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Harold headed out to teach his class and left me to my work. I should appreciate the freedom I had. I was able to work at my own pace for the most part. I didn’t have to deal with people. I just hung out in my cave wasting away my days.
I finished up the last email and prepared for the trip to the copy room. I grabbed the folded paper on top and just happened to glance at it. A name on the paper practically jumped up and slapped me.
I snatched the paper and quickly scanned it. “Oh, hell no. That asshole. What the hell is he trying to pull?”
Jon was suddenly giving a seminar for entrepreneurship? Since when? In all the years I had worked on campus, he had never been involved. Now, after we happened to run into each other, he shows up. This was his way of sticking it to me. He was just trying to remind me he was around. I knew he was pissed yesterday when I left his office. He hated me. I had felt the waves of anger rolling off him. This last-minute decision to share his knowledge of building a company was directly related to me.
This was after he offered me a job. He didn’t technically offer the job, but the nice man Brian did. I thought it was a joke. I initially thought it was some stupid prank. Then the man actually offered to pay me more than the advertised salary. As if I would accept the job. I was not a glutton for punishment. No thanks.
Now this. The man wanted to play games. He thought he could swing his brass balls around and I was going to do what exactly? Did he expect me to beg for his forgiveness? Was I supposed to take the job and let him boss me around and humiliate me? I wasn’t sure what he was trying to do, but I was up for the game. If he wanted a war, I was ready to battle.
I headed for the copy room and started the copies going. Then it was off to Professor Mitchell’s office to get the email list for the business majors. There was no way in hell I was going to be licking stamps all day. Sometimes working for a man born in a different generation who spent his days in the fourteenth century, it could be a real challenge to keep him in the now.
With the email list successfully sent to me, I went back to the copy room. I grabbed one of the flyers and studied it. “Successful local businessman,” I read the text aloud.
I wondered if he put the flyer together. It was very flattering. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was his doing. He wanted to show off just how awesome he was. I didn’t remember him being so damn cocky back in Vegas. There had been a hint of aloofness, but this was next level. I hoped he wasn’t expecting a throne.
After posting the flyer all over campus and sending the email to all the business majors, I was finally done for the day. Piling extra work on me was my welcome back to work after calling in sick. It was the universe reminding me who was really the boss.
After dumping my stuff at home, I decided to go for a walk on the beach. There was just a little breeze. I walked the two blocks to the somewhat secret beach access Trisha and I used. I was sure there were probably some rules about peons like us using the beach, but I had not seen a sign. There were a couple of gated stairways that led up to the massive homes high up on the cliff but no posted signs indicating it was a private beach. I had a feeling most people just assumed they weren’t allowed and chose to stay away. That was why we loved this small stretch. It was always quiet and mostly deserted.
I put in my air pods and started to walk with my head turned out to the water. The wind was blowing enough to keep my hair out of my face. My bare feet sank into the sand that was a little cold, but I didn’t care.
I thought about my life. My choices that had led me to this point in life. Lately, it seemed to always be on my mind. After seeing Jon, I was really contemplating those decisions.
“Oof!”
A hard body slammed into mine. I stepped back and looked up to see who had so rudely slammed into me. “Excuse you!”
The man looked down and picked his phone up off the sand. When he turned his face to mine, I cursed the fates. “What the hell?” I muttered.
He raised his sunglasses with a smirk on his face. “I would ask the same. Do you always walk without watching where you’re going?”
“Do you?” I shot back. “I’m sure you would have seen me coming.”
“Ditto,” he shot back.
“Are you following me?” I accused. “Are you stalking me?”
He looked amused. “I think that’s pretty presumptuous. I walk here almost every evening. I would like to know if you’re stalkingme.”
“Why in the world would I stalk you?” I snorted. “I live close and come down here all the time. I’ve never seen you before.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know why. I live up there. I think this is technically my beach.”
The wind blew my hair across my face. His hair lifted on the top. It was still just as thick as I remembered. In fact, all of those little features I had committed to memory were very much the same. There was a dark scruff on his jaw, and he seemed bigger, but it was the same man I had spotted that night in the club. The same man I had picked out of hundreds.
“Weird,” I said.
There was an awkward moment. I wasn’t sure what to say. I knew I should apologize for walking out on him that morning but I couldn’t. The man had picked a fight I wasn’t going to back down from. Apologizing put me in the weaker spot.
“You really come down here?” he asked.
I had to smile. “I do. It’s not a private beach, is it?”
He smirked. “I think a few of my neighbors believe it is, but I think the technical term is private beachaccess.”
He was trying to be nice, which made me think he was trying to disarm me. “I’m not going to work for you,” I blurted out. “I don’t know what game you’re trying to play, but I won’t work for you. You can hold all the summits and seminars you want, but it won’t work.”
