“Jenna, please let me know if my brother is not cooperating.” He doesn’t even have to say, “Or I’ll make him.” With his tone, it’s implied.
The door slams.
The dog barks from his perch.
Jenna offers no explanation for why her dachshund thinks he’s a parrot.
“So, I have a list of charities.”
I hold out my hand.
She hands me the list.
I ball it up and toss it into the trash.
“I’ve got copies. All in color.” More papers are produced.
“Miss Parker.”
“Jenna’s fine! We’re all on the same team!”
I lean forward, resting my fingers on my desk. “But I want you to call me Mr. Svensson,” I purr, as the blush creeps up her chest. “Seems only fair that I call you Miss Parker.”
“McCarthy, we need to strike while the iron’s hot.”
“Can we circle back to this later?” I mimic her soulless corporate speech as I stand up and button my suit jacket. I hate that HR way of talking, though it seems like that’s all Jenna’s good at. It’s like sandpaper on the back of my neck. “You can send me a follow-up email.”
“I have copies of the ten-step plan right here…”
“Come here.” I hold out a hand to her.
She’s uncertain. Suspicious.
Ah, so she does have a few brain cells and hasn’t been totally turned into a good little corporate drone.
“Jenna,” I croon. “I thought you wanted to be my friend.”
She takes my offered hand, hesitant, like she knows deep down in her bones that she needs to run.
I spin her in front of the expanse of glass that looks over the monument to my own superiority. “Do you see that?” I sweep my hand out over the blocks of glass-and-steel buildings that lead to Glacier Lake, the setting sun turning the water to liquid gold.
“Everything you see before us I own. It used to be homes, businesses, a world-renowned charitable foundation.” I turn to let my words rake across her neck. “Inspiring hope and goodness throughout the land. They had a feel-good slogan for every problem.”
I trail my fingers over her shoulders. “One day, that foundation made a bad decision—they fucked with me. And so I ground them into dust then built a megacomplex on the ashes.”
She turns around to look up at me, her brown eyes wide. Even in those ridiculous heels, she’s a head shorter than me.
“You will not break me. You will not change me. You are nothing compared to me. You’re a lower-tier worker at thethird-best PR firm in the city. The corpses of your forebears are still warm in my hallways, and all of them were better men than you.”
She bristles.
I tip my head down. “It’s okay. Not everyone is a winner. So why don’t we make a deal? I’ll do what I want, you’ll ignore it, and we’ll both be rich.”
“I don’t make deals with people like you.” That stubborn set of her chin.
“I can wine and dine you, take you on nice trips, let you go shopping for fancy clothes.”
She’s not buying it.
