigars and expensive cologne drifting from him. Up close, I could see a little patch of white hairs on his neck he’d missed while shaving. “Tell me why I shouldn’t have you removed from the building right this moment, Darcy McClain.”
“Because I’m good at what I do,” I said. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure all the men in the room could hear it. I knew I was supposed to bow my head and apologize. I was supposed to act likeIwas the one who screwed up. But fuck that. “And because you got me kicked out of college already. Do you really need to kick me out of a job, too?”
His eyes flickered and for a split second, I actually thought he was going to lash out and hit me. I stood my ground until Dominic moved between us. He put himself in front of me and faced his father.
“Enough,” he said.
His father studied him with calculated coldness, then smirked. That little smirk told me everything. He’d been testing us to see if Dominic would come to my rescue, and now he knew everything he needed to know.Just like that. I felt sick to my stomach.
“Yes,” Gregor finally said. “I suppose if you value this employee so highly, we can keep her around.” He looked at me and made a dismissive “shoo” gesture. “You can get back to work, McClain.”
“Don’t speak to my employees like dogs,” Dominic grated.
There was that grin again. Gregor gave me a ridiculous little bow of his head, still flashing that slimy smile. “You’re free to go, Miss McClain.”
Marcus coughed into his hand and I could’ve sworn he said “asshole” in the middle of the cough. Tristan elbowed him hard in the side and Gregor shot him a look, but didn’t say anything.
I tried not to look back at Dominic as I left, even though I was fairly sure his father had just masterfully figured out we were together after little more than a couple moments. A cold fist gripped my stomach.
I went through the motions of working at my station for a few minutes. When I saw Farhad, Elizabeth, and Polly heading for the break room, I got up and followed.
Farhad was complaining about Kirk when I came in. Apparently, Kirk was acting like he had a stick up his ass ever since Gregor Lockwood showed up.
“Hey,” Elizabeth said as soon as I stepped in, cutting Farhad off mid-sentence. “What was that in there? We all saw you go in with the four of them. What happened?”
“Uh, I’m not sure exactly,” I said.
“I was talking,” Farhad said pointedly. “Anyway, if Kirk wants to suck Gregor’s dick, that’s his perogative,” Farhad said. “But if he’s going to be this obnoxious, I’ll start working alone.”
Polly grinned. “I used to work with Gregor, actually. That’s where Dominic got me from. I was doing HR for a company he runs out of New Jersey. He’d spend a few weeks in the office and then rotate his time around other companies across the country. There were a few people like that every time. The Kirks, I mean. They kiss up and hope he’ll swoop them off to his main headquarters in California with the cushy pay and the big offices. If it’s any consolation, those people always relaxed once he was out of the office again.”
Elizabeth was idly braiding a strand of her blue hair, clearly annoyed to have to wait to get her ears on whatever gossip I was holding. “Okay, okay. Now let Darcy tell us what happened in there.”
