Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Is that your final answer?” She arched a brow. “Should I go ahead and press send?”
“What about a compromise?” I’d blurted that out with nothing to follow it up with.
“You’re the last person I want to compromise with.”
“Do you want a trip to Europe?”
“Do you want to get fired?”
The expresso machine hissed in the background. The woman was serious, and I had absolutely no idea how the hell to compromise with her. “You realize you’re evil?”
“At least you didn’t say easy.”
Why the hell would I call her easy? She had to be the most difficult woman on the face of the planet. Erratic and stubborn as fuck. Which meant I’d better come up with a solution. Fast.
There was no way I was buying the ticket. No way Amanda would give her the job.
Think, Vance.
I tapped a finger on my skull. Fucking think. Then the lightbulb went off like a blinking warning sign because the suggestion I was about to make was a terrible idea. “What if I tell Amanda I think we should make the assignment a joint venture?” It was a long shot but worth a try if it appeased Blake’s demons. I could almost see her evil little mind turning as she sipped her coffee.
“What kind of joint venture?”
Like I’d gotten that far in my plan. “I’m thinking…” I picked up my phone and searched my inbox for recent questions from my Wanderlust subscribers, hoping to God there was something I could use. Most of them were questions about restaurants, hotels, and what to pack. Traveling as a couple. A couple… I glanced up at Blake for a moment. No way in hell—then went back to my emails.
Five messages from the bottom, the subject line I needed: Vagabond Vance. Help! How do I travel with someone I hate?
It was a legitimate question. And if Blake and I took this trip together, it was one we could answer. That was the believable reason I would need Blake Brentley to accompany me. “We say we want to do a write-up on how to travel with someone you hate.”
“Why would anyone travel with someone they can’t stand?”
Because sometimes, like right at that moment, men were stripped of all choices. “People sign up for packaged holiday deals. Some end up forced to travel with exes, or family, or annoying co-workers.” I stared extra hard at her with that one. “Trust me, the last thing on Earth I want to do is traipse—”
“Congratulations for using a good word.” The mockery…
“—around Europe with you.” Because, like hell, I wanted to spend fourteen days traveling cross-continent with a hot coworker who drove me insane, but what choice did I have at that point? “I’m not buying you a ticket, and I doubt you, of all people, will easily drop blackmail. So, unless you have a better idea…”
“Take My Breath Away” played over the coffee shop speakers while we stared across the table at one another.
“Besides, once we get there, we can part ways and avoid each other at all costs.”
Halfway through the chorus, Blake pulled in a heavy breath and rolled her eyes. “Whatever. As long as I’m not in Manhattan this weekend, I don’t care what I have to do.”
Now all I had to do was convince Wanderlust to go along with the worst idea ever.
“It’s the most brilliant idea ever!” Mr. Wander’s voice came through the speakerphone on the corner of Amanda’s desk. “Go ahead and make arrangements for Blake to join him, would you, Amanda?”
Staring at the headset, she lifted a brow. “Sure…” After she’d disconnected the call, she leaned back in her office chair and stared at me for a few unnerving seconds. “Something is really off about this.”
She wasn’t wrong. Everything was off about it.
She reached for her keyboard, typing out a few letters before she looked back at me. “You two aren’t seeing each other? Because interoffice relationships are heavily discouraged.”
“No. I can assure you; we are not.” Although that was only because Blake hated me.
A few more strokes over the keyboard. “Ticketed items and dinners will be attended together?”
I nodded, hating that Mr. Wander had offered that as a stipulation, citing that without it, there was nothing to say Blake and I wouldn’t go our separate ways once we’d landed. Which we absolutely would have.
God. Blake was practically a living, breathing omen of bad luck and misfortune, and I was about to be joined at the hip with her and all her bad juju for fourteen days. The plane would probably crash. The hotel would catch on fire. We’d miss our train, end up renting a car, and have the brakes give out right as we rounded a sharp turn in the Alps.
Amanda printed off paperwork, then passed it to me with a suspicious look. “Tell Blake to turn that in before the end of the day.”