“He’s here? In his office, I mean?”
“Yeah. I’ll come with you.” Mason rose and walked over to the door. He opened it and waved his hand. “Let’s go. Might as well get it over with.”
Looking unconvinced, Pryce nevertheless followed him out of his office and down the hall to Jude’s. They stood outside the door, Pryce hanging back a few steps, and Mason could almost sympathize. Almost. This was like getting called into the principal’s office. Jude, never Mr. Warm and Fuzzy, certainly wasn’t going to act as such now, considering what Pryce had done. And while Mason didn’t want to see Pryce fired, a part of him wouldn’t mind Jude making him squirm a bit with his sharp wit. He knocked on the door.
“Come in.”
“Showtime,” Mason murmured and turned the knob.
Jude sat behind his desk, lips quirked in a half smile at Mason as he sauntered inside. His expression darkened when Pryce appeared behind Mason.
“What’s he still doing here?”
“Stop pretending to be Darth Vader and be quiet for a minute. Pryce wants to talk to you.” Mason swung himself into the chair by the long conference table. Pryce remained at the door, but Mason waved at him. “And you, stop lurking and get your ass in here. Jesus, I feel like the only adult in the room, and isn’t that a pathetic state of affairs?”
Jude scowled. “Don’t flatter yourself.” His gaze shot to Pryce, who still loitered by the door as if ready to bolt at a second’s notice. “You have something to say?”
On a good day, Jude was a fortress, his emotions sealed behind an impassive facade. Annoyed and stressed as he was now, the man could be downright scary, but Mason knew better. Jude’s bearish behavior was his way of protecting himself and the people he loved. Fiercely and unequivocally.
Mason tracked Pryce as he stepped inside the office to stand in front of Jude’s desk, as if he were a condemned prisoner awaiting execution. Jude kept his gaze trained on him, and arms crossed, leaned back in his chair and raised a brow.
“Uh, so I obviously need to apologize for several things.”
Jude nodded. “I’m listening.”
A good sign, Mason believed. If Jude had no intention of keeping Pryce, he would’ve tossed him already.
Fidgeting, Pryce shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, Mason and I had a talk, and I think we cleared the air. I apologized to him for bringing Dex here.”
“Which was for what reason?”
Oh, Jude was so not making it easy for Pryce, but Mason had to admit he was not only a little fascinated, but kind of turned-on by Jude’s dominant, hard-ass persona.
“Jealousy.”
Mason snapped out of a dirty fantasy of Jude—dressed all in black, stalking into the bedroom where he lay naked—to stare openmouthed at Pryce. It took guts to admit that, and he darted a glance at Jude to gauge his reaction, but as usual the man remained a blank canvas.
“Go ahead.”
“I looked at Mason as an enemy instead of someone who could help, and I listened to gossip instead of giving him a chance to prove himself. I’ve always felt a little isolated here—I haven’t made any real friends with anyone on staff, so I talked myself into disliking him on sight, instead of welcoming him.”
“And now?” Jude fixed Pryce with that dark, penetrating stare. “You’ve miraculously changed your mind?”
“No. Not miraculously. I already knew his ideas were good and that you were impressed with him. So when Dex contacted me and I mentioned Mason had joined the firm and that he’d worked on Colchester’s yacht, he fed me his version of the story about Mason’s tenure with Warren Colchester. And even though I knew how good Mason was—we’ve been working well together on the Mojo and Never Too Sweet accounts—I let my jealousy get the best of me and listened to Dex pile on all this crap about Mason.”
“Sounds like it was more than jealousy.”
Pryce paled, then reddened, but to his credit, he tipped his head up and faced off against Jude. “That first day when he came up with the influencer idea for Mojo and you accepted it blindly, I got angry. I knew if I’d come up with that, you’d put me through a barrage of questions. With Mason, you simply accepted it.”
“You mean you assumed I accepted it. You had no idea what I said to him before that meeting, nor did you aim to find out.”
“You’re right. I didn’t, instead letting Dex’s words feed right into my fear that you’d dump me and put Mason in my place.”
“Looks like a self-fulfilling prophecy, doesn’t it?” Jude narrowed his eyes. “But why should you stay? I’ve yet to hear a good reason.”
The silence sizzled between them, and Mason held his breath, waiting to see what happened next. It wasn’t up to him to fight Pryce’s battle for him, and if he could present a clear, cogent argument to Jude, he might have a chance.
“Because I’m damn good at my job. I work well with the clients, I have firm control of the numbers, and I’m able—as I did when Mason made his points—to pivot without a hiccup. Maybe I was slow on the draw about the Mojo account, but once I saw the benefit, I was all in and we worked together to make sure every aspect of the campaign was solid. I’ve got great ideas for the new accounts I’m working to acquire. I’m confident they’ll want to work with us.”
