Fractured (Not Quite a Billionaire #2) (34 page)

If you wanted to win big, you didn’t just look at the bottom line. You looked at the top line. You went for the big win, and you backed yourself to get it.

“Play hard or go home,” I said into the silence. “We’re going to play hard. Straight up the guts and over the line. Thank you all for your efforts. Meeting’s over.”

Hope

I couldn’t believe I’d said all that. Henry had been more than clear. “You’re not talking,” he’d said before the meeting. “You are the assistant. You are taking notes.”

I’d said, “I understand.” And what had I done? I’d talked. I’d done more than talk. I’d
ranted.

And, yes, I got that I’d probably be forgiven by Hemi, if not by anybody else. But even Hemi…

His expression while I’d spoken so out of turn, so inappropriately, against everybody else in the room, against
him,
hadn’t said
forgiven
one little bit. And when I picked up my laptop and prepared to walk out with everybody else, he looked at me and said calmly, “Wait a minute, please, Hope.”

No choice. I had to set my computer back on the conference table, the ring on my finger flashing out a multi-carat message to my supposed colleagues as they filed out, barely glancing at me.
Special privileges,
it said, not to mention
going to get nailed hard on this table
. Or maybe that was just the message
I
got.

You want to talk about tokens? You want to talk about nerves?

Hemi waited until Henry left, closing the door softly behind him. Then he just looked at me. I was standing, one hand on a chair back for support, because I was feeling a little dizzy. He was still sitting at the head of the table, still as stone in his black suit, all powerful shoulders and strong thighs, hard expression and hard muscle.

Motionless. Waiting.

“I know,” I finally said. “I was here to take minutes.”

“Oh,” he said, “is
that
why.”

“But you asked me for my opinion,” I said. “You shouldn’t ask if you don’t want to hear.”

“No,” he said, and my heart just about stopped. “No,” he said again, “it was good, what you said.”

“Oh.” My knees were trembling some now.

“Take off your dress,” he said.

My mouth opened, and I didn’t move.

“Now,” he said.

“I…” I started to say, and stopped. Everybody else would be in the elevators. Talking about the meeting. Talking about me.

“Hope,” he said gently, “do I have to tell you what will happen to you if you don’t do what I say?”

All I wanted was to do exactly that. He was pure dark power, and I couldn’t resist him.

“No,” I finally said.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me as if I hadn’t spoken.

I was more than shaking now. I was weak. But I picked up my laptop and said, “You’re driving, and I’m drawing the line. That’s our agreement. Well, I’m drawing it now. No. I have no credibility. I need it. I’ll see you at seven.”

And I walked out.

I wanted to go straight back to my cube and have everybody see me do it, thirty seconds after they got downstairs themselves. Unfortunately, I was forced to change my plans.

The wait for the elevator was endless. I kept expecting Hemi to appear behind me and…what? Drag me back into the conference room? Sling me over his shoulder, carry me back in there, dump me onto the table, and rip my dress off? He’d looked fierce enough to do just that.

Too bad. It was time to discover if my “no” meant “convince me” to him, or if it really meant “no.” If he truly loved me, if we were going to work, “no” had to mean “no” every single time, no matter how much he wanted it, no matter how mad he was, no matter how wrong he thought
I
was. We had a power imbalance already the size of the Grand Canyon. If we didn’t have respect, we had nothing.

I waited, then waited some more, so tense I was nearly vibrating, until the elevator doors finally opened with a musical
ding
and I stepped inside.

He hadn’t come. He was letting me go. He got it.

The relief was worse than the tension. I punched the button for 52, leaned against the mirrored wall, tried not to shake, and failed. My stomach roiled, I could feel the sweat forming on my forehead, and I actually got faint.

Stop it,
I told my bleached face in the mirror, the knuckles that shone white where my hand gripped the silver railing.
Calm down.
But I couldn’t. For one awful moment, when the elevator dropped and my stomach dropped with it, I thought I was going to throw up, or pass out, or both.

Note One. You are a professional.
Unfortunately, the thought couldn’t make it past the waves of nausea and faintness. The doors opened, and I stumbled out on my too-high, too-slim heels and turned blindly in the direction of the ladies’ room.

I made it inside and into the farthest, biggest cubicle, latched the door, set my laptop down in the midst of the germs, grabbed for a seat protector and threw it onto the toilet seat, then sank down, dropped my head between my knees, and waited it out.

How do you spell “overreaction?”

After a couple minutes, when the blackness had receded, I sat up, pulled a wad of toilet paper off the roll, wiped my damp face with it, and tried to gear myself up to go back out there. People who wanted to be professionals, who were aiming to be members of the team, didn’t hide in the bathroom after every confrontation like little girls who’d been sent to the principal’s office.

Just one more minute, though, until I stopped shaking and my stomach settled down. One more minute.

One minute too long. I heard the outer door open, and then the voices.

“Wonderful.” Cold, brittle tones chipped from ice. “We’re all going to be here until eight every night for the next month, not to mention being the laughingstock of the Paris show, just because the CEO’s who-me little Mary Sue thinks the world should be all rainbows and unicorns, and he’s doing his thinking with his big brown dick.”

