Page 18 of The Player + The Pact = I Do

She sighs like I’m an exasperating little brother and not her boss. I don’t know if she’s like this with everyone, but it appears she’s borderline annoyed with me at least half the time I’m interacting with her. Lucky for me it doesn’t seem to impact her job performance.

“What crisis?” she asks suspiciously.

“I’m dealing with it. Don’t worry about it.”

“So basically you’re rejecting her because she works at Saks. I’m officially out. I’m not finding you a fiancée. Find your own future wife.”

It’s like I’ve tripped a hidden switch. Sometimes, Jules can be the most helpful woman on the planet, dedicated to making my office the very best it can be. At other times, she’s completely inappropriate and, frankly, rude. She’s lucky she’s good at her job.

She storms out of the office and closes the door behind her. She’s probably frustrated at her wasted efforts trying to find me someone to take to the awards.

I turn back to my emails to find Louis, manager of The Mayfair, has messaged. Since Jules started, he’s always gone through her, so his correspondence is completely unexpected.

I click open the message and scan the text.

“Jules,” I bellow again.

It’s like she’s been standing behind my door this entire time, because she pokes her head in immediately.

“Leo, how can I help?” she says like she’s Mary fucking Poppins.

“What did you do?”

She opens the door a little wider and steps through. “I’m sorry about before. I just had my roommate waiting and I was a little frustrated.”

We’re talking at cross-purposes. “Did you see the email from Louis?” I ask.

“No. Should I have?”

“Have you spoken to him?” I ask.

“About what?”

“The fact that you want his job?”

Her expression looks like she just smelled sour milk. “No. Why would I do that?”

“When’s the last time you spoke to him?” I ask.

“I’ve never spoken to him.”

“But you said you used to work at The Mayfair.”

“I did. But I only saw Louis once in the entire time I worked there. He never came out of his office.”

I sigh. Jules doesn’t strike me as a particularly gifted liar, and she’s never given me a reason not to believe she’s tellingthe truth. “So him sending me his resignation just now is a total coincidence?”

“He resigned?” Her eyes are usually barely visible beneath her thick-framed glasses, but they widen in shock. “Are you hiring? I’ll do whatever it takes. Hell,I’lleven be your fiancée for the awards ceremony.”

I can’t help but laugh. Jules isn’t my type. Not even for a night, let alone a lifetime. She dresses like she’s ninety, never wears a scrap of makeup and, well, she seems angry a lot of the time.

Jules isn’t going to solve my problems right now. I need to find a new manager for The Mayfair and a solution for the awards ceremony. And based on the seething look in Jules’ eyes right now, I’m going to have to figure it all out myself.

EIGHT

Jules

Leo Hart doesn’t think I’m attractive enough to play his fiancée. I saw it in his eyes when I suggested I take on the role for the awards ceremony. To be fair, I can’t blame him. Leo is a very handsome guy. But the fact is, the man hit on me when I was dressed as Mystique, so I’m not completely abhorrent to him. Maybe Sophia’s right, and I’ve been going a bit hard on the Granny-chic style. I just didn’t have the money to buy a wardrobe full of new suits that screamed “hotel manager” when I got hired on as Leo’s assistant. What Ididhave was enough money to get Ann Taylored to within an inch of my life at my local Goodwill.

---