CHAPTER SIX #2
"Okay." She uncaps her pen. "Then you'll need to settle down with a woman.
Soon. This week, ideally. Multiple public dates, consistent appearances, same face every time.
" She taps the pen against the file. "Adopt a dog.
Or a cat. A turtle. Something with a heartbeat that screams commitment and isn't a woman you're paying.
" She looks up. "Your file reads like a man hiding something, Mr. Sullivan.
The press has filled that blank with womanizer, which has served you up to a point and is now actively working against you.
The board has apparently filled it with — well.
" She glances, very briefly, toward where Rosalie is still studying the skyline.
"The point is, the blank needs to be filled before someone else fills it with something worse.
A relationship does that. A real one, or a convincing one. Either will work for our purposes."
She says our purposes like we have already agreed on something. Like I have already signed something.
I stay quiet.
Rosalie turns back from the window. She is very carefully not looking at me, which means she is thinking exactly what I think she's thinking, which is that this woman has walked into my conference room on her first day and diagnosed me with the same conclusion Rosalie reached, in front of my entire board of directors, using nothing but a thirty-two page file.
A turtle, I think. Something with a heartbeat.
"You want me to get a pet?" I say.
"I want you to appear human," she says. "The pet is optional, but statistically effective. People trust men who keep things alive."
Frank makes a sound that is almost certainly agreement.
I look at him. He looks at his notepad.
"Mrs. Monroe." I keep my voice level. "No disrespect to your efficiency, but that plan is a little too on the nose.
It screams cliché and overdone. Considering you're the best at what you fucking do.
" I punctuate it with air quotes, digging my grave a little deeper, because I still need to call my goddamn therapist. "I'd assume you know that's the oldest trick in the proverbial book and come up with something more original. "
"Mr. Sullivan, there is a reason it's overdone: because it works when executed properly." She doesn't miss a beat. "I am, however, open to your suggestions."
"My only suggestion is to go back to Houston and find another corporate carcass to circle."
Her head rears back like she's been slapped. I watch my words land exactly where I aimed them and feel like absolute shit about it immediately.
"Could you excuse us for a moment, Mrs. Monroe?" Mark is already on his feet, opening the conference room door before anyone can say anything else.
She walks through it in silence.
He waits at the doorway until she's cleared the corridor, then pulls the doors shut.
That's when everyone starts talking at once.
I hear them, but it's like they're speaking another language.
Every voice in that room coming at me at once and none of it landing because I've never felt more out of control, angrier, more like the walls I've spent ten years building are made of paper and she walked through them without even knowing she did it.
Blaire fucking Alexander is supposed to fix my image?
Fuck her.
She can go back to Houston. They can find someone else. There are other firms. There are always other firms.
"Bennet!"
Rosalie's voice cuts through the fog. I look up and find the room — varying degrees of disappointment and fury looking back at me, and I can't blame a single one of them, not really, but they don't know her.
They don't know what she is to me, what she did, and I don't give one single fuck that it's been ten years.
Some things don't have an expiration date.
"Please excuse me for a moment." I stand, button my jacket, and walk out the door with as much composure as I can locate on short notice, which isn't much.
The nearest restroom is down the corridor. I push through the door and grip both sides of the sink.
There is a sting behind my eyes that I'm working really fucking hard to contain before it spills over into something I refuse to give her. She gets nothing from me. Not my tears, not my business, not another single thing she hasn't already taken.
The door opens, and I know it's Jackson before he even rounds the corner.
Marcus Jackson has worn a lot of titles over the course of our friendship — best friend, personal trainer, CFO, certified pain in my ass.
He was the first real friendship I built when I got to Los Angeles, which says something about both of us.
He leans his back against the wall with his arms folded. "What the hell was that, Sullivan?" He catches my eye in the mirror. "I get not wanting to be managed, but holy fuck, man. Could you have been more of a dick?"
I hang my head between my shoulders.
"I know her. From high school." I keep my eyes on the drain. "She doesn't recognize me. I can't work with her, Jackson."
He's a couple of inches shorter than me, clean shaven, one of those blond haired, blue eyed fuck boys that women fall over themselves for. But he can be intimidating as hell, even with fifty easy pounds between us.
"I hate to say this." He pushes off the wall and puts a hand on my shoulder.
"But I'm going to say it anyway because that's literally my job.
You've got hurt feelings from shit that happened a decade ago, and I understand that.
But if you don't put your big boy panties on and deal with this, you're going to lose Meridian.
" His grip tightens. "She's the best. Her firm is the best. You don't have to like her.
You have to let her work." He meets my eyes in the mirror.
"Your anger or your career, man. That's the only choice on the table right now. "
With that, he pats my shoulder a couple of times and walks out.
And the tears I've been desperately trying to manage start to fall.