I cleared my throat a little too loudly. “Mr. Burkhardt was just leaving.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Mari countered, finally releasing his hand but maintaining eye contact with the subtlety of a neon sign. “You wouldn’t leave when I just arrived, would you?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Callan seemed far too entertained by what was happening, leaning back against my desk and sipping his coffee with the world’s smuggest look on his stupid handsome face.
To my horror, my assistant took Mari’s side. “I think Mr. Burkhardt was just about to tell us more about his investment offer. In detail. With numbers.”
“Devonna’s right, but first…” Mari grabbed my arm with alarming strength. “Excuse us one tiny moment.”
Before I could protest, she had dragged me into our supply closet; a generous term for what was essentially a glorified cabinet with enough room for two adults if they didn’t mind violating personal space laws.
“Are you clinically insane?” she hissed once the door was closed. “That’s Callan Burkhardt.TheCallan Burkhardt. The guy who made his first billion before thirty. The guy whose dating app revolutionized how millennials hook up and whose financial app is how I manage to pay rent despite my questionable spending habits. The guy who has his own goddamn thirst account on Instagram with three million followers who just post zoomed-in photos of his–“
“I’m aware of who he is.”
“Then why aren’t you jumping on whatever offer he’s making? Did he proposition you? Is that why he’s here? Because if so, while I absolutely support your right to say no, I also support your right to consider climbing him like a tree and seeing if billionaires do it better. For science. For womankind. For me, vicariously. And multiple times. In public.”
“Mari!” My face heated up to approximately the temperature of the sun. “He’s not—that’s not—he wants to hire us.”
“Even better! We need clients!”
“To plan a wedding.”
“That’s literally our job description.”
“For him.”
“So?”
“Without a bride.”
She blinked. “Come again?”
“He literally told you the position was open.”
“I was too busy imagining what it’d be like for him to pin me to your desk and–”
“Ew. Stop.” I smacked her in the arm.
“Ow.” Mari smacked me back.
“He doesn’t have a bride.” I quickly explained Callan’s proposition—the bet, the nonexistent bride, the obscene amount of money now on the table. With each detail, Mari’s expression shifted from confusion to disbelief to calculating interest.
“So let me get this straight,” she said when I finished. “He’s offering us a million-dollar planning fee, exclusive rights to the Burkhardt Gala, and a business investment, just to plan a wedding for him and some woman he hasn’t met yet?”
“Yes.”
“And you said no.”
“Of course I said no! It’s morally reprehensible and completely against everything we stand for.”
“What we stand for is planning spectacular weddings and making money doing it. And apparently turning down the hottest man in Manhattan when he’s literally throwing cash at us. Did you see his butt in those pants? That’s not a butt, Ani. That’s an achievement. That’s a butt that deserves its own Forbes profile.”
“Can you focus, please? This isn’t about his... anatomy.”
“Everything is about his anatomy. Have you seen it? Because I have, extensively, on the internet. There’s a photo of him coming out of the ocean in St. Barts that should be classified as a weapon of mass seduction.”
“Would you stop objectifying our potential client?”
