Chapter 16
THE AGENT
CHLOE
Two a.m.
There was no point in attempting to get a single wink of sleep with an impossible deadline hanging over my head.
I’d asked my new team to pull every headline, magazine article, and mainstream press piece that had been printed about Mr. Hudson over the past two years, and we were still drowning in hopelessness.
When I did this same task for my hometown mayor, the negatives were washed out by his endless good deeds, and I was able to find a passage to success from there.
For Dante Hudson? The river was flooded with miles of tales about his ruthlessness, and the only positives were scraps of sarcasm.
Groaning, I pasted “Billionaire Dante Hudson Blocks View of Pier with New Yacht” to the negative wall and headed to the break room.
Above the coffee machine hung a picture of Mr. Hudson shaking hands with another executive on a stage.
In small print, the words read: “Soulless Billionaire Shuts Down Another Apartment to Build a Complex for the Mega-Rich.”
I should just quit this job now…
As I stirred a shot of espresso into my cup, my new phone rang.
“This is Chloe Sterling speaking,” I answered. “If this is about the headlines, don’t tell me.”
“I don’t appreciate all the lies that The New York Post published about me at midnight.” Mr. Hudson’s deep voice caught me off guard. “This is unacceptable.”
“Okay…” I glanced at my screen, seeing a different number for him. “What does the new article say?”
“It’s your job to read these things before I do,” he said. “I could’ve sworn that’s why I hired you.”
LESS THAN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS AGO…
I held back a scream and sucked in a long breath instead.
He’s paying you over a million dollars, Chloe.
“Please give me a moment, Mr. Hudson,” I said, trying to sound polite.
I typed in the website, and the moment it loaded, I sent it to the printer for the negative pile.
The Biggest Beast in Manhattan Is Trying to Strangle Another Beauty.
“Hello? Miss Sterling?” he asked. “Am I talking to myself?”
“No, I’m reading…” I quickly skimmed, trying to find the “lies” he was talking about.
“Overbearingly wealthy ass who doesn’t need to purchase any more real estate.”
Check.
“He should start taking up some hobbies and leave the rest of us alone.”
Yep.
“We need to band together and find a way to launch this asshole into the sun?”
These are not lies…
“This is an absolutely terrible piece of journalism, sir.” I tried not to smile. “I’ll contact the editor and send them some nice, charitable things you’ve done lately. Speaking of which, can you give me three?”
Silence.
“Um…hello?”
“I’d rather you work on getting this entire article unpublished, Miss Sterling,” he said. “In addition to that, I need you to sit in on a meeting at the Central Condos at six thirty.”
“Six thirty p.m.?”
“No, Miss Sterling.” His voice was terse. “A.M.”
“Well, how am I supposed to finish this first task if you’re already asking me to do something else?”
“I don’t know, but figuring it out sounds like a personal problem.” He hung up without another word.
I calculated how much of his money I could keep for one and a half days of work so I could cut my losses, but it was far from enough.
I am so fucked.