Chapter Eleven
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Money moves me almost as swiftly as tears.
Amber
I nearly jump out of my tights when a shadow appears behind me, in my bedroom, while I’m seated at my desk. Squeaking, I jolt, finding Liam looking pissed with a hand on the back of my chair. “Why are you in my room?” I blurt.
“Door was open,” he mutters.
That is not a good reason.
I shove my hands in his face. “ Why are you reading my book?”
Grimacing, he straightens to avoid being stabbed in the eye. “I like your writing,” he mumbles. “Also, I wanted to see what was so important that you ignored my email. All day.”
Email? My brow furrows, and I throw a look toward my bed, at the nightstand where my phone has lain neglected. Wait. Did Liam just say he likes my writing? That can’t be true. He’s never read it.
Whatever glimpses he just snatched do not count as enough data to confirm or deny a favorable emotion toward my work. For starters, it’s a pitifully unedited draft . Also known as, bad by default.
His attention follows the line of mine while I am holding myself back from making sure I don’t have any raging typos visible on the screen behind me. Once he also presumably locates my phone, he sighs. “I had to fire my assistant today.” His arms cross.
“Oh?” The weight of what he’s just said computes. He had to fire his assistant. Something really bad happened at his work, and he had to fire someone whose position is somewhat vital in the middle of the day, without any plan. That is a situation that I will deign to consider falls within my wifely duties of support . “ Oh. ” Closing my laptop, I look up at him. “Are you okay?”
His dark gaze skids to me, and some of the tension filters out of his shoulders. He does not answer me. Instead, he says, “Salary starts at a hundred thousand. Eight paid holidays and two weeks PTO.”
I blink.
“Also, you look adorable. So adorable. Fifty thousand extra added to your salary if you come into work every day looking this adorable. There are salary deductions for beige .”
It clicks. “Are you offering me a job? As your assistant?”
“You can start Friday. Give you a few days to adjust your schedule from—” He flails a hand at my laptop. “— this , to waking up early, with me, and coming into work, with me.”
Now my arms cross. “I woke up at three today. Hours before you were up.”
“Did you sneak into my room and steal a glimpse of me curled up in bed?”
My nose wrinkles. “Absolutely not.”
Breath puffs from his nose. “Pity. I would have stolen a glimpse of you.”
“Because you, sir, are demented. I am not.”
“Don’t call me sir . You may address me as the light of my life or my will to live at work.”
Yeah, or I could vomit into my trash can. It’s all black, heavy, and shaped like a skull. Probably a pain to clean. “I don’t need a job. I have a job.”
“Your ‘job’ does not bring forth income.”
“ Yet .”
“How long have you been relying on yet , Bambi?”
Just short of a decade, but that’s not the point. The point is: “I don’t want to work for you.”
“I need you,” he says. “This is perfect. If you still hate me so much that you divorce me after our year agreement is up, I’ll still be able to see you most days at work. I’ll know you’re taken care of. I can make sure you eat. Even if you hate me forever, I’ll get to keep a part of you if you become my assistant. I need that.”
I desperately do not want that.
Before I can figure out how to say as much without crushing his oddly obsessed little scrap of a soul, he drops to his knees and takes my hands in his. “Please, Bambi. It’s an excellent work environment. My assistant only manages my schedule and appointments, answers emails. You love emails.”
“ You love emails. I prefer emails to other forms of communication, which I’m pretty sure would be required in an assistant position for a billionaire .”
“There’s no stress when you’re a billionaire’s assistant, Bambi. Anything you want, you can use my name and get. Struggling with writing and want a one-on-one interview with any favorite author? Two emails, maybe three, and it’s yours. I give you permission to fully abuse the power I’m offering you, just, please. Even if you quit at the end of this year when you intend to divorce me, you’ll have over a hundred thousand dollars total. Why pass that up when you already have to deal with me for about that long according to our agreement?”
“Because, Liam, I don’t have to deal with you while you’re at work. I value that blissful alone time.”
“You’ll write better in a work environment. Associating a business mindset with your author career is an important step toward making a livable wage.”
He sounds like a self-help book. I try to pull my hands from his. “No.”
“ Please. ”
“No! I don’t want to.”
“What will make you want to?”
I huff. “We are not bartering again, Liam. If you’ll recall our last argument, I’m fully aware how convincing you are. We’re married right now, for crying out loud, because you are so convincing.”
