Twenty-Four
Max
Agreeable, my ass. I'd never agreed to ending it all. She was sorely mistaken if she thought she could just throw away what we had and ignore it like yesterday's trash.
One thing Annalise didn't realize about me? I was persistent as fuck. Persistent, tenacious, and I never gave up. Ever.
I gave her a few minutes' head start, looking around the storage room, remembering how she'd banished me here in the beginning. She'd never asked me how I'd performed that miracle of organizing it from pure chaos in under a week, but I figured that question had to be coming at some point in the future now that she knew my identity. If she would ever speak to me again.
That was the key. I had to get her talking to me, talking with me again. But this time, knowing my real name.
She thought I'd just go back to Echelon, and we could forget this whole thing.
Not a fucking chance. We'd found something amazing together, and I would do everything in my power to make it work, to convince her that what we had was unique and one of a kind.
I texted my assistant, making sure all was well with the painting, and sure enough, it'd been delivered this morning. How long would it take for Venus to see it and react to it? And if she liked it, how long until we heard from her?
This project could take weeks, and oddly enough, I was okay with that, despite the long hours I'd have to pull at home, despite all the inconveniences. It'd be worth every second to have that time with Annalise.
Deciding it was okay to leave the storage room, I made my way back down the long hallway, grabbing a few snacks to take with me. Conflict made me hungry.
Once I had my bags of chips and little cookies, I went to my desk, D—I mean, Annalise's back to me, rigid, straight, and oh so ergonomic. God, she made me smile, the way she was so determined to put this all behind her. It was even evident in her posture.
She still hadn't noticed me.
But then, I sat down hard, my chair making that obnoxious sound she loathed, and she turned to me, her jaw dropping open in shock as her eyes darted back and forth between me and the snacks on my desk.
"What are you doing?" she whispered loudly, pulling out her earbuds.
"Getting back to work."
"But... but... I thought you were going back to..." She looked around, making sure no one was close enough to hear before dropping her voice even lower. "To Echelon."
"I will. Someday. But not yet."
"Not yet? Excuse me? Why not?"
I tore open a bag and stuffed a chip into my mouth, making her wait for my answer, enjoying the pink flush rising on her cheeks. "Why not? Because we're in the middle of a huge project. We have stuff to do. Stuff to finish."
"I didn't need your help before," she hissed. "And I certainly don't need it now. I can do everything on my own. As a matter of fact, I don't need that painting. You can just unsend it."
"Too late. It arrived at her New York place today. And I happen to know she's here right now and not at her home in LA. She might have already seen it."
Annalise's eyes widened. "Okay. Okay. Wow. I—I—"
She whirled back to her computer, and I peeked over to see her refreshing her email, once, twice, then yet again.
"Babe," I interrupted her. "You're going to push yourself over the edge if you keep doing that."
"It's none of your business what I do," she muttered, putting her earbuds back in, signaling the end of our conversation.
It was fine. She could be ticked at me. I understood. She needed some time and space to process this madness, and I could certainly give her that. To a point.
The rest of the day, she barely spoke to me. Actually, she barely spoke to anyone, and the refresh button on her email got a massive workout. Too bad I hadn't counted. It would have been fun teasing her. But why not do it anyway?
I couldn't resist sending her a text. "69."
She didn't respond, just glared at me after she read it.
So I texted her again. "That's the number of times you've hit refresh."
"You've been counting?" she huffed at me before turning back and doing it again, giving me the side eye while exaggerating the movement with her mouse. "Now it's 70, dork."
I hadn't been called a dork since seventh grade, and the fact that she said that, even though she now knew I was Max Sterling, weirdly made me smile.
Annalise Stratton didn't give a shit about my money or my name, and it was refreshing as hell. I'd kept myself completely closed off most of my adult life, not daring to trust a soul, with the exception of what's-her-name, and look how that turned out.
And here this woman beside me comes into my life, well, re-enters my life, not caring in the least about any of that, while at the same time accepting my family situation in a heartbeat.
We were so meant to be, it was ridiculous. She just needed a little convincing, a little coaxing, to see it.
"Oh, my God," she gasped. "Holy shit."
Her hand grabbed my leg and didn't let go. It kind of hurt, but it didn't matter because she was fucking touching me.
"What? What is it?"
Still clutching me, she began to read out loud in a stunned voice, "'Dear Cordelia and Jared, I can't thank you enough for the painting of my little Freddie!!!' Three exclamation points. Three . 'Max Sterling had it sent over to me, but he mentioned that it was your idea. And he had nothing but praise for you, especially you, Cordelia, saying how intelligent, hardworking, and dedicated you are with every author you work with. Oops, I ended on a preposition. Please tell me you have a ghostwriter I can work with because I have no clue how to write.'"
Annalise let out a giggle, then paused to catch her breath.
"'Anyways, I appreciate it and want to meet with you both this Friday afternoon at four. Sorry for the short notice, but I'm leaving the country this weekend and I'll be gone for a while working on my next film. All my life, I've fantasized about being a proper businesswoman in the Big Apple who dresses up and goes to important meetings. I want a big, fancy presentation with all the bells and whistles, in a big corporate meeting room, with flow charts and pie graphs and slides and all that office-y stuff. So please make my fantasy come true on Friday!'"
