Page 47 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“What’s that smirk for? Is she twerking naked on the other side of the screen?”

“Trust the strategy,” I reminded him, “When the deal goes through, you’ll need to meet face to face with the stakeholders too and potentially maintain that relationship for many years. You don’t want to get sidetracked by acquisition details, do you?”

“Alright, alright, no more discussing your future wife’s ass, got it.”

On command, my eyes dropped to Del’s ass, clad in tight black leggings that left little to the imagination, not even the line of her cheeky slip. “I’m still brainstorming how we’ll facilitate a growth shift on the third objective without coming on too strong.”

“Take her to Cannes. Showing off your yacht always works, right?”

He wasn’t wrong about the principal. The yacht had little to do with it, but an international holiday would have been a good bonding experience. “Probably not with this account,” I said, dragging my eyes from Del’s ass to the book on body modifications in her hands. “They’re not projecting any interest in international expansion.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Cordelia Montgomery leaving her house is one thing, but leaving the country?”

“Any further word from Georgia?” I asked, letting Julian know that I was done talking about the merger.

“No. She called yesterday, but Brody took the call and spent all fifteen minutes waffling about some boyband announcing their breakup. She was crying into her breakfast this morning because they had a hit song about French toast and now, she won’t ever be able to eat French toast again. Or something.”

I didn’t like the idea that Georgia might sink her claws into Brody, but to her credit, she had spent the last fifteen years playing a perfectly loving grandmother who just happened to be in prison. A few years ago, Brody had claimed that Georgia wasbadassbut from all she’d told me, Georgia had only ever listened to her and encouraged her to do whatever the hell she wanted. I was fairly certain that was one of the reasons Julian allowed Brody to get into the ring rather than sticking her withappropriatepiano and tennis lessons.

“Maybe Georgia should spend her time and energy on facilitating that reunion rather than interfering with my schedule.”

“Could you imagine? Our mother, the boyband manager.”

Del yelped, and I glanced up to find her with her hand clutched over her mouth, eyebrows knitted together. “Sorry,” she whispered and pulled up her shoulders.

Julian was going on about something, but I didn’t hear him, cocking my head to see what caused the bright pink blush on Del’s cheeks.

She turned the book around.

Ah.

It was called Milkmaid Diaries.

A Dutch pornstar’s autobiography chronicled through cumshot selfies.

Nothing like a close-up of a labia covered in five men’s semen to drive home the point that this was not the cozy library Del wanted it to be.

“…and then everyone died.”

I raised my brows at Julian, who was possibly the only person at Axent with the balls to call me out when I stopped listening. Although to be fair most people just talked to hear their own voice anyway. “Care to explain?”

“No, you go back to eye fuck- I mean giving your girl the attention she deserves. The Montgomery account takes top priority.”

“I’ll see you Thursday at the latest.”

“Have fun.”

I closed the window and dropped the earbuds, but when I checked on Del again, she had settled down on the floor with four piles of books neatly stacked, a color-matched set of highlighters, gel pens and sticky notes on each stack.

“You have a system, Blondie?” I asked.

“Personal accounts, essays, biographies,” she explained, slapping her hand on the first stack. “Biology and psychology and sexology and everything else that sounded vaguely like science.” She slapped the second stack. “Guidebooks on how to have sex in all the different ways.” She drummed her fingers against the third stack, and finally touched the furthest stack with the tip of her cozy-socked toes. “Photography to look at when the text starts blurring in front of my eyes, but I figure I can compile some notes on aesthetics. - I was considering a fifth category for a historical approach, which is really interesting as well but…” She shrugged and looked at me, eyes so big they looked like frosted lakes. “This is going to sound silly, but I only have four colors. I'd rather have four truly relevant categories than have five categories, but the color-coding is off on one of them.”

“You need a fifth highlighter color?”

“Yes, but no, you don’t understand, it’s a whole system. And I don’t do neon.”

I opened the top drawer on my desk and pulled out a muted red highlighter, a pad of red sticky notes and a red gel pen. All usually reserved for when people fucked up and I had to correct their fuck-ups. “Does this work?”

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