His brows furrow deeper. “I thought we’re married right now because I have a pool.”
“The pool is accounted for in your convincing power, Cutie.”
“I’m almost positive that with enough money I can get a pool put on the penthouse floor. I can have it designed so you can work directly from the water, like an adorable mermaid.”
My lips purse. “What part of my aesthetic says I want to be an adorable mermaid , Liam?”
Silence. Review. Sadness. He murmurs, “Mostly my heart says I’d like you to be an adorable mermaid, Amber.”
“Yeah, your heart needs to be checked.”
“Please, Bambi. I trust you. I need an assistant. It’s hard for me to keep an assistant. Most of them quit on me.”
Wow. That is a shocker, what with the great work environment and all. “Maybe you shouldn’t have fired your last one.”
“My last one was a patronizing, ableist—” He swears. “She directly said to me that one of my cutest employees, who is eighty-five percent blind , was just being entitled because she wanted to talk to me about accommodations.”
“She did what ?” I snap.
He nods. “That’s how I started my day. Please, Bambi. I’m not trying to manipulate you. I just need help, and you’re among the few people I trust. It’s January . This is our busiest season, and it’s falling over top of a thing that I’m allowing another employee to put on for everyone. I can’t add recruiting a reliable assistant to my plate right now. I have made my ulterior motives clear, but I also hope I’ve made clear my intent to make it worth your time.”
A hundred thousand dollars is a lot of motivation. Even if I want to believe I’ll be financially stable from my books by the end of this year, historically it’s taken me just under two years to get a book out. I don’t have a large backlist, so even if I have money to burn on figuring out ads, my returns might not be what I need them to be in time.
I wish I’d checked my word count before I closed my computer. At least then I could estimate how long it might take me to finish this draft, then I’d have some frame of reference on how badly I might need this opportunity.
I don’t think I’ve ever written a book this fast before.
But, still, I know I’ll hate it in editing, and who knows how long the revision and feedback processes will take. Once again, historically, it’s taken me so long to find good beta readers. The number of applications I get on top of how many I stop hearing from is…disheartening.
I’ll feel better with over a hundred thousand in the bank.
And, for the low, low, embarrassing price of wearing clothes that make me look like a joke into one of the most prestigious business buildings in the world, I can make that amount closer to two hundred thousand total.
I look down at my dress—the lace, the frills, the corset, my and Liam’s hands pillowed atop the crinoline beneath the layers and layers of skirt. Yikes. Okay. We’ll decide whether I’m beige or this later.
My attention lifts, and I take Liam in for the first time since he barged into my room. He is wearing all black. Vanta black. Jet black. Per usual. And, yet, his tie is blindingly red. So, I ask, “Why are you wearing red?”
His chin dips. He pulls a hand from mine and touches the tie. “Today, we wore red.” His finger slips into the knot, tugs. “It’s the…thing. That we’re doing. For team building. And because I want to. Don’t worry about it.”
Suddenly, it worries me immensely. I don’t mean to brag, but I have never once put team player on my resume. Just. In the spirit of transparency. Works poorly in groups almost got included, because I desperately did not want to be put on any group projects in a professional setting, but my mother told me to absolutely not do that.
Surprising zero people, I have quit two jobs due to looming group projects .
I am very bad at compartmentalizing my work. Whatever I decide to do takes up a lot of space in my brain however long I’m deciding to do it. I don’t come home from work . It sticks with me. I plan my entire day the evening before, step by step. I script tasks and conversations. Even bathroom breaks. Which my mother laughed at me for.
Normal people, she told me, do not schedule their bathroom breaks.
Thing is: I have not gone to the bathroom today. I have gotten four separate ginormous blue mugs of coffee, but I have not once peed. Those scheduled bathroom breaks are important. For my urinary tract.
“I don’t want to lose the pace I have on the book I’m writing right now, Liam.”
“The cowboy romance?” he drones. “Lose that entire book, Bambi.”
“No, not the cowboy romance,” I mutter, suddenly aware that I really need to use the bathroom, actually. “I’m writing…something else.”
“What?” he asks.
“Nunya business.” I slip my other hand free and scoot back so I can escape and obtain the sweet relief of my ink- dark bathroom. Which is themed specifically as ink . The entire bathroom spills from an inkwell on the ceiling, and quill pens with silver tips accent the interior. Locking myself inside the beautiful dark warmth does not stop Liam one bit.
