Heartbreak Me by T.L. Smith Page 0,32

your date.” My mouth opens and then closes at his words. That makes no sense. How on earth would he know about that?

He’s ignoring all my questions.

Atlas is good at that.

“No. No, you can’t be my date. I don’t take dates.” I step back so there is distance between us. I don’t want to be next to him, smelling him, or being anywhere near him. Yesterday, watching him run was bad enough, in his gray tracksuit pants that outline more than they should.

Lord, help me.

It almost made me forget what an awful man he truly is.

Almost.

Then yesterday made me realize how much I despise him.

“Correction… you didn’t. And now you do.” He turns and walks back to his car. “Who was it… that you found?” he asks, which makes me believe he doesn’t know who it is.

“Mandy,” I reply.

He turns around, his hand on the door. “I didn’t expect that. I’ll clean it up.” He gets in and leaves.

I hate him. Really, really, hate him.

Clean it up. What the fuck does that even mean?

But then again, my fingerprints would be on the door and all over my sister’s room, so I guess cleaning it up is a good thing. Right?

Driving to work is quick, and when I arrive, Chloe’s already there. She is never there this early, and I’m always the first person here so I know. I’m not sure I can deal with her today. I don’t know if I can deal with much today, to be honest. My weekend, well, it was one for the books, that’s for fucking sure.

You know that book you burn and hope to never see again.

Yeah, that book.

Walking in, I see her at my desk, the computer’s turned on, and she’s working.

“Chloe.” She looks up at me, stunned, shuts the laptop quickly, and stands.

“You come in this early?” she asks.

I look at my desk and see numbers written everywhere. “What are you doing?”

Chloe looks where I am and grabs the papers. “Working out figures. Making sure everything matches.”

“Of course it does. Why wouldn’t it?” I ask her, confused. “I send them to you every month.”

“Because the turnover was down this month,” she says, quickly while putting all the paperwork into her bag, then coming to stand near me. “We have the influencer gala next week. I expect figures to be up again by then.” She walks past me and doesn’t say goodbye as she leaves.

Walking over to my desk, I open the computer and see she has transferred large amounts of money out of the accounts to somewhere else. She’s left enough in there to pay salaries but no extra to buy stock, which we will need.

“Hey, why did I cross paths with the evil boss?” Marissa walks in holding two coffees, and she hands me one. Sitting down, she kicks her feet up on the seat opposite me and sips from her coffee.

“Accounts,” I say with an eye roll.

“Of course. It’s the only time she comes in when it involves money.” It is, and they all know it. “At least she didn’t ask you to fire any other staff members.” She shivers. “That was awful.”

“Yep,” I say, agreeing. But I don’t think that’s the last of it. I have this feeling she will be asking me to fire someone else, or maybe even a pile of someones.

“Hey, my brother was asking about you.” She smirks, putting the coffee back to her lips. “I know you’re seeing someone, but when that ends...” She winks.

“What do you mean, when it ends?”

She looks around the room. “No man can keep up with being this amazing,” she says, looking at the flowers. “He’s bound to come up short somewhere.”

“Oh, he comes up short, do not worry about that.” I smile at her.

Just as she leaves, my cell rings. When I see no caller ID, I think it’s Lucy, so I answer.

“Mandy has been handled,” is all Atlas says.

I don’t like it that I know that voice now without even seeing his name. At first, I think he’s hung up on me, but when I pull the phone away, I see he’s still there on the line.

“She may have family. What did you do?”

“Do you think so fucking low of me,” he asks in a voice I’m familiar with. It’s his angry tone. “Answer me, Theadora?”

“Why do you care what I think?”

“You’re right, I don’t. I’ll see you next week.” Then the line goes dead.

Two days later, another expensive dress shows up for my work event the