Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,95
of times have the three of us said that we want to do Confession somewhere neutral, rather than be summoned to your office every day like fucking minions?”
“Always with the exaggerations, Bumble. You’re such a fucking drama queen. It must have been growing up with five sisters that did it, because you sure as hell have a flair for hyperbole, like a member of the fairer sex. It hasn’t been thousands of times.”
“Even without being in possession of a uterus, you of all people understand the role of drama in storytelling, Raine. It’s how we pay our bills, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m exaggerating to make a point.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Of all the thousands of times you guys have tried to change the location of Confession, how many times have we held it somewhere other than in my office? A small handful, that’s how many, so excuse me for being suspicious of what the fuck is going on right now.”
I found myself pacing the boardroom like a competitive walker, while the other three sat around the oversized table, looking like they were at a fucking funeral.
“You’re excused, but this is neither an ambush, nor an intervention.” Beck held his hands up as he spoke, as though the gesture of faux surrender was likely to calm me down any. It didn’t. “At least, not the kind you’re talking about, though now you mention it, I do think you’ve been hitting the hard liquor and the powder a little too ‘enthusiastically’ lately, but that’s a conversation for another day.”
If it wasn’t about my ‘recreational’ activities, the only other thing that could have gotten their underwear in this much of a bunch was Noa.
“Well shit, if this is about me still fucking my PA, you can chill the hell out. I know I’m not supposed to shit where I eat, but this isn’t like the Charli and Breanna situation, or any of the previous situations, for that matter.” I paused to look at each of them in turn. To say that they didn’t look impressed was putting it mildly. They could eat an entire field full of dicks.
“We’re not working directly together except for on the Carlisle campaign, as you’re more than aware—and we all know how well that’s going. The client has a total hard-on for our work, and we’re going to clear up in ad awards season, so it’s totally a win-win. And obviously she’s not my PA any more—I have Simon now—so there’s literally nothing to see here.”
“I believe his name is Stephen, isn’t it?” Dillon interjected.
“Simon? Stephen? Who gives a fuck? The main thing is that he isn’t Noa. And for the record, that girl has her head screwed on, and she’s not about to lose her mind and wig out, no matter what goes down between us, pun very much intended.”
“Funny that you’re normally so succinct in your copywriting, yet here you are rambling and verbose. So totally out-of-character. Reading between the lines, all that verbiage was Rainespeak for the fact that you like her.” Dillon narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he spoke.
“What? You’re out of your goddamned mind if that’s what you got from what I just said, but to be sure that you get it this time, let me assure you, that all of that was nothing more than me saying, if it ain’t broke... and this isn’t broke, so I have every intention of leaving things exactly the way they are.”
“Well, nice to know that you’re totally ‘not’ falling for an employee, but that’s actually not why we called you here,” Nate took over again.
“Okay, well as much fun as this Rumple-fucking-Stiltskin game has been, I don’t have all day to sit around guessing why you bunch of sweaty ball sacks are wasting my time right now. So, why don’t you just cut to the chase, put me out of my misery and tell me why the hell I’m here.”
“This is why.” Nate slid a piece of paper across the boardroom table at me.
I took a few moments to read it, then folded it back up, and put it on the table in front of me. “How interesting, because this looks like a piece of private mail that is addressed to only one person around this table, and that’s me. It also looks an awful lot like something that is the definition of not your fucking business. You know tampering with the mail is a federal offense, right?”