“What if I mandate specific book-related tasks for you to complete each day before we come home?” he asks.
I state, “What if you let me pee in peace?”
Silence.
Great.
I pee in peace. I wash my hands.
The second the sink is on, Liam’s voice startles me anew. “You’ll see business progress by the end of February. Guaranteed.”
“Is that what you tell your clients?”
“No. They get to see progress overnight.”
I huff, dry my hands, and open the door, finding Liam with his shoulder braced against the wall beside it, glaring. He’s not acting like himself today. This situation with his assistant being horrible to his employee must have really gotten to him. “Why don’t I get to see overnight progress?”
“I am less familiar in your field, and it requires an understanding of your product, which you won’t disclose at the moment. I am allowing time to wear you down, so that we can actually get to work.”
I plant my hands on my hips, knowing fully I look like a little dark doll in a tutu and shredded tights. “I’m not going to cave in two months.”
“When are you going to cave?”
“ Never .”
Exasperated, he sighs. “Amber, I am world-renowned in this field.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re a branding company.”
“Yes, branding . The foundation of every successful business. Which is what writing is. Or what it could be. If you stop for just a moment and listen to me. It should not be taking you two years to produce a product.”
It takes me just under two years. And it takes many famous authors decades , so I’m counting my pace as a win. “Writing is hard . You don’t understand it. You’re all facts and figures and numbers and math . I got the emotion between us. I probably got your emotion, which is why I was stuck explaining everyone’s emotions to you for years.”
His dark eyes flinch, and I bite my tongue, backpedaling. “Sorry. I…shouldn’t have said that. You’re having a bad day.”
Slowly, carefully, he asks, “What, specifically, did I say that upset you, and why?”
“Writing is my thing. You don’t get to know how to do it better than me. You already know how to do everything else better than me. You don’t get to one-up me in the one thing I’m passionate about.”
“The tedium of creating an array of fake people with fake emotions that I then need to convince a populace are real would drive me mad. I am in no way suggesting I could ever write better than you, Bambi. My job…my passion if you want to call it that…is removing the emotional connection between a creator and a product. I kill the darlings. I assess information and statistics in order to build a marketable plan that aligns with your personal brand.” His hand lifts, cupping my cheek. “I have read every book you have published. They have made me laugh, and cry. I keep your paperbacks on the nightstand by my bed. I have highlighted every line that reads genuinely like you, not whatever genre box you were trying to fit yourself into, and when I miss you, I go through the highlights until the pages are stained and my heart hurts because you’re so far out of reach. I would not dream of competing with you in this.”
His heat soaks into my skin. As my venom evaporates, I remember… He claims to care about me. And even if his particular care is not always what I consider caring , Liam isn’t a liar.
He’s trying to help me.
And I’m, once again, not picking my battles well.
“I’m sorry,” I echo. “Can we start over?”
He nods. “Please come work for me, and allow me to weave curated tasks that will enhance your author business into your days.”
“And I’ll see results in two months, minimum?”
He lets his hand fall from my face, so he can offer it. “Results depend on your cooperation.”
Clinical. I grasp his hand. “I will quit without notice if I can’t stand it.”
“I appreciate this, Amber.” He lowers his head, touching his forehead to mine. “I’ll arrange and have the paperwork sent as soon as I can, so you can start on Friday.”
“Okay. Right now, I’m just focusing on writing the book. So I’m prioritizing word counts over admin. For all I know, I’ll come to my senses, scrap the whole thing, and go back to cowboys, so I don’t really want to think about any other stuff until I’m past the point of self destruction.”
“Can I say something that may not be met well?” His breath fans across my lips.
I hesitate. Normally, he doesn’t ask, because, normally, I assume he doesn’t know what he plans to say will be met horribly. Whatever he’s thinking right now must be absolutely awful. “I guess …?”
“I’d wholeheartedly prefer you scrapping whatever you’re working on in order to write gratuitous monster smut over you ever considering writing another cowboy again.”
“Yikes,” I breathe. “Who ruined your first rodeo?”
“Nobody. I think cowboys are cool. You do not.”
That is an understatement. “Are you implying that monster smut is more my speed?”
