Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 332(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
“Oh my,” she said, arching an unimpressed brow. “Who pissed in your Cheerios today, Mr. White?”
“When I find out, you’ll be the first to know.” I reached out my hand and took the mail she’d brought in. I flicked through it disinterestedly. Nothing good came through the mail. It was all junk, except for the last thing. A large, creamy envelope with my name done in an almost illegible calligraphy. The writing was in glittering red ink. The envelope was wax sealed, a Christmas tree stamped into the green wax.
I was calculating how much Mrs. Kloss must have spent on the heavyweight stationery before I even pulled it out. If she’d cut a penny from this part of the budget, I’d be surprised. Irritated, I stuffed the invitation back in the envelope and pushed it to the edge of my desk.
Just my luck, in the few minutes I didn’t have hard rock giving my eardrums a workout, I heard Selena’s laugh. It spiked my irritation and made the offending envelope even more offensive than it had been a moment ago. She was supposed to be reigning the old widow in. If she blew the budget…
I jabbed the intercom. “Mrs. Flannigan, can you ask Miss. Sinclair to stop by before she goes back to the fifth floor?” My voice sounded terse to my own ears. Flannigan was going to think Selena was the one pissing in my cheerios as she’d so delightfully put it. She would be right.
I jammed the small speakers back in my ears and tried to get back into focusing on work, but it was impossible. Every flicker in my periphery had prickles shooting up my spine and my head shooting up.
Then, finally, she was actually the flicker in my periphery. I didn’t know how long she’d been standing there. The door was closed behind her, and she had her hands behind her back, like she was feeling for the knob. When my gaze landed on her, color rose into her cheeks. I was suddenly aware of my body in a way I hadn’t been until I saw hers. She was wearing heels that made her legs look even longer, but if I stood, I would still tower over her. She was soft in all the places I was hard, and I got harder thinking about how well we would fit together.
Then her lips moved, and I realized I couldn’t hear a damn word she was saying. I yanked out the earbuds. “What?” I asked, and my voice came out harsh and irritated, as though I was the one who had had to repeat myself.
My tone of voice put some starch in her spine. Her eyes narrowed, and she straightened up. One hand went to her waist. “I said, Mrs. Flannigan said that you wanted to see me.” Her tone was all attitude, like she had no idea what this could possibly be about.
“Yes, I wanted to talk to you about this.” I grabbed the envelope like I was facing a death sentence and it was the only piece of evidence that would exonerate me.
Selena took a step closer, frowned. “You wanted to talk to me about Mrs. Kloss’s Christmas ball invitation?”
“I wanted to talk to you about how much the damn thing cost.” I read the delicately monogrammed words on the bottom of the back side. “Caliote Designs isn’t exactly budget friendly, is it?”
Selena’s chin came up. “It is when they’ve been doing them for twenty-four years and gave her an excellent rate,” she said, a steely sweet note in her voice. “Especially when you agree to write out the addresses and do the wax seal yourself.”
I didn’t for a second think that Mrs. Kloss was doing all this addressing and wax sealing herself. “You did them? There must have been over a hundred invitations.”
Selena flexed her fingers reflexively. “A hundred and seventy.”
“And you did them all?”
“My sister and Mrs. Kloss and I did, yes.”
I looked at her closely, seeing the things I hadn’t in my first perusal. Like the delicate blue shadows under her eyes she tried to hide with makeup. The way she was holding onto the back of the chair across from my desk the same way she’d held onto the doorknob. Not like she was trying to escape, I realized. More like she was fucking exhausted and trying to hold herself upright.
“This is bullshit,” I said slowly, my anger at the fancy invitation growing. “You’re a junior associate at the top money management firm on the west coast. That’s more than enough responsibility. You need to tell Mrs. Kloss you aren’t her fucking elf.”
A ghost of a smile crossed Selena’s face at my choice of words. “Those elves really don’t get a fair deal, do they?”
I wasn’t in the mood to laugh, though. I needed her to stop this insane crusade to save the Christmas ball and realize it wasn’t worth it. But there was no way she was going to just agree to walk away. It didn’t matter how overworked she was. How tired. I needed a different tact. “I told you that the Christmas ball couldn’t interfere with your work here. If I talk to Albert about your performance, what’s he going to say?” I asked ominously.