Well, complete dirtbags did seem to attract each other so that made sense. Kinsey had read up on the divorce and how it impacted Archambeau before accepting the job, but there hadn’t even been a hint of this fuckery.
“The last five hires quit within a month because of him,” Billie said. “Leigh is working on a plan to change things, but it’s taking time—so long story short, hang in there. Gavin’s days are numbered.” She cocked her head and shot Kinsey a considering look. “I know that expression. You’re thinking about walking now. Trust me. You don’t want to do it.”
She may not want to—this was her dream job, well, minus the asshole boss—but quitting before she’d signed a lease, got attached to the city, or spent any more time having inappropriate thoughts about Griff Beckett seemed like the most logical plan.
“Why not?” Kinsey asked.
Billie’s smile was megawatt bright. “Because once that man gets his comeuppance, everything is going to change.”
Uh-huh. In Kinsey’s experience, only movie villains ever got what they deserved. In real life, it was the working stiff who ended up getting the shaft. “You’re quite the optimist.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I just hate bullies.”
“That we have in common.”
After a long pause, Billie asked, “Should I still walk you up to HR?”
Kinsey should say thank you but no thank you. It was the smart plan, but damn it, despite her IQ and her less-than-great experience with jerks in lab coats, she knew that feeling bubbling up inside her. It was hope, the best and absolute worst thing in the world. God, she was such a sucker, but there was no way she could look Billie in the eye and say good luck with the asshole but I’m out of here. She couldn’t abandon her any more than she could leave Griff to fend for himself in his dating bet.
No one knew like an outsider how important it was to know someone had your back. Besides, women had to stick together if there was ever going to be change.
“Absolutely.” She nodded more emphatically than she felt. “Let’s go to HR.”
Billie draped an arm around Kinsey’s shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. “I knew I was going to like you.”
Kinsey followed Billie down the hall to HR, sending up a quick prayer with each click and clack of the other woman’s heels.
Please Lord, don’t let this blow up in my face.
Chapter Sixteen
Griff
Griff was halfway through reading the morning reports on his iPad while working through the question of what in the hell Nash was really up to with this bet when he walked into the conference room he shared with his cousins for their weekly Beckett staff meeting—also known as shit talking each other while stuffing their faces with the best bagels in the city.
Nash was at the espresso maker set up on the credenza, steaming the milk for his double espresso latte—the one thing he did in perfect and utter silence. He lifted his chin in greeting when Griff set his iPad down in front of his usual chair about midway down the ten-person conference table.
Dixon sat at the head of the table, a black coffee in front of him, and he slathered cream cheese on a toasted everything bagel. “You’re late.”
Griff swiped a blueberry bagel off the tray in the middle of the oak table. “I had stuff.”
He carried the bagel to the toaster set up on the credenza along with a fresh pot of coffee, orange juice, and a chilled bowl of mixed berries. Even with his back to them, he could feel the weight of their stares. The fact that he’d ignored their texts last night about the bet had only delayed the inevitable, but that was all according to plan.
He had his cousins exactly where he wanted them to figure out what was really going on. Nash was up to something, and the surest way to get him talking—not that it was that difficult—was for Griff to keep his mouth shut. So that’s exactly what he did.
His bagel popped up from the toaster, and he stayed silent. He unwrapped the foil on a tab of butter and spread it over the bagel and didn’t move his mouth. And when he loaded up his plate with strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries until they surrounded his bagel like a sea of fruit and then walked back to his spot at the table? Not a fucking peep, no matter how many weighty and expectant looks he got from his cousins. It wasn’t hard; it was pretty much his MO for life.
As his dad loved to tell him, nothing was gained when Griff opened his mouth. Everyone figured out then that he would never be as intelligent as his father, according to said sperm donor.
“Sooooo,” Nash said, dragging the word out as he crossed over to his chair opposite Griff’s and sat down, coffee in hand. “The situation with Kinsey.”
Situation.
Yeah, that was one way to describe it.
A solution that was eluding him was another.
Then there was the one he’d come up with last night while staring at his ceiling until the wee hours of the morning: a total and complete clusterfuck.
“It was her idea,” he said around a bite of buttered bagel.
And a damn good one. If she was anyone else and if he’d given two shits anymore about winning the bet. As it was, it was going to be six dates of shoving how he really felt down in some deep, dark hole so no one—least of all Kinsey—figured out that he was in love with her like the dumb-ass his dad always said he was.
“She’s engaged?” Dixon asked, having demolished his bagel in record time even for him.
Griff nodded and shoved half the bagel in his mouth, not that he needed any help not saying anything.
“And that doesn’t bother you?” Nash asked, ignoring the latte in front of him that he usually drank with all the reverence of an Ice Knights fan getting to view the Stanley Cup.
That he wasn’t but was instead focusing on Kinsey’s engagement had Griff’s hackles up. He wasn’t in the mood for Nash’s games. The man always thought he knew things better than anyone else.
“Why should it?” Griff said with a hefty dash of extra snarl. “Should help me win.”
“No,” Nash said, shit-eating grin firmly in place. “The way to win is not to be in love.”
Griff stabbed a series of blackberries with his fork, his brain going in fourteen directions at once but his aim true as realization sank in. It was so fucking obvious—how in the hell had he missed it? Everything lined up in his head. It really was the perfect way to interpret the rules so that Nash won the bet. Clever bastard. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Griff was the one stuck in the middle of Nash’s trap, he would have admired the simplicity of it all.
“Just as there’s nothing in the rules that says the date can’t be someone who is already attached or someone you know,” Dixon said, not realizing that Griff had worked it all out already. “There’s nothing that says that Kinsey has to return your feelings.”