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His creepy way of sniffing me, always telling me I smelled nice, was revolting. I tried not to gag. I swallowed hard and kept my face neutral, staying professional.
Jerry was almost inappropriate enough to be disgusting, but not so much that any of what he did could be reported to HR. He was careful, too. When I’d asked some of the other girls on the team about him and his weird ways, they hadn’t even known what I was talking about.
Jerry opened his eyes again, and they were the normal shade of mercury gray, cold and void of sympathy. The blackness must have been a trick of the light. Either that, or it reflected his black heart.
The thought was amusing, and I clung to that idea—a distraction from how fucked up it really was to work for him.
“Double-time, Clarke,” Jerry barked, his voice loud again.
I shook off the disgust and fell into step next to Jerry again.
I hated my job here. Jerry was a dick. He bullied his employees. He was inappropriate, reaching for my hair although he never touched it, or getting too close, invading my personal space, and was unrealistic with what he expected of me. He always made me do menial work when I could handle more. I had a degree, for crying out loud, and he wanted me to get coffee and take notes?
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Why didn’t I just quit?
I needed the job. Desperately.
Wonderprise Pharmaceuticals offered a hell of a lot more money than I would have been paid anywhere else, and I needed the cash. I had student loans, a car payment, insurance, rent, and a slew of other payments I needed to cover every month without help from anyone. I’d put myself through school, working my ass off to get good grades. I’d worked part time, but a part-time wage didn’t even cover a quarter of my expenses. The rest I’d had to borrow.
I was drowning in debt and aching to get out of it, even if it meant dealing with assholes like Jerry for a while.
Getting out of debt and doing what I loved was a double whammy I wouldn’t pass up for anything—not even someone like Jerry, who tried to make my life harder than it already was.
At least, it was my own life. I didn’t have to rely on anyone else—not the prick of a foster dad I’d lived with until I was sixteen, not the shelter I’d spent time in when I hadn’t had any cash to make my own way, and not this piece of a shit boss I had now.
He was just a means to an end. Sometimes, you had to work through shit to get to the good stuff. I just kept telling myself I was paying my dues.
We arrived in the boardroom where the meeting would be conducted. We were the first. If the others had already been here, Jerry would have given me shit about that, too, being late and making him look bad.
Small victories.
“Take a seat over there,” Jerry said, pointing to a chair in the corner. “I want you to keep your mouth shut at all times. Only speak when you’re spoken to, and even then, keep it to a minimum.”
I nodded, taking my seat in the corner. There was no point in arguing. At least, if I took notes, I could still be in on what was going on, and if they were “big guys,” like Jerry said, then it was worth my while to at least be in the know, if nothing else.
I was excited to see some of the big guys in the company. I’d only heard names.
“And be careful of this guy.”
“What guy?” I asked.
“Colter Price. He’s the big cheese, the owner, the guy we all bow to. He’s nothing but an ass, but we have to kiss the right asses to get the funding we need, and Price has more money than the rest of the city put together. Hell, the rest of the country.”
“Why should I be careful?” I asked. I didn’t add,if I’m just here to bring coffee and take notes.
“Colter Price is the devil himself,” Jerry said with a scowl before dropping himself into a chair. He pushed his legs out in front of him and tugged at his tie. “He’s pure evil—the powerful, billionaire type who eats other businesses for breakfast and doesn’t give a shit about what happens to the people. He’s all about what he can gain. He cuts corners, he’ll fight every penny he should be spending, and he’s a jackass of a person, too.”
I let out an amused snort. “He sounds—”
“Like a thorn in my side,” Jerry said, his scowl still firmly in place. “If he wasn’t the one with all the cash, I would make a motion to get rid of him altogether.”
“The owner?” I asked, incredulous. Jerry was the one who could be considered a pain in the ass, but the way he described this guy…
“You bet your ass, the owner. I’d get the board of directors to vote him out in a wink if I thought it would do the company any good, but we can’t get where we need to be without funding, and we can’t get the funding if we don’t suck up to Mr. Kiss-My-Ass himself.”
“You’re going to talk to him about the machine?” I asked.
