I’d thought I might be our best agent since Janelle’s wife left, but I didn’t exactly have access to all the numbers. And whenever I asked Janelle about it, she always said something vague and vaguely encouraging that basically pitted Lizzie and I against each other. Janelle always claimed thatshewas our top performer, and that Lizzie and I were “neck and neck” for second place.
Fuck, Janelle.I wanted to be elated that she was gone, but it all just fell around me like a ton of bricks. At least Janelle was the devil I knew.
Dane Davenport was just… the devil.
A strange emptiness sat heavily in my stomach with my morning bagel and coffee. For a terrifying moment I thought I couldn’t feel my toes. I felt lightheaded.
Was I in shock? What did it feel like to go into shock?
Would I be asking myself this if I was in shock?
I cleared my throat and hoped my voice would work properly. “Am I?”
“By a landslide,” he informed me. Then he shot me an even colder, unimpressed look. “And I’m in charge here until I tell you otherwise.”
His words grated my spine. They were much too boss-like.
Maybe he was my employer now, technically, by way of that complicated flow chart. But he was in no way my boss. That implied an immediacy and an intimacy I would never be ready for. It implied a relationship, and he and I did not have one.
“Janelle is in charge of this office,” I said carefully.
“She’s been let go.”
“Why?”
“It’s a business matter.” He was still leaning on the desk, hovering over the papers before him. I wondered what they were. Financials? Employee contracts? Every deal I’d ever made at the agency? The history of every raise, every commission I’d ever received, laid out in spreadsheets before him?
A flow chart that showed exactly how many people stood between him and me?
Did he plan to fire them all, one by one, so he could make me his personal bitch and destroy me? Did he still hate me that much from high school or something?
Crap… was I that mean to him? Was this a revenge thing?
Did he find out I worked here and buy the agency on purpose?
My head spun with the possibilities.WasI mean to him? As far as I could remember I generally ignored him. And he ignored me. I mean… yeah, I slapped him at our grad party… but hekissedme.
You don’t just stick your tongue in a girl’s mouth when she’s on a date with someone else. Especially when that date is your best friend.
That was slap worthy shit if I ever experienced it.
“You do understand how business works?” he prompted, while I just kept replaying that moment in my head. My open hand. Connecting with his face.
I hit him hard, too. There was sound. And a red mark.
Fuck.
Maybe he forgot about that part?
Yeah. That was super likely.
“So… bybusiness, you mean it’s your business, not mine?” I said, pushing back, just an inch.
“This is Valhalla’s business now,” he said simply, in his low, controlled voice. “And I’m the heir to all things Valhalla.”
Right. Which meant that he’d inherited my dream. While I’d worked for it. So. Hard.
He made sex tapes in his spare time and inherited the right to buy up other people’s dream businesses—or worse, simply acquired them by default because someone else had bought them. His mother? His grandmother?
