CHAPTER NINE
BLAIRE
I've spent the better part of the last twenty-four hours on a Bennet Sullivan life tour, and I need a hot meal and eight hours of sleep.
The dating angle will help — it's the right move; I stand by it — but it's going to be a heavier lift than the file suggested.
In social circles he's known as the billionaire bad boy who treats his money like a problem he's actively trying to solve: drugs, women, trips that make the tabloids for the wrong reasons, the fountain.
His public persona has been running unchecked long enough that it's calcified.
People believe it because he's never once contradicted it.
I can see why his board is losing faith.
What I can't see — and this is the thing that's been sitting sideways in my brain since yesterday — is anything before ten years ago.
Nothing. No early career coverage, no high school glory days mentions, no hometown profile pieces, no digital footprint of any kind before Sullivan I can see the seams. Colt is running out of legal leverage and pivoting to emotional, because emotional is where he's always had the most success with me.
He knows exactly which version of himself to present and for how long.
I know all of this.
It doesn't fully help.
I get up off the floor, pad to the front door sliding on my robe and platform sandals.
I need to eat something real. Something that requires a plate.
I make my way down the hallway to the elevators, heading to put in a takeout order at Verona.
It's just past seven. My meeting with Bennet is first thing in the morning and I need sleep before I can be useful to anyone, including myself.
The elevator doors open.
And of course, there he is. I should have just used the butler service.
I hadn't really looked at Bennet in the conference room yesterday — not properly, not the way you look at someone when you're not busy managing a roomful of board members and a client who's trying to decide whether to cooperate. I was in work mode. I was reading the room.
I'm not reading a room right now. I'm standing in a hallway in my pajamas at seven PM and Bennet Sullivan is six feet away dressed in all black — button up shirt open at the collar, ink visible at his chest, tailored blazer, trousers that do absolutely no justice to what is happening with his thighs.
Holy hell.
I clear my throat. Step into the elevator. Professional. Composed.
"Mr. Sullivan." I nod.
He says nothing. His expression is unreadable.
The doors close.
I catch my reflection in the mirrored panel and audibly gasp.
My eyeliner has migrated south. Significantly south.
The streaks from earlier have dried into something that belongs to a Halloween costume.
My robe is open over pajamas I've been wearing since yesterday — small coffee stain on the left side that I'd forgotten about.
My hair has been in a bun for approximately eighteen hours and is staging an active revolt, pieces escaping in every direction possible.
The two of us stand in silence for exactly one beat.
"Hot date?" Bennet asks.
His voice is completely neutral. His face is completely neutral. I close my robe.
"Takeout," I say. With dignity. What remains of it.
"You have a butler that could have done that for you."
"I'm aware, thank you."
Another beat of silence. The elevator hums downward. I watch the floor numbers change so I don’t look at him and absolutely do not look at my reflection again.
"You might want to—" He makes a vague gesture toward his own eye.
"I'm aware of that too."
"Just flagging."
"Noted, Mr. Sullivan."
"Am I supposed to trust you with my image when you can barely manage your own?"
I turn to face him.
Anger, irritation, and frustration bottle up in my shoulders all at once. I open my mouth to tell him to fuck right off — and then his eyes dart to my lips and his tongue runs briefly along his bottom lip, and whatever I was about to say dissolves completely.
Just as quick as whatever that was, it's gone.
He looks me up and down like something he's deciding whether to step over, top lip curling. "There's a lot riding on whatever it is they hired you to do. If you can't do it, we'll find someone who can." A pause. "Get your shit together, Mrs. Monroe."
The way he says it.
Mrs. Monroe. Like the name itself has offended him. Like it tastes wrong in his mouth, and he wants me to know it.
I am speechless. Genuinely, completely speechless, which has not happened to me in a professional context in years.
His jaw is tight. His fists are closed at his sides; the tension running up his forearms — and he is looking at me with something that feels a hell of a lot like anger. I back out of the elevator on instinct, our eyes still locked.
The doors close and he’s gone.
I stand in the lobby with shaking hands and a gambit of thoughts running through my mind.
I don’t know why I thought I could do this. It’s not the right time. I’m never this fucking fragile and every time I interact with this man, I’m on the verge of tears by the time he’s done shredding into me.
And I don’t know what the fuck that even was.
Not the words — I've had difficult clients say worse. It's the delivery. The specific heat underneath the cold of it. The way Mrs. Monroe came out of his mouth like an accusation aimed at something I don't understand yet.
People are dismissive. People are rude. People are territorial about their image and take it out on the person hired to fix it. I've seen all of it.
That wasn't any of those things.
That was personal.
And I have no idea why.
I pull my robe closed, walk to the Verona host stand, and order the ravioli to go.