He smiles; it brings more reassurance than I want to admit. “Very much so, yes. It would be scorching. I’d have to lie in the snow while I color all the pages in.”
“Please tell me you were joking and have not actually read my work.”
“I was not joking. I have read your work. Many times over. And the highlighter I use to pick out the most Bambi moments…is pink.”
How dare he. “How dare you.”
Pulling back, he takes my hand gently in his and turns, heading toward my bedroom door. “How dare I, indeed. If you find my behavior monstrous, use me as inspiration. For your monster smut.”
“I will not be writing a monster smut, much to your chagrin, clearly. Where are we going?”
“You just remembered for the first time today that bathrooms exist.”
What a useless fact. “So?” I ask.
He glances back at me. “Have you eaten?”
“Absolutely.”
His gait does not slow as he totes me out of my room and down the hall. “ What have you eaten?”
I press my lips together. “…beans.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“My brain is happier working when I don’t eat. When I eat, it gets sleepy.”
“Yes. Because you don’t eat often enough, and so it crashes when you finally do feed it.” He guides me down the stairs; I don’t know why I’m allowing it. “Want me to cook you something here, or take you out?”
It is in this exact moment I remember…that Limoncella wanted me to arrange to have dinner with the three of us. Oops. She’s gonna kill me. Clearing my throat, I say, “ Actually …” And slip my hand out of Liam’s. “…can we crash my sister’s place and steal her food? She wanted to meet you, have dinner here, but I didn’t know if you’d be comfortable with that, so I said I’d talk to you about it, but then I forgot.”
“I’ve already met your sister. She’s one of my clients.”
“Right, but she wants to meet you. As, like, a brother-in-law.”
Liam’s smile dissipates. His brows rise. His eyes widen. He looks at his clothes, smooths a hand down his loosened tie, takes it out completely, and shoves it in his pocket. “Her words, not yours, I’m sure?”
“Oh yeah. One hundred percent.”
“She…approves of me? As a brother?”
“I think she wants a yacht for her birthday.”
Liam, bless, nods, deathly serious. “A yacht. I can do that.”
“ Can is not synonymous with should , Cutie.” I twist. “Let me change and we can get going.”
He catches my hand before I can make it a step away. “Why do you need to change? It’s your sister. She’s… You know.”
Boy, do I.
“She lives a few blocks down from your office, which means walking through downtown to reach her. I am not wearing crinoline in public. Also, this is sleeveless. There’s snow on the ground. I’ll freeze to death.”
“I’ll grab your cloak.” He squeezes my hand and looks at me, while cosplaying a sad person. “You’ve not let me admire you in your adorable new clothes. If you disappear and put on more beige, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle it today. My breakdown will be unavoidable.”
“That’s fine. I’ll drive.”
Formless things traipse through his eyes—his evil, evil eyes. They close, then he lets me go.
I wait, watching him, certain all the evil I just saw was calculation, figuring out exactly what he needed to say in order to sway my opinion. Nothing comes for a long while, then his eyes reopen, finding me unmoved.
He scans his clothes again. “Do I also need to change?”
I glance at his suit. It’s not even wrinkled. “No? You look fine.”
“Then?”
“You’re being weird,” I say. “You just stopped yourself from saying something. Why?”
“I stopped myself from getting my way . For your sake, there must be limitations to my selfishness and my demands.” Tucking his fingers in his pockets, he smiles at me. “I tolerate you, Bambi. I want you to be comfortable in public. That is to imply—I’d prefer only I witness any discomfort, so that I may either eliminate it…or thoroughly and privately enjoy it.”
There’s my Liam.
Sighing despondently, I rock my head back and groan as it rolls full circle. “I will refrain from selecting beige ,” I mutter. “Compromise.”
“Compromise,” he echoes. “I recall that from my years of poverty.”
“ Poverty . We both grew up middle class, Liam.”
“Sometimes, my parents decided I did not deserve my allowance, and I lived in squalor.”
Sometimes, my parents laughed at me when I mentioned how other kids got an allowance, then my father would pawn off his chores on me in exchange for far below minimum wage. It wasn’t until I offered to mow the neighbor’s lawn that I learned that such a task did not, or should not, result in a dollar of income.
Working hard for pennies. As if that doesn’t sound familiar.
Maybe life is nothing more than the learned traits of youth.
Anyway…with that thought in my head, I change my clothes.