If you’re guessing that was Maggie, you’re guessing right. I heard some laughter, too. A little shocked, a little gleeful, and from more than one person. What, they were having a party out there?

Great. What a position. I hadn’t needed to hear that. I didn’t need any more reason to hate Maggie, or any more confirmation of how unwelcome I was. And I was feeling sick again.

“To be fair.” That was Gabrielle, her voice cool, not laughing. “It wasn’t her idea, it was his. And you can say ‘big dick,’ if you have to go there. Don’t say ‘brown,’ though, or I’m going to have no choice but to bitch-slap you.”

Not everybody was horrible, then. Good. Time to go.

Unfortunately, they weren’t finished. “Sorry,” Maggie said, though it didn’t exactly sound sincere. “I don’t see him like that.”

“Like what?” Gabrielle asked, her tone more glacial than ever.

“Whatever,” Maggie said. “That’s how you get to be a trophy wife, though, I guess. Sit in his meetings, agree with everything he says, and tell him how brilliant his
instincts
are, when everybody in the room who actually has a clue and a track record is telling you the opposite.”

“No, I think how you get the ring is by letting him do you in the ass over the table
after
the meeting.” I recognized the voice of Victoria, Maggie’s BFF, who hadn’t been in the meeting but had clearly been brought up to speed. There was some slightly shocked laughter at that, and Victoria mewed, “Ooh, Hemi, it hurts. I’m so tiny and fragile, I can’t take it.”

“After
the blow job,” a familiar voice, but one I couldn’t place, put in. “’Hope, could you wait a minute, please? And get on your knees so I can shove my dick down your throat?’” While I was still reacting to that one, she added in her normal tone, “But you’ll want to tone it down, Maggie. I noticed it in there, and I’ll bet little Hope did, too. Don’t let that sweet act fool you. She got Martine fired, you know.”

“She didn’t get fired,” Maggie said. “She quit. She got a better offer.”

“That was the party line, sure,” the voice went on. “But she told me what really happened. Hemi made her hire Hope, and when she expected Hope to do her job, Hope went whining to Hemi, and he turned around and fired Martine for it. That’s why Simon’s terrified to ask her to do anything now, and why we all have to pick up her slack. Hope had no degree, no experience, and no skills at all except whatever’s got Hemi whipped like that. She was ridiculous at the job from the beginning, Martine said. She was slow, she made so many mistakes it wasn’t funny, and she didn’t even come in half the time, but it didn’t matter. There was nothing Martine could do once Hope decided she had to go. So be careful. And,” she added, “don’t tell anybody I told you. Martine swore me to secrecy. She was afraid Hemi would hear if she talked, and he’s got a long reach.”

“You’re doing a great job with that,” Gabrielle drawled. “Big ups on keeping her secret.”

“I’m telling you because you need to know,” the voice countered. “Everybody got the picture today. He
is
thinking with his dick, and if you want to keep your jobs, you’d better remember that and start sucking up to Hope. Today she’s in that meeting, telling him to redo the whole launch. Who knows where she’ll be next week? Who knows what she’s telling him right now?”

“Once her mouth’s not full anymore,” Victoria said with a snigger.

“Whatever,” Gabrielle said. “I’m out of here.”

I’d been sitting there, holding my breath, nearly paralyzed with shock. And then, suddenly…I wasn’t. I’d had enough. I flushed the toilet just to give them that first horrified moment of realization, picked my laptop up off the floor, and stepped out of the cubicle.

Four women. Maggie, Victoria, Gabrielle, who’d been halfway out the door but had evidently turned back, and the most vicious one, the woman who’d given the presentation. Cherise. All of them frozen in shock except Gabrielle. “Well, hi there,” she said, a slow, satisfied smile appearing on her face.

“Hello.” I set my laptop down on the counter and washed my hands, taking my time. Soap, and scrubbing, and rinsing. They weren’t chasing me out.

“Ah…” Victoria said. “We were just messing around, you know. Joke.”

Maggie didn’t say anything, just looked like she wanted to slap me, but Cherise said, still cool, “You have to admit, you screwed us all over in that meeting. You have no idea how many hours I spent on that presentation. Just letting off steam, that’s all.”

I looked at them wide-eyed like the innocent, who-me little Mary Sue I was, grabbed for a paper towel, and asked, “Sorry? When was that?”

“Nice job showing your class, ladies,” Gabrielle said. “An apology might work better, you know? And what they’re trying to say,” she told me, “is that they’re not happy about all of them except you betting wrong today.”

“Speak for yourself,” Maggie snapped, clearly too rattled and much too angry for prudence. “Good job sucking up, though, Gabrielle. Way to go. And may I just add that the way
I
was raised, you announce your presence if other people are having a private conversation. It’s called eavesdropping.”

“Oh?” I asked. “Were you having a private conversation? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.” Then I dropped my paper towel in the trash and hit the door.