Did I feel the energy of the call shift? Or was it wishful thinking?
Another long pause. I sensed maybe,hopefully, her tipping in my direction. I suspected she was finely tuned to desperation.
I squeezed my eyes shut, holding my breath.
“Okay, listen,” Winona said finally. “I’ll come and take a look. When I’m there, I’ll tell you what it needs. But I’m not going to do the work for you.”
Holy shit. I’d somehow managed to win her over by being… myself.
“You still there, Mr. Harrington? I don’t know why I’m asking. It would make my life easier if you weren’t.”
I wanted to tell her she was crazy for not jumping at the offer of half of six figures to do a fucking plumbing job.
That I liked that she’d seen right through that.
That she was also crazy for considering helping such a supreme fuck up.
But she spoke to me in a way no one did. That’s why I needed her.
I couldn’t fuck this up.
“Okay,” I said. Getting her here was the first step. Keeping her here…I’d have to think of something else. I’d stay up all night coming up with ideas like I used to when LoupTeq was a startup and I thought it was all I ever needed. Back when I didn’t have hordes of obsequious people thinking for me. “I trust tomorrow at ten will work?” That was enough time.
“No.”
“No?” Clearly, I needed to get used to hearing this word again. But also, right. She had other clients. I opened my mouth to ask her what timewouldwork to receive an absurd sum of money to look at some pipes, but she was already speaking.
“No, Mr. Harrington. I’m coming now.”
I blinked. “Now?”
“I don’t want to talk to your robot butler. She got me drove. So have the door open. And stay out of my hair until I’m ready to tell you what to do.”
This wasn’t part of the plan. I couldn’t write now, at night, after a day of failure preceded by a week of the same. Could I? I needed to get in the right mindset.AndI needed to figure out how to get her to stay. What if she were in and out of here in five minutes? She probably would be, once she saw what I’d done. Also, what the hell didshe got me drovemean?
I stood up. That stick I’d managed to tilt in my direction had spun right back down. I was at her mercy.
I needed to get a hold of myself.
I could prepare a counteroffer on the fly. I was good at this. Exceptional, business pundits said. I’d negotiated literal billion-dollar deals. Multiple times.
“No, Ms. Chalmers. That won’t work. I?—”
But I stopped. Because I was talking to a dead line.
All I could do then was laugh.
The sound was foreign. It made a squirrel that had walked out on a tree limb over by the pool house jump and scurry back into the dark of the branches.
It was the first time I’d laughed in months.
CHAPTER 9
I Need her Mad
MITCHELL
Iopened the door as Winona was coming up the steps.
