Page 11 of Meet Hate Love
“Please. All I have to do is drop it on the floor and do this…” A buzzing came from inside her purse. The tip of the dildo swirled around. “It has a remote.”
Shaking my head, I passed through the revolving doors and into the pristine lobby. “Your plan to distract someone is to throw a gyrating dildo on the floor?”
“Would it distract you?”
“It would, but so would someone pulling the fire alarm.”
We took the elevator to the thirty-seventh floor. All the while, Margot tried to convince me a sex toy was a better distraction than pulling a fire alarm.
“No one even bats an eye when the alarm goes off, Blake. It’s a lame idea.” And hers was hair-brained at best.
“Let’s just hope you and I are never in a life-or-death situation because we will one hundred percent die,” I said just as the elevator doors opened to the dark floor.
Without thetap tap tapof keys and the hum of the printer, it felt oddly quiet.
Retrieving the note from my purse, I turned the cubicle corner and stopped behind Vance’s chair, Margot right beside me. Of course, he would have an ergonomic support pillow. A framed photo sat beside his office phone; a picture of a white-haired lady in a daisy-print dress holding a cowboy-hat-wearing dachshund.
Guilt sprouted in my gut. Ugh, he was a person, wasn’t he? With feelings and a grandma and the whole gauntlet? He may have been an asshole—no. Not may have been. Hewasan asshole, but my trying to blackmail him didn’t make me a better person. It arguably made me worse.
“I can’t,” I said, dropping the blackmail letter to my side in defeat.
“Sure you can. It’s Vance.”
I thumbed at the picture frame. “He has a photo of a grandma and a dog in a cowboy hat.”
“And? It’s probably one of those stock photos that come in the frame and he’s just using it to make people think he’s not a soulless asswad. I mean, come on, Blake.” Margot waved her hand over his desk like a magician revealing a crappy magic trick. “The guy called you easy. And more important than a grandma and a wiener dog is the fact that this mofo stole—stole—your dream vacation slash assignment slash chance at banging a French man. He’s like the thief of joy. Thieves of joy deserve blackmail, Blake. You know this.”
And ever since I’d met him, he had been the stealer of all my joy. Of all my hopes and dreams and the best assignments, and the sick little fantasy I’d had that maybe he could be “the one” before I’d realized what a piece of work he was. He had been really charming the first few months of work.
Margot gave my shoulder the best friend, ride-or-die, reassuring squeeze. “This will be the best worst thing you’ve ever done.”
“Bestworstthing…” I nodded, reminding myself that the forecast for Paris next week was all sunshine and croissants, while Manhattan expected five days of thunderstorms and power outages. But even with that knowledge, I didn’t move.
“Jesus lovesallthe little children. Give it to me.” Margot snatched the slightly crinkled paper from my grasp. “Just so you know, I expect a T-shirt or a keyring out of this.” She yanked a piece of tape from his dispenser and used it to adhere the message to his phone. “And a voicemail with a muffled,huh-huh-huh, tittee tittee cwasant.”
“Stop with the accent, Margot.”
I stared at the note she’d taped to his phone, the full-color picture of Paul in front of the Alamo at the bottom center. That photograph was absolutely not work-appropriate, and if the seventy-year-old receptionist shuffled by and saw it, I was afraid she’d have a coronary. I could not have deathandblackmail on my conscience.
Shaking my head, I grabbed a Post-it note from Vance’s tidy desk and used it to cover the dick pic.
“Good move, Blake.” Margot patted my back. “Now it’s like an adult version of a lift-the-flap book. But instead of opening the barn door to see a cow go moo, you get a dick in front of the Alamoo.”
She had not just said the Alamoo… We were halfway around the cubicles when the door at the front of the office banged open. We both froze. Margot’s wide gaze met mine when the fluorescent lights flickered to life and a loud clang echoed through the workspace.
“Stop, drop, and roll,” she whisper-shouted, ducking to the floor.
Margot army crawled through the maze of desks while I shuffled after her like a cross between the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Igor. I caught sight of the janitor wheeling the bulky utility cart through the door as I darted to the emergency exit behind Margot.
“And now we go to Sticky Creme Donuts and wait…”
* * *
We gorgedourselves on donuts and coffee, making sure we didn’t show up at the office until we were ten minutes late, as usual, to keep down suspicions.
Margot dropped the bag of extra donuts on her desk, then pushed up onto her tiptoes, straining her neck to see over the divider. Her brows crinkled. “He’s not here?” she whispered. “And the ‘you know what’ is still there.”
Vance was always at work before we arrived. I tried my best to peek over, but I couldn’t see over the top of the cubicle. “I swear, if he calls in sick.”
