“You have to be more specific given your record of sleeping around.”
“You’re the woman from Wharton.”
“Still too vague.”
“The one I asked out to Lloyd Finley’s party.”
“Bingo,” Violet says. “Now, fast forward to the night of that party, somewhere around nine o’clock, and you’ll understand why I want your heart on a platter. Maybe your cock, too.”
Now, I remember.
“We kissed in the gazebo.”
“Fast forward some more.”
I try to recall what happened after that. “I went back into the house. I talked to some people. I can’t remember who anymore.”
“Then allow me to help you. There was a woman. She was tall. Maybe five ten. Brunette. She was wearing a sparkly red dress.”
I remember her. “Kim Anderson. She was a swimmer. I was a fan.”
“Obviously.”
“She came up to me and—”
Violet puts her hand up. “I don’t need to hear the details. The point is you left the party with her even though you arrived with me. I had to call an Uber to get home.”
I see. Now it all makes sense. Violet hates me because five years ago when I was at Wharton—which feels like ancient history now—I took her to a party and I left her there.
Do I have an excuse? No. I was frustrated with her because she was being a cocktease. I had a case of blue balls. Then I met Kim. She was nice. She was willing. I took her back to my apartment. End of story.
Did I feel even a twinge of guilt for leaving Violet? I did. I tried to talk to her after one of our classes, but she avoided me. Then I saw her with some guy and I just assumed she’d moved on, and I did, too. It turns out she never did.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “But that was ages ago. We were students.”
“Grad students. We weren’t teenagers, so you can’t blame hormones for your behavior.”
“But we’re professionals now.”
“Apparently, that doesn’t stop some people from sleeping around.”
I roll my eyes.
“You haven’t changed,” Violet says. “I saw how the women in this place look at you.”
“That’s my fault?”
“They wouldn’t look at you like that, with that hunger and that hope, unless they had some kind of encouragement. You still sleep with one woman after another and then throw them away the morning after, don’t you?”
“Not as much as I used to.”
Violet laughs. “Like just three women per week?”
I don’t answer. “If you go out with me, I won’t sleep with anyone else. I promise.”
She shakes her head. “Nope. Not falling for that again.”
I sigh. “Violet, that was years ago. Can’t we just forget about it and start over?”
“No,” she answers firmly.
“I already said I was sorry. What do you want me to do? Kneel? Give you a foot massage? Buy you flowers? Whisk you off to the beach and write ‘I’m sorry’ a hundred times in the sand?”
“Wow.” She sits up and clasps her hands on her desk. “Maybe you should quit being CFO and write a book called 101 Ways to Apologize. I bet it would be a hit.”
“Do you want me to give you my job? Is that it?”
Her expression turns serious. “No. I don’t want you to give me your job, Mr. Hawthorne. I’ll take it myself. In fact, I don’t want anything from you.”
“So you’re just going to keep hating me for the rest of your life? Is that it?”
“No,” Violet answers. “That would be too exhausting. I already stopped hating you once, you know. When I was in Switzerland, I forgot about you. But you showed up and here I am hating you again. But I’ll stop eventually. I’ll go back to just pretending you don’t exist, to not feeling anything at all for you.”
“So you admit you still have feelings for me?”
“Hate. Disgust. All that ugly stuff.”
“Damaging stuff,” I say. “Why not just let them go and give me a second chance?”
Violet puts her hand on her chest as she snickers. “A second chance?”
I shrug. “Why not? Everyone deserves a second chance.”
“Bullshit.” Violet stands up and narrows her eyes at me. “If you think I’m going to give you another chance to make me feel like a fool and a piece of trash, you’re dead wrong.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“No. You’re not. End of conversation.”
Violet sits down. I draw a deep breath.
“Can’t we at least be friends?” I ask her. “We are going to be working together.”
“Which is something I never asked for. Do you think I want to work with you? But like you said, we’re adults and professionals, so yeah, I’m going to do my job and I’m going to do my best. And one day, I’m going to be CFO. It’s that simple.”
I scratch the back of my head. Really? She thinks all this is simple?
“I…”
Just then, I hear a knock on the glass door. I turn my head and see Stella stepping in. She stops as our gazes meet.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Asher. I didn’t know…”
“Can I help you?” Violet asks.
Stella looks at her. “You must be Violet Cleary. I’m Stella Quinn. We met in Zurich.”
“We did?” Violet asks as they shake hands.
“Right. You probably don’t remember me because I was in the background. I’m Ethan’s… Mr. Hawthorne’s assistant.”
“Oh.”
“He asked me to show you your apartment, so when you’re done here, you can—”
“Oh, I’m done here.” Violet stands up and looks at me. “We are done here, aren’t we, Mr. Hawthorne? Or is there something else I need to make clear?”
“No,” I answer. “You were very clear.”
“Good.”
She grabs her purse and leaves the office with Stella. After they’re gone, I sink into Violet’s chair. My gaze goes to the freshly engraved name plate on her desk.
Violet Cleary. Controller.
Who would have thought she was the same woman I left at a party years ago?
I’d go back and change that if I could, but I can’t. And she won’t give me a second chance. So what am I supposed to do? Just sit and smile while she glares at me every single day, spits venom at me every chance she gets, and plots to take my job?
No way. If I’m not going to have my fun, I’m not going to let her have hers. If she won’t play nice, then she has no place on the court, on my court. If I can’t have her, then she might as well get out of my sight.
Violet brought up a lot of things from the past, but she forgot something important about the present—I’m her boss. I can fire her. I won’t, because that’s no fun. But I will make her life such a hell that she’ll pack her bags and head back to Switzerland.
I gave her a chance to be a saint. She decided to be the devil. So fine. Let’s do this. Let’s give each other hell and see who has the last laugh.
I pick up the Baoding balls on her desk and rotate them in my hand.