Chapter 10 Eliana #2
“So much more than that.” He’s leaning forward now, hands flat on the desk, and if I didn’t know him any better, I’d say he’s set aside his normal bitter-and-broody act for the wide-eyed optimism of a real visionary.
“You could spend a week there and never have the same experience twice. Not just eating, but experiencing. Waking up senses you never knew you had. That’s what no one else understands—”
“That people with too much money will pay anything for novelty?”
He stops. Looks at me. “You’re trying to piss me off.”
“Is it working?”
A muscle jumps in his jaw, but his eyes are almost amused. “You’ll have to try harder than that.”
I hate that I’m impressed. I despise that I can see so clearly the vision he’s painting and understand at once why investors are throwing literal billions at it.
Most of all, I loathe with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns that, when he talks like this—passionate and brilliant and absolutely certain of a world that does not yet exist—he becomes dangerously, deliriously attractive.
I force myself to focus on the contract. Things are gonna get rapidly out of hand if I let that train of thought keep barreling down the tracks.
“Let’s talk terms. Hand me that red pen.”
“They’re all there. One million dollars for ninety days of employment.”
“Yes, but what does employment mean?” I start marking up the first page. “This says ‘available as needed for Project Olympus.’ That’s unacceptably vague.”
“It’s necessarily flexible.”
“It’s grotesquely exploitative.” I look up at him. “What’s to stop you from calling me at three A.M. because you had a thought you just had to share?”
“Common sense? A healthy respect for my own REM cycles?”
“You shredded my resignation letter. ‘Healthy respect’ clearly isn’t your strong suit. And we all know you sleep like a vampire anyway.”
His brow furrows as he starts to ask, “Huh?” but I ignore him and keep going.
I cross out the line and write in the margin. “‘Standard business hours plus pre-approved overtime. Weekends by advance notice only. Submitted in writing. In triplicate. In person.’ Just to be sure, ya know?”
He comes around the desk to read over my shoulder, and just like that, he’s too close again.
I can feel the heat from his body, still warm from the kitchen work.
I’m honestly kind of amazed that he even needed an oven for tonight’s little escapade—he throws off enough heat in his own right that I’m sizzling like a duck breast myself.
Is that a Bastian thing? A male thing? A medical issue he should probably get scoped out? A medical issue I should probably get scoped out?
Am I distracting myself from the fact that said heat is doing strange things to my insides?
The world may never know.
“That’s not how project launches work,” he says with a scowl.
“Tough, ‘cause that’s how this one’s going to work.” I keep scribbling in red pen, doing my best to ignore how his proximity makes my handwriting shakier.
His hand comes down on the page next to mine, index finger pointing to another clause. His sleeve brushes my arm, and I have to focus very hard on not reacting.
“This section about travel—”
“How kind of you to put it out! I was just getting…” I draw a huge red X through it. “… there. Ah, much better.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Oh, Mr. Hale, I assure you that this is a very serious and formal process. ‘Travel’ can just mean so many things to so many people. How much travel? How many days’ notice? What class of accommodation and why is it ‘first class, all champagne costs included’?”
“Someone’s in a mood tonight.”
“‘Someone’ doesn’t have a damn thing to lose,” I fire back.
Finally, he lets that smile steal all the way across his face. Between the wry grin and the floppy hair, he looks more approachable than I’ve ever seen him before. It suits him.
“You’ve gotten very bold now that you have leverage.”
I turn my head to look up at him properly, which is a mistake, because he’s closer than I thought. From here, I see that his eyes aren’t only blue. They also have tiny flecks of gray, like static on an old TV screen. Snow on a frozen lake.
“More like that I’ve gotten very devil-may-care now that I’m dying.”
His face transforms again. I’m almost giddy at learning that he is in fact capable of displaying normal human emotions. Tonight alone, I’ve seen a smile, a scowl, a laugh—and now, what is this? Is that pity? Sympathy?!
I shudder and turn away. Thanks but no thanks. I don’t need any of that. Least of all from him.
“I’m not actually dying,” I clarify in a mumble. “Just being dramatic.”
We work through the contract line by line, negotiating each clause with an attention to detail that makes me understand why he’s successful.
He pushes back on some changes, accepts others, and occasionally offers alternatives that are actually better than what I proposed.
Our hands brush when we both reach for the same page.
Our shoulders touch when he leans in to read a section.
“The confidentiality clause is too broad,” I say as we flip to yet another section. “It basically says I can never speak about anything that happens at Hale Hospitality ever again.”
“That’s the point of confidentiality.”
I squint up at him. “What are you so afraid I’ll reveal? Your secret hatred of donuts?”
“The fact that I offered a woman a million dollars to stay at a job she hates, among other things.”
“You’re right,” I say. “That would be terrible for your reputation. People might think you actually have a heart.”
“Fortunately, we both know better than that.”
Do we, though? The longer we stay in this dim office, with Chicago settling to sleep far below us, the more it feels like everything I thought I was getting myself into is taking a different shape.
I find myself asking questions I never would’ve considered in the light of day.
Does Bastian Hale have a heart? Is he doing this for the reasons he says he is? Am I?
“Fine.” I sign the last page with a flourish. “Your very expensive hostage is ready for duty.”
“You’re not a hostage.” He takes the contract and adds his signature below mine. “Hostages don’t negotiate their terms.”
“What am I then?”
He looks at me for a long moment, and I could swear he’s about to say something real, something honest, something that finally acknowledges whatever this strange tension is between us.
It doesn’t happen. Instead, he slides the signed contract into a folder. “You’re my project manager. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“For ninety days.”
“For ninety days,” he agrees.
We stand there in his too-perfect office, the contract between us like a wall and a bridge all at once. The moon is coming up outside, brining Chicago in shades of silver. Soon, I won’t be able to see that moonglow anymore.
But right now, I can see everything. Things I want to see. Things I don’t.
And as we stand there, me and him, him and I, there’s a moment where anything could happen. With a word or a gesture, either one of us could acknowledge what’s really happening here, this strange, chemical pull that has nothing to do with all the things we just wrote in red pen.
But the moment passes, like they always do, and I gather my things to leave.
“Ms. Hunter?”
I pause at the door. “Yes?”
“I’m glad you’re staying with us.”
There’s something in the way he says it, some weight to the words. Like he’s acknowledging that we’ve crossed some invisible line, entered into something neither of us quite understands.
“Thank you, Mr. Hale.”
I leave him there in his sterile office with his signed contract and the grease burns on his knuckles. But as I wait for the elevator, I can’t shake the feeling that something fundamental has shifted. We’re still playing our assigned roles, but the script has changed.
For ninety days, I belong to Bastian Hale and Project Olympus.
The question is: What exactly did I just sign up for?