Page 60 of Over My Dead Boss
He sweeps me up into his arms. The pressure increases and I know that this is where I want to stay. It’s getting harder to breathe, but just when I am about to say something, Phoenix stops and lets me glide back down to the ground. “That was one of the best crushes I’ve ever had.” I take another deep breath. “There’s something we need to discuss, though.”
“Actually, there are a lot of things we need to discuss.”
“First of all, my debt. I will pay back everything I owe, with interest of course, and I would like to start by signing over the rights to my Memorandom series. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I am popular on the interwebs nowadays and apparently, that’s worth something. Isabella wanted to buy the rights from me for $10.000. So I figured maybe that could be a start.”
“I’ll accept your offer,” he fumbles in the folder that Ryker handed him earlier, “if you will accept mine.” Phoenix pulls out an official-looking document and gives it to me. “Mr. Grayson and I would like to partner with you.”
I frown at the contract in my hands. “Look, that’s a very nice proposition, and don’t get me wrong, Ryker is great, very handsome. In fact, I was thinking about introducing him to Sienna but I am not really the more-than-one-partner kind of person.”
“Very funny.” Phoenix kisses my forehead and pushes me down into the chair, then flips the contract to the next page. “We want you to be co-owner of our new publishing company: Fortune Books.” He points towards the black letters on white paper. It definitely says ‘Fortune Books’. “You’ll own one third of the company. The two of us will run it together. Ryker will be more of a silent investor. We can publish our own books and whoever else we want, in whatever way we want.”
I look at the writing in front of me grow hazy. I am overwhelmed.
“It’s ok. You don’t have to decide now. This is a big step. We’d have a lot of work, even more responsibilities…”
“We would need to hire Verna,” I interrupt.
“Absolutely.” Phoenix nods vehemently.
“I might get your coffee order wrong all the time.”
“How about I’ll make the coffee, and the food. We can’t have our COO poison our employees.”
“COO?”
“Chief Operating Officer. You would be in charge of ongoing business operations.”
“I know what that means. So I would be in charge of schedules and stuff?”
Phoenix laughs while frisking himself. “‘And stuff’ would include a lot of other things, but sure, you get to make as many schedules as you would like.” He pulls the fabric from his right pocket out of his pants, his left probably still sewn shut. “I don’t have a pen. Ryker must have taken it.”
“Do you have a knife? If you do, I could sign with my blood.”
“This isn’t one of your books, Olivia. We’re not doing blood oaths.”
“Oh, you’ve read my work?” I get up from the chair, grab my bag, and empty the contents onto the desk.
“Of course, I have. You don’t think we’re getting you on board because of your nice butt, do you?” He palms my ass and gives it a quick slap. “We want you to be part of the team because you’re one of the most talented writers I have ever seen.”
I reach for the pen among all the other stuff from my bag and open the last page of the contract, then sign my name, the i’s dotted with hearts. “If we’re not doing blood oaths, I have to insist on sealing the deal in a more… traditional way,” I say, grab him by his belt and pull him close.
Phoenix smiles, revealing his dimples, making me realize how much I missed them and how much I never want to let them go again.
EPILOGUE
SIX MONTHS LATER
“Can you read it again for me, please?” Phoenix looks at me with those puppy eyes of his, making it hard to resist.
“You’re the one who wrote it. I don’t think I should have to read it back to you this many times.”
“PLEASE, OLIVIA. READ IT AGAIN!”
I nod and sigh and do as I am told.
He’s lucky he’s so adorable.
Clearing my throat, I unroll the little bit of paper that I retrieved from a gigantic homemade fortune cookie, for the third time this morning and read out loud: “Will you move in with me?”
