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“I’m tenacious.” Caleb Power-Jerk Sherwood didn’t need to know about all the times she’d given up too easily. Which was like, all the time.
“Go away, Fin.” He so didn’t mean that. His voice was all stifled amusement.
“It’s Finley. For every dollar committed, we can improve the life of a family living in distress, poverty, or danger.”
“If I give you a dollar, will you go away, Finley?”
“If you give me a thousand dollars, I’ll go away.” He straightened up, and studied her, making her stomach go tight. She’d overplayed that hand. “How about a hundred?”
“You have no idea how bad your pitch game is, do you?” He said that almost fondly.
“I’d be better if—”
“There’s no ‘if’ in pitching.”
She sighed. “Given the circumstances, I’m not that bad, am I?”
“You’re shockingly bad.”
“You’re only saying that to get rid of me.”
“I’m saying that because it’s true. You could’ve had me for five thousand, but you lacked the confidence to tough it out. You don’t know your audience. You don’t commit. You’re not careful, and you give tenacious a bad name.”
Wow. Where did he get off? “I listened to TED talks about persuasion, and I’m an actor. I can read an audience.” She took his card out of her pocket and put it back on the bar.
“Not well enough and asking for money is the hardest pitch of all.”
“I made the whole bar listen.”
“You made the whole bar laugh, and I don’t think that was your ambition. My bet is your website was down before you even called it out.”
She put her finger on the card
and moved it across the bar toward him. “Congratulations. You’re off the list.”
He moved it right back to the very edge in front of her, until it tipped off and she was forced to catch it. “I could help.”
Not if he was the last sexy ass, power jerk, venture cap pitch coach in hell. She dropped her feet to the floor. She was out of here.
She made it halfway to the exit before she saw him coming in—Win, with his arm around his shiny fiancée. What was he doing slumming it here? When they’d split, he got everything uptown, she got the Blarney. There was no avoiding him, because he’d seen her, and her legs weren’t working.
“Finley, how are you, starlet?” Win zoomed in for a cheek kiss, and there was his expensive scent, part spice, part old money. He looked his glossy, rat-faced, handsome self. No trace of the lying, sneaking, coldhearted fraud. He had no shame. Any other man seeing his dumped, cheated on ex-girlfriend, whose stuff he’d never returned, would’ve hit the avoid button so fast it sucked him into another dimension. The new fiancée stood beside him looking as polished as ever, while Fin’s hair was all over her face.
“Are you here alone?” Win asked.
Yes, so alone, so very alone. “No,” she choked out.
Win looked over her head. “Lenore is here? I should say hello.”
Win had no clue how much she and Lenny hated him. You’d think he’d get that, but no, he couldn’t see how anyone could hold a grudge against him for longer than it took a parking meter to run out, and Win didn’t feed meters; he just paid the fines and sent someone else to get his car when it was towed.
“No,” she repeated.
Win’s eyes came back to hers. “You’re not seeing that barman, are you? Always thought he had a thing for you. You can do better, Finley.”
“Cal. Cal Sherwood.” She snuck a look over her shoulder. He was still at the bar.
Win scrunched his face. “Don’t know him.”
