But that was just my baser self rearing her frustrated head.
The rest of me scraped my shit together, took a breath, and said, “Sure.” I turned to collect my purse.
Breathe. Do not get yourself fired today.
You suffered Janelle, you can suffer this bosshole for a day or two.
“And if you really want to own a business one day,” he said, adding insult to injury when he didn’t saythisbusiness, “you might want to think about how you conduct yourself. When addressing titans of industry, like myself.”
I turned slowly to face him again.
“I seem to recall you had a temper in high school. But that really has no place here.” He picked up a paper and directed his attention at it.
Again, I was dismissed.
Temper? In high school?Oh, no. No. I was a good girl in high school. A very good girl. He hadn’t seen—or felt—a tenth of the wrath I was capable of as a woman.
And titans of whatnow? Jesus, he was so full of himself. Over-fucking-flowing with his own importance.
“Pardon my ignorance here,” I said, the words, sickly sweet, tumbling out without my permission. “But shouldn’t you be sipping Mai Tais with heiresses on a yacht right now?”Shut up, Devi. Don’t say shit you can’t take back.“I mean,” I added carefully, “this agency is tiny. I’m sure we make up a mere nano-slice of Superior’s revenue.”
“So?” He didn’t even look up.
“So, don’t you have better things to do?”
“Better things than save my family from losing our money?”
Okay. Solid point.
He dropped the paper he was holding and it settled like a leaf on top of the others. It felt weirdly ominous, like every gesture the man made. His eyes met mine. “There’s a mess here, and I need to clean it up. After that,” he added dryly, “I’ll head back to the yacht.”
“And how long do you expect the cleanup to take?”
“I don’t know yet. It depends how deep the shit pile goes.”
Fuck me.
“Well, let us know if we can do anything to make your visit more comfortable,” I forced out.So you can get out of here sooner.
“I will,” he said, but I was already reaching for the door. “And I prefer Sex on the Beach.”
I stopped. “What?”
“On the yacht, with all the heiresses,” he said, as I turned to look at him again. He was reabsorbed in his paperwork. “It’s a cocktail.”
“Oh.”Right.
Was he messing with me? Trying to be cute or something? He couldn’t possibly be trying to make a joke.
Dane Davenport didn’t make jokes. The way I remembered it, he took himself far too seriously for that.
Did he just force the wordsexinto the conversation for absolutely no reason?
Did he see me checking out his arm porn?
Just cut and run, bitch, I urged myself. I needed to get out of this room.
I’d almost managed to slip out when he added, “Let’s have a staff meeting at the end of the day.”