We both cracked up laughing, making so much noise we drew the attention of some nearby co-workers. And before we knew it, a crowd of people had gathered around, Annalise ecstatic as she told them to be prepared for Hollywood royalty to come to Insight Ink on Friday.
Needless to say, everyone flipped out at the big news, the buzz even drawing Veronica out of her office to see what was going on.
She beamed at us, more excited than I'd ever seen her. "I knew you two could handle it. Now you just have to nail this presentation."
Annalise looked at me with wide eyes. "Right. The actual presentation."
"You've got this," Mona said. "Just act like she's any old client, and do the same amazing job you always do."
I watched Annalise take a deep breath and nod. "Thanks for that. Okay. Yeah. We can do this."
That's my girl , I said inside my head. And excuse me, had she just used the word we ? As in her and me? Or...?
Once the excitement had died down and everyone drifted back to their desks, I smiled at her. "Congrats. I knew you'd make it happen."
"I didn't do anything except write a stupid email to you ."
"Well, it was your idea."
She shrugged. "So? All the credit goes to you. Unfortunately," she added, her voice snarky.
"Damn, Dee."
Rolling her eyes, she turned her back to me. "I've got to get to work."
"Wait. I still want to help you."
"Fat fucking chance."
"Well, even if you shut me out, I'm not leaving until this is done."
"Fine."
"Fine."
She'd need me at some point. I knew it. We'd already accomplished so much on this project, together, but we only had two fucking days before this big presentation, probably the biggest presentation Annalise had ever done in her life. And knowing her, she was under an enormous amount of stress and pressure that she was probably putting on herself.
For the last few minutes of the workday, she pounded away at her computer, firing off email after email and doing God knew what else, obviously in a frenzy to get everything done.
I sat there on my phone, answering emails, real emails, while I waited. As everyone slowly filed out, I stood up, stretched, and started gathering my things. I had no intention of leaving, only going to get the food I'd just ordered for delivery, but I wanted her to think I was leaving. Sort of as a test.
"You're leaving?" she asked, her eyes full of emotion as she glanced up at me.
"Yep. You don't need me, right?"
Her gaze faltered, and it took everything in me not to laugh.
She compressed her lips together. "Nope. I'm fine. Have a good night then."
"Yeah. You too."
She was the only one left, and I felt just a tiny bit bad about pretending to leave. But I wanted to prove a point to her. Well, hopefully. That we were a team. That we had amazing potential together. That she didn't have to go everything alone.
Without looking back, I left, feeling her eyes boring into my back, wondering if she'd call out to me. But bless her heart, she didn't. Man, that girl had some massive pride.
At the elevators, I bumped into someone unexpected, someone I'd forgotten about in all the excitement of the day—Nina from HR.
"Hello, Nina," I said, drawing out her name as we waited.
She pressed the down button repeatedly, a clear indication of her nerves. "Hello. How's everything?"
"Great. Just great."
"That's good." Her eyes flicked upward, watching the numbers above the elevator doors.
"So I discovered something interesting recently."
"Oh, yeah? Um, what's that?"
So Nina was going to play innocent, huh? "That the woman training me, you know, Cordelia Dole , well, she's doing the same thing I'm doing."
She gulped, literally gulped, appearing almost comical. "That is, um, interesting."
"It is. It sure is. It's also quite interesting that you didn't choose to tell me that when you arranged all of this for me."
Her face went a bit pale as she pressed the button again and again, and I resisted the urge to tell her that wouldn't make the elevator come any faster.
"Oh, um, well... uh, I had my reasons."
What game was she playing at? "Your reasons."
"Mm-hmm. My reasons."
And then she truly was saved by the elevator, loaded with people of course, making it impossible to continue the conversation. I kept my eye on her, though, as she twirled a strand of her hair the whole way down.
On the first floor, the elevator emptied out, a crowd of people in the lobby not helping the situation. But since people usually steered clear of me due to my height and title, I managed to find myself next to her as we walked toward the exit.
She bumped into my side in the chaos. "Oh," she said with a laugh. "Sorry about that."
"No problem. So about these reasons..."
"I can't really go into particulars," she began, her tone more confident. Clearly, the elevator ride down had given her time to recover a bit.
"You can't."
"No. But I will say this..."
There was a pause as we waited our turn at the exit, a funnel of people heading out the doors.
"Yes?" I prompted as we squeezed our way through.
"Don't forget to invite me to the wedding."
I stopped dead in my tracks as she shot me a huge smile and skirted away, leaving me standing there shocked that she'd had the gall to say that.
What the fucking hell? Was Nina from HR playing matchmaker all along?
A river of people began to flow around me, a stunned rock in the middle of the sidewalk. Not many people took me by surprise, not with a grandma who talked to her dead husband, not after navigating the ins and outs of the business elite, but Nina had managed to do just that.
Shaking my head, I couldn't help smiling because maybe Nina was onto something. Now if I could only convince the stubborn vixen upstairs.