Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
They probably knew all along, those rumors they never mentioned getting to them even before we met. Every interaction where I thought I was making a friend at work comes back to me rapid-fire. They were probably cozying up to me in the hopes of garnering favor with Dylan. I thought I was getting further and further away from the consequences of that night at the fundraiser, but the truth is, it’s been following me like a shadow cloud just outside my field of view.
The realization makes my stomach churn.
I have to get out of here.
I flag down the bartender, hoping to tell him I don’t need that beer after all, but he sets it down in front of me right as Hector stops at the bar. “Here, this one’s on me,” I tell him, pushing it his way. “I’m heading home.”
“Oh! Thanks, but you’re gonna miss my much-anticipated return to the stage,” he teases with a grin.
“Next time,” I promise, knowing there won’t be a next time.
I weave through the crowd toward the door, feeling alone in the sea of people. People I thought were becoming my friends.
That’s fine, I tell myself. I have friends—Maggie and Ami—and they’re great. In fact, they’re probably sitting at home on the couch right now, eating whatever Ami pulled the birthday card on to talk Maggie into ordering. I can go home and join them, knowing they care about me and don’t give a shit about who I’m sleeping with as long as I’m happy.
And I have Dylan, who would spread me out on his desk, his bed, or any damn place and remind me that I’m beautiful, desirable, and his at a moment’s notice.
In the big scheme of things, the fact that my co-workers know isn’t all that catastrophic. But outside, as the night air blows through my already cold body, it feels like a big deal. A big, ugly, cringey deal that’s going to ruin my reputation again right as I thought I was rebuilding it.
CHAPTER 21
DYLAN
“Tamara,” I muse as she sits across from me at my desk, “have you heard anything about the Faulkners?”
“You mean like have there been any declarations of blood vendettas or swearing that you’re going to have your head mounted on a flagpole outside the Faulkner Building?” she asks wryly, her eyes never lifting from the tablet in her lap. When I don’t answer, she glances up. “Nothing more than usual. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just… curious,” I reply, and Tamara slides her glasses down her nose to peer at me pointedly. “What?” I ask.
“Mr. Sharpe, you have me in this position because I do good work,” she says, which is an understatement. Tamara’s worth twice the money I pay her, and she’s already compensated at a rate higher than anyone else in an equivalent position in the Financial District. I know this because she knows this, and whenever she’s come to me with a request for a pay raise, I sign off on it without question.
“You do good work. I would agree.”
“I’m able to do that because you keep me in the loop on things,” Tamara continues, “and in the years we’ve been working together, you’ve rarely kept me out of the loop without good reason.”
“That you know of,” I counter.
Tamara snorts. “Mr. Sharpe, there’s three kinds of secrets in this company. There’s secrets that you and I keep. There’s secrets I keep. And there are secrets you think you keep. And when you’ve ‘kept’ information from me…” She pauses, doing tiny air quotes around ‘kept’ to let me know that it’s in appearance only. “I’ve trusted your decision making. I understand why you’ve done it, usually for my own plausible deniability.”
“I’m not going to hang you out to dry,” I point out.
“But you don’t need to hang out there alone, either,” she says, her tone lowering. “Look, Mr. Sharpe. Truth is, I haven’t heard anything through my network about you, at least in the past few weeks.”
“The past few weeks?” I ask, and she nods. “Before that?”
“Mr. Sharpe, it’s not my place to say, but your hiring of Miss Hill so soon after the charity event? With what I heard?” She tilts her head, giving me what I suspect is akin to her Disappointed Mother look. It’s weak at best, given her daughter is a good kid who needs little correction.
“I see,” I say flatly, warning her.
Tamara likely thinks I have a blind spot where Raven is concerned and that the rumors she heard are the only reason I hired Raven. If that’s the case, she’s dead wrong. She may even wonder if, like many other men in positions of power, I’m getting played by a younger, pretty woman who sees me as a shortcut to Easy Street. She’d be wrong there too.
Tamara can read my face, and she rushes to reassure me that my concerns are unwarranted. “You have never, and I truly mean never, given me reason to question one of your business decisions,” she says. “You might have had ulterior reasons for hiring Miss Hill. But I’ve heard the talk around the office about her being some sort of investment phenom, and I’ve seen her work and how she works with people in the office. She seems to be a good fit here. The research she was assigned…”