Page 75 of I Love to Hate You
“The Black Collar,” Derek joins in. “I read it. That shit was crazy.”
“It was so good, wasn’t it?” Erica says. “My eyes were cemented to the page.”
“Wait, what? What’s it about?” I ask, gladly entering the conversation now that we’re not talking about anything related to the pitch.
“There was an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about a journalist who goes to the new BDSM club and talks to the owner,” Derek answers.
“Interview with a Sadist,” Samantha says, smiling like she came up with the article’s title herself.
“A sadist? Wow,” I exclaim.
“Yeah, and the journalist ends up falling for the sadist,” Erica explains. “It turns out, she realizes through talking to him that she’s a masochist.”
Kendrick’s eyes bulge. “Oh, shit.”
“Right?” Derek says. “There’s so much more to it than that, too. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, and she published it all.”
“Seriously?” I ask.
“Yeah, you should definitely check it out. You’ll be enthralled,” Erica tells me with raised eyebrows.
“It was a pretty big deal,” Chad adds.
We all freeze.
“Well, it must be ifyouknew about it,” I say.
“What? I read things,” he argues.
Derek chuckles and taps Chad on the shoulder. “Sure you do, Chad. Sure you do.”
“I do!” Chad snips. “I read and pay attention to the news. I’m not completely self-absorbed. Did any of you hear about the therapist who had his house burned down by a former patient over in Delaware?”
“What? No,” I answer, completely shocked. “When did that happen?”
“Well, that one was a while back, but the point is that I knew about it and you all didn’t. So, there,” Chad says with his nose in the air.
The five of us chuckle and spend the next few minutes talking about other random happenings around Philadelphia, and before we know it, the conference room door next to ours is being opened, and the entire mass of people who were in the meeting come pouring out.
“Oh, shit,” I mumble, looking at Kendrick as my heart begins to go berserk.
We stand and watch as they walk past the conference room, with Denver and his supervisor bringing up the rear. They have a conversation directly in front of our door, gesturing with their hands and nodding in agreement about something before the supervisor walks away and Denver peers at us through the glass, his face suddenly somber.
“Fuck. He didn’t get it,” Kendrick whispers, just before the door opens and Denver steps in.
The room goes quiet as we all wait. Impatience bubbles up in my chest as he approaches his usual seat at the head of the table and places his hands on the back of the chair, his eyes focused solely on Kendrick and I.
“I’ve got some news,” he begins, and before he even says it, I already know we didn’t win the account. “As incredible as the pitch was, when we demonstrated it to Nasir Booker’s team, their reception to it was … far past what we expected.”
My heart drops with my jaw as Kendrick squeezes my hand.
“Umm, what does that mean?” he asks.
Denver finally drops the veil with a smile. “They absolutelylovedit,” he says, “and they want us to run the marketing forA Good Girl’s Guide to Dominancewith the plan you two came up with. Congratulations. You did it.”
Every single one of us erupts into a raucous cheer. My mind is blown as Kendrick turns to me with a smile and wraps his arms around me, squeezing me tight as he whispers in my ear. “I told you. We’re unstoppable together.”
“I can’t believe it,” I reply. “I absolutely can’t believe it.”
