Page 17 of Cartel King

She laughs out loud. “Well, you’ve gone from Orphan Annie to Scarlet O’Hara.”

My brow furrows. “Gone with the Wind?”

“Yeah, that was her line. ‘After all, tomorrow is another day.’ Sounds like a plan to me since I may have to let somebody go in the morning.”

I cock an eyebrow, and her smile falters. She observes me for a long moment before she carries on.

“Yeah, I have a publicist I hired for a project, and we aren’t in agreement. I may have to let her go if she won’t compromise. She’s patronizing as fuck.”

She shakes her head and rolls her shoulders back, pressing them down, forcing herself to relax.

“If you know what’s going wrong, then you must know what’s right. Why hire a publicist then?”

She looks up at me, and her gaze sharpens. It’s her professional business side I’m looking at now. Her chin notches up, and there’s true defiance in her gaze.

“I’m not beyond learning new things when I need to learn them. The woman doesn’t get that just because I hired somebody to do a task for me doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do it. It means I don’t have the time or the built-in connections in that area. If I wanted to be patronized, I wouldn’t pay for it. The woman is good at what she does, but she believes she knows more about this particular niche than I do. I thought that was true. That’s why I brought her on. Turns out she doesn’t. So, I won’t pay good money hand over fist for somebody’s mediocrity. I’m not risk averse. I just like my risks to make me money. I’ll take the tasks back on myself until I find somebody competent. Then I will farm them out and move on to the things only I can manage in my business.”

Our gazes are locked as though she dares me to disagree or to think she’s foolish. Or worse, incompetent. Instead, I think she’s never looked hotter, and my balls ache to pump my cum into her. It’s a good thing I’m not trying to run with this hard on.

“Sounds like the decision I would make, and so would most people. Hopefully, the conversation goes smoothly, and you get what you want out of it.”

She relaxes, and the tension eases away from her. I don’t know if she expected something else, and she’s relieved. Or if that was what she wanted me to say, and that’s where the relief comes from. But either way, she’s not as tense as she was a moment ago.

“I think you probably had a better day than I did, considering I dealt with an ex-spouse and maybe firing somebody. Am I right?”

If only she were. After my meetings with my brother and nephews, I dealt with a few more annoying matters and a trip to the out of business bodega we own in Queens. It’s not just a closed little corner grocery store. The basement doubles as our place where we handle the more unfortunate side of our business.

I had questions, and Pablo tried to get the answers. It was an exhausting waste of time since, as good as Pablo is at getting information out of the most recalcitrant, this guy was bratva and trained never to squeal. Except I made him sound like a stuffedcerdito—little piggy. I still have a few tricks up my sleeves even my head enforcers, Pablo and Alejandro, don’t. Pablo has fewer limits than Alejandro, but he still has some.

I have none. That’s not something Ellie can ever discover. I need to come up with something to say rather than the truth. It’s one of many lies I’ll tell her if we continue to become better friends—preferably something even more.

“I had a meeting with a business associate who thought he could out-negotiate me, and it turned out to be a waste of time. He had more to give than I did, and he wound up giving in. He just took forever to do it. We could’ve finished in five minutes if he’d cooperated.”

“Sounds quite a bit more familiar than I think either of us imagined.”

She’s being sympathetic. If only she knew how far off the mark she is.

“If you have a publicist, what are you trying to get publicity for?”

She doesn’t strike me as a social media influencer type, but maybe she is. I don’t know any, so I really shouldn’t make any assumptions. Her entire expression relaxes, and I know she’s happy to talk about whatever she does.

“I’m an author.”

“What types of things do you write? Self-help? Business? Finance?”

She laughs. “No, I write psychological thrillers.”

“That wasn’t what I expected you to say.”

“I don’t come across as the bloodthirsty murdering type?”

“Hardly.”

“I write some historical ones, but a lot of them are contemporary.”

“A lot of them? Do you have many published?”

“I do. This is my full-time job now. It has been for about ten years.”

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