Emery’s sudden reentrance into my life reminded me I needed to get more hands-on with my approach to revenge. Fika had disappeared, and I was no closer to finding Gideon than when I’d hired him four years ago.
Worse—Fika knew where Gideon was, and I had wasted four years trusting the wrong guy. Again. Who knew what else he had kept from me?
“Did you hire a private investigator?” I asked Delilah, pulling up my correspondence with a Singaporean diplomat on my laptop.
I’d never actually wanted Prescott Hotels. It was a responsibility I’d taken on because I needed the money to fund all my other projects. My penance. The charities. The revenge. I created Prescott Hotels with illegal money, building new hotels and buying and remodeling old ones across the world.
But this project—Singapore.
I wanted it.
Badly.
Two years ago, on a scouting trip in Asia, the plane made an emergency landing in Singapore. Delilah and I ate dinner on the top of the highest building. Feeling like a god staring at the specks of cars and buildings below, I decided I wanted it.
I wanted to buy the building and remodel it as a hotel. Even as a bidding war began against Black Enterprises and I knew it would get expensive, I didn’t back down. We greased palms, exchanged emails with all the top contractors in Asia, and set up meetings with dozens of local vendors.
I felt the project within my grasp, and if I could feel happiness, I would have.
“Did you hire an investigator?” I repeated when it became clear Delilah had ignored me.
She paused in front of my desk, a small container of Greek yogurt in her hand and a biodegradable spoon in the other. “Yes, Master. He’ll update you when he finds something, Master. Anything else I can do for you, Master? Massage your hands, Master? Spoon-feed you lunch, Master? Schedule your annual prostate exam, Master?”
“Point taken and ignored.” I minimized the Singapore files and pulled up my folder on Gideon. My eyes skimmed the trade data for Winthrop Textiles, trying to pinpoint what didn’t feel right.
Delilah returned to her desk, an oversized Parnian we’d had shipped here a few days after the design staff meeting. “Chantilly asked for a sit-down, and before you ask me to relay any messages, no. I am not your assistant.”
Ignoring her last sentence, I ground out, “Tell her no.”
I exited out of the document, knowing I’d find nothing if the S.E.C. couldn’t. Before I could stop them, my fingers pulled up Emery’s Insta account. She had three followers, @TheInaccessible as her handle, a feed full of words I was sure didn’t exist, and a bio that read, Scratch here to read my status.
Other than that, no pictures of herself. The only twenty-two-year-old to roam this Earth without ever having taken a selfie.
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.
Maybe I could pay my interns less, but maybe I could also become a corporate welfare shill that contributed to problems like my parents’.
No, thank you and fuck you very much.
Delilah scribbled her signature on the bottom of something and added it to the mountain of papers on her desk. “I’m not exaggerating.”
Chantilly’s head ping-ponged between the both of us.
I asked, “What’s my net worth again?”
Delilah dropped her Conway Stewart pen and spooned yogurt into her mouth, not bothering to wipe it when a clump fell to her desk. “Not as high as you’d like to think, considering how much of it you give away. I shudder to think of a world run by you. Is fiscal responsibility in your vocabulary?”
Yes, and so is penance.
I bit my tongue.
This fight was a long time coming, but I wasn’t having it in front of Jessica Rabbit’s desperate long-lost cousin.
“You do charity work?” Chantilly fluttered her lashes at me and fingered a strand of hair. “I donated blood to the Red Cross a few years ago.”
I spared her a glance. “Chasmophile, you’re embarrassing yourself.”
Spiky nails the color of blood dug into the upholstered back of the three-thousand-dollar cantilever chair she’d tried to sit on. “It’s Chantilly.”
Delilah set her pen down and watched us with her full attention, amusement lighting up her eyes. “Who confuses Chantilly for Chasmophile?”
Good question. I had no answer.
“If anything,” she continued, “you’d think it would be Chartreuse.”
“Oh, you’re so funny, Delilah. Chartreuse.” Chantilly paused mid-laughter, fingers indenting the chair’s upholstery. “What does chasmophile mean?”
Delilah mocked a patient smile that reeked of condescension. “A lover of nooks and crannies.”
