Page 74 of A Little Too Late
Sweetheart?I want to grab him by the striped tie and choke him with it. “Sure,” I say through a tight jaw. “Will do.”
The worst part isn’t even the lying. Or the way I’ve been called “little girl” by the eldest Sharpe, “honey” by the middle one, and “sweetheart” by the youngest. The worst part is the way Mark is sitting there with a stoic expression on his face, calmly sipping his coffee as if we aren’t breakfasting with monsters.
“So what does your timeframe look like?” Mark asks. “I’d like to get the contract signed before the holidays.”
He sounds awfully convincing. Too convincing.
“That we can do,” Grandpa Sharpe says. “We’ll let the lawyers do their thing, and we’ll give you an update before the end of next week. Let you know where we’re at.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Mark says. “You’re going to do great things with the place. I can feel it.”
The pancakes I’ve eaten have already turned to lead in my stomach. But now they’re turning to battery acid. I push my cup of coffee away with a jittery hand and wave over the server so I can sign our check and add a tip.
I’ve got to get away from this table.
“Well, ladies and gents, we’d best be getting on the road,” Trey says, checking his phone. “Our limo is waiting outside.”
“Don’t let us keep you,” I say, sliding back my chair in a big hurry and rising to my feet. I want to bolt for the door, but I force myself to walk the Sharpes through the lobby and toward the entrance.
If I’m lucky, I’ll never see their faces again.
“I’ll be in touch about your employment contract,” Trey says. Then he gives me a wink.
“Thank you,” I say with as much sweetness as I can muster. Which is very little. I hold out my hand to shake, and then I tell the biggest lie of my life. “It will be a real pleasure working with you.”
He gives me a full body scan, then smiles. “Likewise.”
I feel nauseated.
CHAPTER 27
THE THING ABOUT SHARKS
REED
After Ava leaves to go to breakfast with the Sharpes, I sit down and check all my messages. There’s nothing new from my client, so I have to man up and call my anxious boss.
It’s a video chat, because he likes to look you in the eye when he tells you all the ways you’ve fucked up. I position the phone where he can’t see the mountain out the window behind me. I don’t want him to think I’ve fucked off to Colorado just for fun.
He answers from the sofa of his high-rise bachelor pad in Palo Alto. His mood has already gone past handwringing to full on Armageddon. “Reed! Your guy got cold feet, and I had to hear about it at the tennis club.”
Oh shit. “What did Deevers do?”
“He took a meeting with Blink Fifty Capital. And you don’t even know about this? Whereareyou?”
I would explain, but I know he doesn’t actually care. “Family emergency.”
“You have a family?” Prashant rubs his temples. “Just get home. Get a meeting with Deevers forMondayand beat somesense into him. This is the best deal he can find, and he’s wasting our time and making us look like assholes.”
Not actually true, but he doesn’t want to hear that, either. “Okay. I’m on it,” I promise. “I’ll see you Monday morning.” Which is forty-eight hours from now.
He hangs up, and I toss my phone onto the sofa with a shout of irritation.
Nobody else hears it.
Then I leave a message for Sheila, who will have to make travel plans and finagle our Monday schedule. After that, I shower and head downstairs.
It’s an accident of timing that I arrive downstairs just as the doors are closing on the Sharpes’ backsides.
