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Adeline: I thought I might drop by your office on my way to your Mom’s tonight.
Jameson: Because?
Adeline: You’re working too hard and need a break. I can give you a break.
Jameson: I’m already on my way home.
Adeline: You’re coming to Taco Tuesday? I thought you couldn’t make it.
Jameson: Yes, but we’re going to be late to Mom’s since I’m coming home to fuck you.
Adeline: I like the way you think.
Jameson: I’ll be there in ten minutes. Get yourself ready for me.
Adeline: For future reference, those last five words work for me. You should use them often.
Fuck.
She has no idea how often I want to use those words or ones like them.
A text comes in from Hudson.
Hudson: JRO are targeting our conference accounts. Leroy gave them everything they need to succeed.
JRO Hotels is the rival who is still intent on putting us out of business.
Leroy is the executive who leaked the information to theTimeslast week. I fired him when I returned from Vegas. Clearly not soon enough if he’s given our rival the kind of information they need to steal our clients.
Our conference accounts are worth billions. We can’t fucking afford to lose any of those accounts.
Jameson: Has Gabriel found anything useful yet?
Hudson: He’s just checking something. He’ll call you in the next half hour.
I glance out the window at Manhattan as Max drives me home. My thoughts shift from work back to Adeline. Since our trip to Vegas last week, she’s consumed my thoughts. At a time when I should only be thinking of work, I’ve been dedicating hours to her.
She’s been moving through her feelings over discovering her mother lied to her about her father, struggling with that. Gabriel gave her the information he found on her father, and she’s spent time researching him, the schools he went to, the friends he had, the places he worked at, and any other little thing that was in Gabriel’s notes. Every night, I come home to new thoughts she’s had that day about him, about her mother, and about her sister. Some nights, I haven’t made it home before midnight, and I’ve found her lying in the dark waiting to talk. And fuck if I don’t like that.
Shantel texts me, interrupting my thoughts.
Shantel: You are now the proud owner ofWanton. I never imagined the day we’d own a women’s magazine but here we are.
Jameson: Schedule a meeting with the editor-in-chief as soon as possible.
Shantel: You are aware of the fact your schedule is already overbooked, right?
Jameson: I don’t care. I want a meeting with that editor.
Shantel: Right. Got it. I shall begin work on a new Jameson. One who can get through twice as much work with no extra effort. As you were.
Max pulls into my garage and parks the car. I’m almost at the elevator when Gabriel calls.
“Tell me you’ve got something that will fucking end this once and for all,” I say when I answer. I thought we’d taken care of this fucking JRO problem, but these assholes just keep coming back at me.
“Yeah. Huntington is overstating earnings to their shareholders. He’s pocketing millions along the way.”
Huntington is the CEO of JRO Hotels. He’s a motherfucker I will take great fucking joy in crushing.
