Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 55860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“What do you need?” I say, aiming for a tone just north of boredom.
I am not warm and friendly. I don’t tell her to have a seat or offer her a bottle of water from Ronnie’s mini fridge. I stand there, my hands braced on the desk, and wait to hear what she has to say, all business and absolutely no pleasure.
“I need—not help exactly. Advice, or options,” Serena sounds a little uncertain.
She’s giving me an opening to tell her what to do, to give my opinion of her situation. It leaves me off balance for the blink of an eye before it registers what she’s doing. She’s appealing to my position of power and giving me the chance to ‘guide’ her out of a thorny situation. Somehow, she seems to have decided that she can manipulate me into thinking I’m in charge just long enough to find her young and vulnerable, endearingly in need of my wisdom and protection. Because I don’t for a minute think she’s asking for my help. She’s too damn smart for that.
I don’t change my expression, not so much as a quirk of an eyebrow, when I meet her eyes. They are a little too wide, and I think she’s trying for a Disney princess kind of innocence.
“Try again,” I say, “That gambit was bold, and it nearly worked on me. If you hadn’t thrown in the wide-eyed innocent look you might have gotten away with it.”
“Shit,” she says, “It was my best hope.”
I take a seat in the chair. “Pretending to be helpless? If you’re going to try that, don’t walk in here ready to do battle for your dad and accept a job on the spot. Don’t prove yourself up to the task by being competent at everything we’ve thrown at you. You can’t walk that back to act overwhelmed. A bluff like that only works when I don’t already know the cards in your hand, Serena.”
“If you’d believed me, what would you have told me to do, advice-wise?”
“I can’t imagine anything I could suggest that wouldn’t piss you off even more.”
“Why not?” she says, color rising in her cheeks, “Why shouldn’t I be mad? I’m paying a pretty steep price for my father’s problem.”
“That’s your choice. Law of the animal kingdom, sweetheart, survival of the fittest.” I’m half-waiting for her to take a swing at me for calling her sweetheart.
“That’s bullshit,” she says, “The lion catches and kills the weak gazelle. They don’t capture it and torment it first just for fun. That’s the law of the wild, for the hunter and the hunted. It’s necessity, not cruelty. This is torture. Coming here day after day knowing it will take forever to pay off this debt when any halfway decent bookie would’ve turned my dad away.”
“Phil’s an excellent bookmaker. I wouldn’t vouch for his decency though, not even on a good day,” I concede.
“You’ve got all this power and money, you can’t just let one guy float? Or do you need more cash so you can buy more cars and shit and show off?”
“I have enough cars. I’m not looking for a new toy,” I say.
“Aren’t you though?” she challenges, “I’m not an expert, but rich boys like you, they like the drama. Otherwise, life’s too boring.”
“Do you think I’m here because I’m bored? I have plenty of work to do elsewhere.”
“No, I think you’re calculating,” she drops that word and pauses a minute to see if I react. When I don’t, she smirks and continues. “Not like it’s a bad thing. I think you do things with intention. You seem like you’ve got a plan all the time."
“What’s my plan, do you think?” I steeple my fingers on the desk and wait.
“I can’t figure it out. Face value is you’re here because you’re helping out a friend even though it’s clearly beneath your pay grade. I mean, look at you. You don’t spend a lot of time in places like this.”
“Why do you say that?” I ask, more eager to hear her assessment of me than I care to admit.
“Your suit for one thing. It looks like something a celebrity would wear like, oh here’s Austin Butler or Ryan Gosling or somebody just striding through a fancy hotel lobby in a Tom Ford suit,” she shrugs. “You look like a million bucks, but you’re slumming here. Why not send one of your underlings to look after the place? Why sit at a table and wait for me to take your order every night? I stay awake thinking about it.”
“You lie awake thinking about me?” I say, my voice slow as a cat toying with a mouse. She realizes what she’s said and rolls her eyes.
“Yeah, I just said so. It’s not like I’m fantasizing about you or something.” she groans. “You don’t have to look so pleased about it. You’re good-looking and mysterious. I can’t be the only woman wondering about what makes you tick.”