Fucking perfect.
It occurred to me that I had nothing to gain from playing friendly with Emery. Nothing I could say or do would make her quit. She wasn’t built to back down from a challenge. She would cut out her liver and sell it on the black market if it meant she’d win a bet.
Delilah snapped the lid off the yogurt and pointed her spoon at me. “I’m starting to think the words ‘I’, ‘am’, ‘not’, ‘your’, and ‘assistant’ are not in your vocabulary. Also, she’s outside.”
“At this point, I’m convinced you’re making up words to fuck with me. Fucking hell.” Scrubbing at my face, I eyed my watch and exited out of the dictionary disguised as an Insta account. “How long has she been out there?”
“Fifteen minutes? I wanted her to sweat.” D shoved a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth with the grace of a hog. “She’s dressed like she wants something from you, and it isn’t a promotion.”
“Wait fifteen minutes and let her in.”
“I am not your assistant,” Delilah repeated with a smile on her face.
She set down her yogurt, walked to the door, and let Chantilly in without waiting the fifteen minutes I’d requested. She took a seat on her oversized wing-backed chair and didn’t bother hiding her amused smile as she watched Chantilly flick her eyes back and forth between us.
Chantilly stood by the door, the smile slipping from her face when she realized I wasn’t going to invite her in. “Umm…” She upped her smile until she resembled Jack Nicholson’s Joker and snagged a seat on the chair in front of my desk.
(For the record, Heath Ledger played the best Joker, and I’d annihilate anyone who argues with me about it.)
“That chair’s not yours,” I bit out, sliding my phone out of my pocket to message Durga.
Benkinersophobia: You’ve been quiet. Everything good?
God, I was acting like a pre-teen tool who wanted to get his dick wet for the first time. Truthfully, Durga could be an artificial intelligence playing games with me for all I knew, but she was also the closest thing to a relationship I’d ever had.
Three years of late nights, intense conversations, and phone sex.
I cared.
Okay?
Sue me. Take out an ad. Shout it to the world.
I fucking cared.
Chantilly shot up from the chair, stumbling her way out of the leather. “Oh, I thought… it was empty.”
“It’s Rosco’s. Rosco was just getting a sip of water.” I turned to the rat in front of Delilah’s desk, who had his hind leg raised. He lapped at his ass. “Weren’t you, Rosco?”
Delilah snorted when Rosco didn’t move.
Asshole.
I finally stared at Chantilly. “Who are you?”
Her expression reminded me a little of how I’d left Emery a few nights ago—mouth gaping like a whale shark’s. “I lead the design team?”
“Are you sure?”
“Huh?”
“If you lead my design team, you lead my design team. For God’s sake, don’t say it with a question mark. I feel embarrassed for you.”
“I-I… Yes, I lead the design team. I met you at the design meeting a few weeks ago. My name is Chantilly.”
“Why are you here?”
She toyed with the spaghetti strap of her short dress. “We need to bring on an additional member. Sally retired a few months ago, and Mary-Kate will be on maternity leave for the duration of this project. The workload is too high for two senior members, a junior member, and two interns. Our last project involved six people, and that location had less than half the square footage.”
“Fine.” I waved a hand to shoo her and returned to an email from a Singapore supplier. “Hire another junior associate.”
Chantilly still stood in front of me, unable to take a hint, reminding me of the idiots who responded to my one-word emails with paragraphs. “We ordered statuario flooring for the entire lobby and elevators. The tariff increase was more than we’d been expecting, so the budget is tighter elsewhere.”
I attached a jpeg of a middle finger to the email and replied to the supplier’s offer with one word—no. I’d sooner soak my dick in Icy Hot and visit a two-for-one brothel than pay triple the industry standard for subpar steel.
Durga messaged back. Finally.
Durga: It’s not you. There’s this guy.
I bit back a curse, aware of the audience. It wasn’t like Durga or I had been celibate these past three years, but it didn’t mean I liked to hear about another guy.
Benkinersophobia: He’s a pussy. Lose the guy.
Durga: You don’t know what I was going to say… -_-
Benkinersophobia: Don’t care. Don’t like him.
Durga: For the record, he’s a jerk.
Benkinersophobia: But you want him.
Her silence bugged the fuck out of me.
Benkinersophobia: There’s an obvious answer.
Durga: Yeah? What’s that?
Benkinersophobia: Hate-fuck him. Get the douche out of your system. Move on to a guy who deserves you.
Durga: Who deserves me?
Benkinersophobia: Not him.
When I glanced back at Chantilly, she was still talking. I tapped my Graff Diamonds watch and said, “Get to the point faster. You get one more sentence.”
She shifted from foot to foot, choosing that sentence wisely. “We don’t have it in the design budget to hire another designer.”
I needed Mary-Kate back. Mary-Kate didn’t talk. Where the fuck was Mary-Kate?
“Go above budget.” I pointed to the door. “Close it on your way out.”
“No,” Delilah cut in. “We need to stay on budget with this one. The Singapore contract may need more… leveraging.”
Bribes.
She meant bribes.
I fucking hated everyone.
I sighed, leaning against my chair to look at Delilah. “Hire another intern.”
Delilah didn’t bother returning my attention as she stated, “No.”
“Are you saying you won’t do it or I don’t have enough money to hire another intern?” I added a tab to my browser and double-checked my bank account.
Yep.
Still filthy rich.
“You pay your interns like they’ve been loyal employees for a decade. It’s basically like hiring an experienced employee,” her brow arched, “only you’re not getting an experienced employee.”
“You’re exaggerating,” I said, pulling up Emery’s employee file to verify.
Yearly salary—forty thousand, one-hundred, and forty-five dollars. Not exactly a windfall, but about two-and-a-half grand a month after taxes and withholding. Still, more than what Dad and Ma made working for the Winthrops.
Also, she had a trust fund that could make her overly-Botoxed mother weep, and Virginia had more plastic in her face than a delivery truck of Lean Cuisine trays. Just by working for Prescott Hotels, Emery had stolen a job that could have helped someone else.