Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 147733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 739(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“Back down. Face the music,” I say slowly. “After that conference, it’s going to move like lightning. You’ll spend your days in meetings with lawyers, trying to avoid criminal charges. You’ll certainly be removed from Pacific-Resolute by the board. You can’t deny it.”
Her face screws up as she shakes her head—fuck, is she actually choking back a sob?—but she stretches her arm out, her hand flying toward my face in a blur.
She must pay her nail tech a fortune to keep her fingers sharpened into those bright claws.
I narrowly miss losing an eye and duck back, lunging for her wrist again just before she slaps me.
“Now, you’re being ridiculous. Stop throwing a tantrum before someone gets hurt, Simone. It can’t help you.”
She throws herself against me, slapping my shoulders hard and reeling back again.
It’s like wrestling a damn deer.
Only deer hooves would bruise less than her bony elbow stabbing me in the side until I’m able to pin her arms, tumbling her to the ground.
My eardrums are bleeding as she breaks into a screaming fit.
“Help! Help, help me—assault!” she bellows. “He’s hurting me!”
A few distant bystanders in the park are watching now. Thankfully, the closest ones don’t intervene. They saw who struck first.
“Simone.”
I repeat her name a few times until she stops struggling, sticking to the ground under me.
“Shut up and turn around,” I whisper.
I let her up, just enough so she can turn and sit up.
Then she sees Bradley and Louise standing outside my company car across the street from us with their phones out.
“Your people, they’re—recording?” Her jaw drops in disbelief.
I grin and nod.
“This time, I came prepared. Unlike the ways you’ve fucked with me over the years, if you stop now, I’ll let you crawl back to the wreckage of your life without slapping you with assault charges. Although, there are two separate witness records of you trying to hit me. I hope once you’ve stepped down from leadership, apologized to the public, and settled with the women whose lives you tried to ruin, you’ll turn over a new leaf. But that’s really up to you. It was never nice knowing you.”
She stares at me with her mouth hanging open, utterly dumbstruck.
“God, I should have given you a lethal dose that night,” she hisses. “This would have been so much easier.”
All I do is smile, grateful to know she really did drug my drinks on that trip and I cheated death.
I’m not sure why I even turn around and stare at this pitiful insect long enough to add, “It’s never too late to change. Until recently, I always thought that was fluff talk, but I’ve become a believer.”
She blinks a few times and steps away from me.
Fine with me.
The more space between us, the better.
“Miles, who... who the fuck are you?” she whispers.
Her voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it. More like a scared little girl’s than an executive who’s used to machine gunning orders and getting her wishes granted on demand.
“A better man than the one you knew.” I say over my shoulder.
Then I walk around her to my car without looking back.
In a few more strides, she’s behind me, right where she belongs.
Marooned in the past.
“Where are we going, sir?” Benson asks as soon as I’m in the back seat.
“Take me to Jennifer,” I say, feeling my gut twist.
If this showdown with Simone was nerve-racking, it’s nothing like what’s ahead.
There’s so much more at stake with my kitten, and so many ways it could all go catastrophically wrong.
27
No Forgetting You (Jenn)
My Facebook and Twitter feeds are blowing up.
Everywhere, there’s chatter about Simone Niehaus’ fall from grace and removal from leading Pacific-Resolute. The board acted swiftly to send her packing, but that’s not what keeps the stunned gossip going.
Ever since Ava and Jillian came forward about her blackmail, other people have piled in, revealing years of abuse at the hands of this heartless snake-woman.
I shake my head, reading a post from someone named Melissa who knew Simone in her college days.
Simone and I interned together at Cedarwell Media in Eugene. I made the mistake of telling her about my idea for a monthly home magazine piggybacking off the work we already did for their main publication.
I put together the pitch. I spent months outlining the content. I didn’t know I left my work printed out on my desk at lunch one day.
A few days later, Simone pitched a near-identical concept to the chief editor and CEO, and she was leading the company’s biggest publishing success three months later.
Dirty pool.
If anyone has a date with a mid-ass collision and the karma train, it’s definitely Simone.
She’s on track to be sued by practically everyone she’s ever worked with, and she totally deserves it.
I know it’s not my problem. I shouldn’t be grinning ear to ear, but I am.