Oh.
Emery.
Always Emery.
She’d worn a shirt that said ‘Chasmophile’ when she went through her Twilight phase, reading in every corner of the house, migrating with Virginia’s movements. Wherever Virginia was in the mansion, I’d always bet Emery sat in the exact opposite end of the house, legs curled up against her chest as she read in a little nook.
And I was about ready to donate my brain to science to cure whatever ailment made it continually think of Emery.
“Delilah,” I began.
“I know that tone enough to know I’m not going to say yes.” She turned to Chantilly. “Cover your ears.”
“What?” Chantilly’s eyes begged me to save her.
I didn’t. “Cover your ears, Chartreuse.”
Delilah talked back to me. I let her. Enjoyed it, even. But she knew not to do it in front of others.
“Relocate a temp from your office to design,” I said as soon as Chantilly covered her ears.
“I don’t think so.” Delilah stapled a stack of papers together with the vigor of a running back diving into the end zone. “We’re busy enough as is.”
“You, perhaps?”
“Ha. Ha. You’re so funny. You have a career in stand up if your hotel fails—and it will if you continue to pay employees more than their positions call for and exceed project budgets.”
For the record, I paid well because the company had started out hiring from a pool of the poor half of Eastridge. The half that suffered most from Gideon’s betrayal. What was I supposed to do? Pay every non-Eastridge employee less?
Delilah leaned down to pet Rosco when he pawed at her shins and continued, relentless, “And in case you’re not joking, and I know you’re joking because you cannot be serious, I can’t afford to relocate one of my temps. I’m already working remotely here, which is a hassle that cuts into my time. Plus, I am busy renewing my contract with my husband.”
“You mean your wedding vows?”
“No, I mean my contract.” She dragged the word out like I was an idiot for not following.
“You have a relationship contract with your husband? Who does that?”
“Lawyers. The asshole wants anal written into the contract this year.”—Chartreuse choked on her Evian. I’d forgotten she was even here—“I want two kids.” Delilah turned to the redhead. “Chartreuse, honey, I said cover your ears. I won’t repeat myself.” She turned back to me. “We’re entering negotiations.”
“How about no anal and no kids?” I suggested, returning to my mounting to-do list. “It’s a win-win situation. He doesn’t have to wipe baby asses, and you don’t have to take anything up your ass.”
“You’re saying that because you don’t want me on maternity leave.”
“You’re the head of an entire department.” I pulled up a folder on my laptop, opening Mary-Kate’s employment file. “Come to think of it, so is Mary-Kate.” I swore as I read. “A year of maternity leave? Are you fucking serious?”
Standard maternity leave in the states ranged from zero to twelve unpaid weeks. Paid leave if you lived in California, Rhode Island, or New Jersey, but we didn’t, so what the fuck.
“You told me to write up the company’s employee contracts. So, I did.” She rested her smug-as-hell face on her knuckles as if she hadn’t just told me the company overspent on employee salaries earlier. “Do you expect women to pop out babies and head back to work, milk leaking from their nursing bras?”
“I knew I should have hired Earl Haywood.” I tucked back a smile, knowing the mention of Earl would piss her off.
“Earl Haywood has a beer belly from drinking at work.” She mimicked his permanent drunk sway. “Plus, his name is Earl. Hay. Wood. But by all means, hire him and watch your company crumble.”
“Um,” Chantilly raised one hand, waving it a little like a preschooler who needed to use the restroom. “Can I uncover my ears yet?”
“No,” I said the same time Delilah said, “Yes.”
Chantilly dropped her hands and shook them a little, like pressing them to her ears had caused an ache. “So… can I hire someone new?”
Delilah arched a brow at me before turning to Chantilly. “No need. Mr. Prescott has agreed to become more hands-on with the project.”
I should have said no.
I should have hired someone else.
I didn’t.
Instead, I nodded because Emery worked in the design department, and I needed Gideon’s location even if I had to pry it out of her unwilling fingers. Plus, I wanted her miserable, and nothing made her more miserable than my existence.
“See you bright and early tomorrow, Chasmophile.”
