This was evil. So very evil of him.
“The truth is,” he informed me, “my mother would be just as happy with us selling the agency as saving it.”
Okay, that got my attention.
“What do you mean,” I growled.
“Exactly what I just said. She gave me the option of selling it or turning it around. If we sell, though, neither you or I will have any control over what happens to the agency.”
I considered that, pissed that he had me right where he wanted me—listening to him.
“But I have no plan to sell it,” he went on. “I can insure that the agency prospers. It’s what I do. And you can take over. It can be yours. Superior would sell it back to you, if you want. I’d even buy it for you. That can be part of the deal.”
“If I marry you?” I squeezed the words out. They felt so ridiculous on my tongue.
Who faked a relationship with someone they didn’t even like, for a job?
Okay, Katie. Kind of. But that was different. She didn’t even really know Jesse yet when he hired her, and at least he’d made a favorable impression on her up to that point. She definitely didn’t hate him.
I already knew I hated this man.
If I didn’t quite all-the-way hate him in high school, I did now.
“For four months,” he said. “That’s all I’m asking. You could have a worse offer.”
I shook my head. This was so fucking ridiculous. “Right. Because it’s every girl’s dream to be the bride of Satan.” I was still hugging myself, just standing there at his stupid fancy high-tech door that I couldn’t even figure out how to open.
“Is that how you really see me?”
“Why doesn’t your stupid door have a doorknob?”
He ran his hand through his hair. “You can leave. Or you can give me just a few more minutes of your time to hear out this proposal.”
“You’ve got thirty seconds. Twenty-nine... twenty-eight...”
“You’d get the agency.”
“Twenty-seven…”
“It can be a boutique, west coast agency—”
“Twenty-six…”
“—just like it was before. Run your way.”
“Twenty-five…”
“Isavedthe agency, Devi.”
“Twenty-one…”
“You just skipped three seconds.”
“Because you’re annoying me. Nineteen…”
“I fired Janelle because she was stealing from the agency.”
What?
