Page 104 of The Bad Girl
Of course, she did. He’s who she wanted. He’s her type. He can make her happy.
I pull out my phone, trying to distract myself from my former assistant. “Now, I know.”
“You did the right thing. This needs to resolve on its own, without your interference. Chances are, this will play out over the next month, Nadine will be heartbroken, and you can be her rebound.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No, I’m just letting you know what’s up next.”
“This whole thing was just a dumb idea. Nadine’s a smart woman that knows what she wants.”
“Ummm, I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Harry says. “I think there’s a lot Nadine is still figuring out about herself. I think the same about you.”
Akinyi enters the office, her nose crinkling as she surveys the now-cluttered desk. “What happened here?”
Unsurprisingly, Harry is not as neat and orderly as Nadine.
“You look beautiful,” I say, rushing to her and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Just ignore all this. Harry will clean it.”
“Will I? Don’t you have other people for that?”
I gather the papers off the desk and hand them to Harry. “The janitorial staff doesn’t know how to file your paperwork.”
He glowers, but takes the stack, opens a drawer, and throws them inside.
Ehhh…progress?
As he’s closing the drawer, something catches my eye.
“Wait!” I reach inside, towards the back, and pull out Nadine’s notepad.
Her squiggly drawings of Higgleworth, Sir Fookshit, Ernesto, and the various other cartoons are strewn across the notebook, getting into all kinds of mischief.
I smile, but my heart is broken. I tear off a few pages and slip them into my pocket, then turn to Harry. “I must be seen out with my lady. I hope you made the reservations.”
“Dammit! I knew I forgot something.”
“Yeah, you were too busy helping Nadine score her ‘bad boy’ to do your actual job.”
“I resent that, and it’s not like you can’t just walk into anywhere in New York City and get a table. You are Maxwell Stryder.”
“You’d be surprised what my name fails to get me.”
