Page 109 of Twisted Shot
“Yes, sir.”
“Look, Mila,” he says, voice sharp but not unkind. “You’re smart. Good instincts. People like working with you. But I can’t fight your battles for you.”
“That’s not—” she starts, but he cuts her off.
“You know I don’t care for drama.”
Mila swallows, her whole body thrumming with indignation, with the sting of being mistaken for something she’s not. Not unprofessional or melodramatic, butweak. Jaryd is echoing what men have assumed about her for years—that beneath the polish and performance, she’s soft. Needs a man to fight her battles.
“Actually,” she says, voice steadier than she feels, “it’s Richard who’s causing drama. I’ve been running point all season, with excellent results. In fact I’ve just had a call with Jim who gave a verbal commitment to extend our contract. But Richard is insisting I step aside. I should’ve come to you sooner, but I was concerned about optics.”
There. It’s out. Heat rises in her cheeks, but so does a sliver of defiant pride. If she’s going down, it won’t be because she let Richard take her spine with him.
She inhales, squares her shoulders, and jumps off the cliff. “The truth is…I’m involved with the client. Um…in the romantic sense. And Richard is insisting it makes me unfit.”
Jaryd’s brows shoot up, and Mila swears she canhearhis mental hard drive whirring, like a computer trying to open a file that’s too big.
“I see.” His expression shifts from confusion to something bordering on concern, bushy eyebrows drawing close. “How long?”
“Umm..” Mila hesitates. “The feelings have been there for months, but the relationship is recent.”
He blinks at her. “And this is…mutual?”
Mila’s cheeks heat. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m trying to be delicate here,” Jaryd says, speaking slowly like the words are made of glass. “Isn’t he…isn’t Jim a little old for you?”
Mila freezes. Her brain does a cartoon record-scratch.Jim?
In her mind’s eye she sees Jim Pearce: fatherly vibes, leathery skin, a sweet old man who always smells faintly of pipe tobacco and aftershave. Alovelyman. Also, very much old enough to be her grandfather.
“What? Oh God—no.” She shakes her head so fast her earrings threaten to fly off. “No. Not Jim. One of the players.”
For a long, brutal second, silence reigns. Then Jaryd leans back in his chair, his face shifting from awkward horror to sheer relief. A deep, wheezy laugh bursts out of him, the kind that fills every inch of the room. Mila wants to crawl under his mahogany desk and die there.
“I’ve gotta admit,” he says, wiping his eyes, “that’s a hell of a relief. Not that there’s anything wrong with Jim. He’s got a hell of a golf swing for a man pushing eighty. But I was starting to wonder if I needed to…I don’t know…stage an intervention?”
Mila lets out a strangled sound that might be a laugh, or maybe a cry of mortification. She covers her face with her hands. “Please stop talking.”
Jaryd chuckles, still grinning, but when he speaks his tone gentles. “Fair enough. And to be perfectly honest, Mila—a player? He’s so far removed from any decision-making capacity it doesn’t concern me in the slightest.”
Relief surges through her so fast she almost gets whiplash. She exhales, nodding as she presses her palms to her thighs, trying to steady herself before her knees do something embarrassing.
“I met my wife through a client,” Jaryd muses. “Thirty-two years ago, back when I was still dumb enough to wear square-toed shoes and pitch car commercials like they were Shakespeare. So who am I to judge?”
Mila’s eyes sting for a very different reason now. She smiles—small, sheepish, but sincere. “Thank you. That means morethan you know.”
“Don’t let Richard bully you, Mila,” Jaryd says, meeting her gaze and giving her a conspiratorial wink. “I can’t have my Senior Account Managers being cowardly.”
CHAPTER 41
THEO
Bradley Airport isn’t much to look at—a utilitarian cluster of low buildings with exposed ceilings and scuffed tile floors. It’s small enough that Theo doesn’t need to check the arrivals board. One glance at the slow-moving crowd from the baggage claim tells him Mila’s flight has landed.
He shifts his weight from one foot to the other on the sidewalk, tension crawling through his shoulders. His calf still aches from the slapshot, but it’s background noise now, eclipsed by the pressure building in his chest, like his body’s bracing for a storm he wants to run toward. Any second now, Mila’s going to appear around that corner, and the dull, dragging stretch of the days without her might finally crack open into something that feels like peace.
He sees her before she sees him, in a cream knit sweater and loose jeans with her hair twisted up in a messy top knot. Oversized sunglasses slip down her nose as she wheels a tiny suitcase through the arrivals hall.
