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“Then, you’ll have a job here.” There was so much confidence in his words that it would be mistaken for cockiness. “Now, let’s talk about what I need from you.”
Ezra walked towards a stack of files that were sitting on top of a filing cabinet. He dropped them on a desk with a large thud, the sound making me jump out of my skin. “I need all of these sorted. I also need these,” he dropped several disks on top of the files, “transcribed.”
My eyes widened. Apparently, he hadn’t been joking when he said that there was a great deal of work that needed to be done.
I stood up and started grabbing the materials. “I’ll get right on this,” I said.
“I need a write up of the first three by noon. I’ve got to be in court this afternoon, so they’ll need to be ready.”
My eyes widened as I thought about how much time that didn’t leave me. For a moment, I considered telling him that the task was impossible, but I snapped my lips closed. This felt like a test, and it was not one that I was allowed to fail.
“It’ll be done,” I said. It would be. I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t going to cave under pressure.
Mine and Ezra’s eyes locked, and for a moment, I wondered what it would be like to have Ezra’s intense attention on me for another reason.
Ezra didn’t look up from the piece of paper on his desk. “See that it is,” he said.
CHAPTERSIX
I could see Annie Smith through the glass window of my office. I tried to keep the smile off my face as I watched her get right to work. Tommy had been right. She was the type who took every task seriously, and it showed.
Annie Smith fascinated me. We’d only been around each other for a grand total of thirty minutes, but there was something about her that made me more and more curious. Annie Smith was a lesson in irony.
Her clothing was several seasons out of style. Her shoes were scuffed and looked as though they were a size too big. Her hair was a mousey muted dirty blonde, as if she tried to dye it but couldn’t figure out which way she was going with that.
Her outward appearance made it seem like she was poor, but the way she held herself…I knew that she came from money. Her manners were prim and proper. Her posture was perfect, and when she sat, she knew exactly which way to tilt her legs to convey modesty. She carried herself in the way that a lot of high society girls did.
Watching her fascinated me. There was something perfectly imperfect about Annie Smith, and I couldn’t help but want to peel it back layer by layer.
My thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of my cell phone. Sighing, I looked at my phone. “What?” I asked.
“That’s a terrible way to answer your phone. What if I was a newspaper reporter?”
I rolled my eyes. “The phone tells me it is you calling, Marcel. It is 2021.”
Marcel chuckled. I knew that he was being dramatic on purpose. I’d been ducking his calls for about twenty-four hours, and I knew that he was going to be pissed. We’d been gearing things up for the past six months, reaching out to the movers and shakers of New York politics, checking to see if they’d be interested in working for our team, and getting ready to announce my bid.
“Who’d you choose?” Marcel asked.
I should have been shocked by the cockiness of the questions. The last time we’d spoken, I hadn’t been sure if a fake marriage was the way to go about things. Yes, I needed to put on a more family friendly persona. I couldn’t ignore that my past with women was an opposition team’s wet dream, but I still couldn’t believe that the people of New York, a city that never slept because half of it was too busy fucking into the wee hours of the night, would really care that much about my dating history.
“I’m not sold on the idea of these women.”
There was a long pause, and I knew Marcel was thinking about the implications of my words. He was used to people bending to his will. They’d be so desperate for an election night win that they’d give Marcel any piece of them he wanted.
“Before you have a heart attack, hear me out.”
I spent yesterday evening going over and over Marcel’s strategy in my mind. I gave it the same attention I would have given an argument by opposing counsel. I examined it from every angle, finding the flaws, and the brilliance. Then, I weaved my own thoughts around it, until a singularly perfect idea formed in my head.
“Well?” Marcel asked, his voice low with annoyance. “Are you going to tell me this brilliant idea or are you going to make me wait all day long?”
“I thought I’d draw it out. You know, for effect.” In truth, I’d been drawn to the woman who was sitting just a few feet away from me. Her nose was crinkled as she read something she didn’t like, and stacks and stacks of paper were piled around her desk.
The task I’d given her just two hours to complete was monumental, but something in my gut told me that she would ensure that it was done.
“None of those women you sent to me will work,” I told Marcel with absolute certainty.
He groaned. “Why the fuck not? They are perfect. Literally. Polished perfection. Those are the types of women who win elections.”
