Page 73 of Return Billionaire to Sender

I say, “What you want, it’s not money and it’s not the building. It’s not your excellence at this job. What do you get when I spare the building, little country mouse?”

She watches my eyes; for a fleeting moment, I think I’ve hit a nerve. “I want for you to have empathy,” she says. “And I want for that empathy to move you to save the building. And the video isn’t ridiculous.”

Without so much as waiting for my reply, she wakes up the screen and hits play.

A million dollars.

Is it possible that she’s just that passionate about achieving this outlandish goal that she has set for me? Is this the dark genius of Corman and his lawyers? Instead of paying somebody to torture me, they simply found the most idealistic, impossible-to-buy executive coach in existence? And she designed this program specifically for me?

Her absurd program will never work, but people believe in absurd things all of the time. All you have to do is look at Facebook to know that’s true.

My heart pounds. Is that what she is? A bloody true believer in the value of empathy? And getting me to feel empathy is actually more important to her than a million dollars?

Wildly I think of everything that I know about her. I know that she doesn’t take a lot for herself—I see it every day. Never more than one croissant from the Kendrick building pastry tray. Never a new outfit. Not even a million dollars, apparently.

I’m accustomed to people shrinking away from me, scurrying away from me, worrying about me, hiding from me, but this?

This bizarre coaching is worth more to her than a million dollars?

I stare at her, utterly baffled. She clearly understands the offer. And she’s turning it down. This woman with her perfect breasts and her bell-like laugh and a thing about hedgehogs and the postal service, and the bizarre idea that reform works through documentary videos.

What is going on? What are the hidden variables in her calculus? What is this woman’s black swan? It’s so rare that a person baffles me. It’s infuriating.

And exciting.

And sexy as hell.

I should be offended. How would she feel if I created a program designed to corrupther?

The minute I get the thought, I can’t shake the idea of corrupting her. What would she look like seduced, fully corrupted? My imagination runs wild, picturing her lying in my bed, hair tangled around her head, on the edge of coming, greedily enjoying everything she’s ever denied herself.

I lean back and study the demure slope of her nose. The sly curve of her cheekbone. That fucking butterfly bow tie. My country mouse was hot before, but now she’s irresistible.

I’m thinking about her in that dress shop. That witchy look she got on her face when she tried on the dress, when she thought nobody in the world was watching.

I want her in my bed wearing that witchy look. Begging for me with that witchy look on her face. Mine, utterly and completely.

She stops the video. “Are you even paying attention?”

“Very much so,” I say.

“Okay, then, because I’m turning it back on. We have forty-seven minutes left. Fourteen hours and forty-seven minutes.”

I grin. Fourteen hours and forty-seven minutes. Only Elle would say that.

Only Elle.

19

Noelle

I turn on the video,heart racing.

A million dollars. It was a huge gamble to turn that down. If we end up getting kicked out of our building, at least I’d be able to offer people something to help. But that would mean giving up on our home, giving up on Malcolm.

Was it foolish? Sometimes I feel like, spending all this time with Malcolm, it’s making me lose sight of things that once seemed so clear. Even sitting on the same side of a table like this, watching the presentation, it does something to my judgement.

I should have put a table between us. Except it’s easier to watch together this way, and it is kind of exciting to have him right next to me. Sometimes he slides his gaze to me—discreetly—thinking I won’t notice.

---