Page 11 of Loathing My Boss
“This whole thing started because you won a critique from the famousViktor Bachelor, author extraordinaire, who launched onto bestseller lists everywhere, and he crushed your hopes and dreams of being an author. Crushed though they may be, you still had them, and they weren’tmake myself miserable by making someone else miserable. Couldn’t you consider having them again?”
My stomach knots, because while I may have told Crimson—my dear twin, lover, sun and moon—about the reason I hate Viktor and want to impale his head on a pike in front of my castle… I have not told her that I neverstoppedwriting.
Not even for five minutes since that horrible day when his email found itself in my inbox.
Angry, discouraged, and heartbroken in the wake of my favorite author massacring my spirit with his cold email, I wrote. Tears splashing across my keyboard, I poured my heart into a story about a princess who faced every trial to save her prince—only to discover he had never been a prince at all, but a dragon.
She then slayed him.
And dragged his head back home.
For the pike.
In front of her castle.
I hate that the Bachelors’ sprawling manor looks like a castle…
It’s not one, of course, but the vastness of the olden architecture laid out upon acres and acres of land, with towers and peaks does lend itself topalace. With five grown men made of money in the building, it would need to be massive if for nothing else than to contain all the ego.
Not that any of them particularlyhavean ego problem. Lukas, the second eldest behind Viktor, comes closest, but he’s not even home right now since he’s busy on a multi-month, worldwide tour that won’t end until after he’s hopped through the states up until September, according to the schedule I Canva Whiteboarded for him.
Canva Whiteboard and I have some codependency issues…
“Crisis?” Crimson nudges me from my grumbly thoughts full of too many rich men and not enough pikes.
I pout. “What were we talking about again?”
“Writing. Could you release the loathing and go back to dreams of writing? Maybe even consider providing Viktor with the opportunity for a redemption arc by asking him to take a look at your work again? Not to be the only voice of reason at the table, but you were seventeen. A seventeen-year-old’s writing maybe didn’t meet the standards of a notably grumpy professional for hurtful but not entirely invalid skill concerns…? I’m positive your work has grown since then with all the drafting emails you have to do. Things could be different if you give him another chance to let them.”
I bristle. “How can you hate me so, my love?”
“I’m worried about you. I know it’s only been a year since we met, but you’re the only friend I feel I can rely on, and I don’t know if this is healthy for you. You’ve harbored a grudge for ten years, acting on it explicitly for the past two. And, now, you’re throwing entire buckets of ice water on a man who could pay to make you disappear without a trace or repercussion. If you keep building up like this, dearness, you’re an unsolved mystery, or a general lawsuit, waiting to happen. Viktor’s had a lot of bad days. Your first collision may have been on one of them.”
Yeah. I know people have bad days—even billionaires with big families who love them sooo much. I used to try and tell myself that, too. But thehatedidn’t go away.
Viktor had everything I ever wanted before his parents passed. And he couldn’t even spare me a kindness?Especiallyif my writing was giving “enthusiastically immature”?
Dropping my attention off Crimson’s goddess-like imploring eyes full of angelic grace and mercy, I reach formy rye and pumpernickel grilled cheese to learn that they forgot my tomato, and life is sadness. “What am I even supposed to do with writing, Crim? Become an author so I can live forever in Viktor’s shadow?”
“Viktor is not the be-all, end-all of the author community. Regardless of what he might say or where his shadow falls, you keep writing. You seek out agents. You find someone who believes in you the way I do. Even if you’re never as famous as him, people will love your work. And you’ll know his disapproval didn’t stop you. It’s a different kind of spite, maybe, and not entirely healthy, either, but at least I won’t have to worry about you needing a lawyer. Or an alibi.”
“You would be my alibi, though, wouldn’t you?”
“I’d also need an alibi.”
My lip juts as my eyes well with tears. “You’re the best, Crim.”
Her smile warms me through. “If you’re the greatest and I’m the best, we’re in splendid company.”
Truer truths have ne’er been truthed.
Sadly, it does mean that the stark contrast between my lunch experience and my dinner ordeal might induce whiplash.
Chapter 4
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Nowhere to retreat.
