Rosalie has gone back to studying the window.
I look at the side of her face and make a mental note to address her amusement later, privately, at length.
"Fine," I say. "Send me the list."
"I will." Blaire gathers her laptop, her little fucking notebook and rises. She has the posture of someone who has accomplished exactly what she came for.Well fucking yay for you."I'll also need thirty minutes with you this week — just the two of us — to go over the full strategy before I present Thursday. Your assistant can find the time."
What kind of poison can I find before then?
"I'll have her reach out," I say, and force a smile that probably looks like a very toothy threat.
She nods. Extends her hand across the table.
I stand and take it.
She is looking at me with the same focused pleasant expression that I’m giving her. She still doesn't know. Ten years and she is standing two feet away from me shaking my hand and she does not know.
I let go.
"Thursday, Mrs. Monroe."
"Thursday, Mr. Sullivan." She turns and moves toward the door, and I watch her ass as she goes because I cannot seem to stop myself.
Call the fucking therapist.
The door clicks shut.
Rosalie turns from the window and looks at me.
"The gym neighbor," she says finally.
"Please, not right now, Rose."
"You told your PR consultant about your date before you told me."
"I said please."
"Michael—"
"Rose." I gather my folders. "Don't."
She watches me as I walk to the door.
"She's good," Rosalie says quietly behind me. "At what she does. She's good, Michael."
I stop with my hand on the door.
"Yeah," I say. "She is."
I walk out.
CHAPTER NINE
BLAIRE
I've spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours on a Bennet Sullivan life tour, and I need a hot meal and eight hours of sleep.
The dating angle will help — it's the right move; I stand by it — but it's going to be a heavier lift than the file suggested. In social circles he's known as the billionaire bad boy who treats his money like a problem he's actively trying to solve: drugs, women, trips that make the tabloids for the wrong reasons, the fountain. His public persona has been running unchecked long enough that it's calcified. People believe it because he's never once contradicted it.
