Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124971 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Time to do something, Duffy. Anything at all. Whenever you’re ready. Preferably this year, though.
It was obvious Gretchen was too stunned to produce words. Not that I wanted her to. I couldn’t believe I’d behaved so commonly. So crudely. I’d always measured every action of mine carefully, desperate to be a Goody Two-Shoes.
Do something. Right. Now.
I snatched a box of Godiva from her desk and waved it in my boss’s face. “You don’t deserve this good chocolate. I’m taking it with me. This is my goodbye present. My ‘Thank you for your service, Duffy.’ Don’t forget to check out all of the thirty-five toilets in the White House. We all know how full of shit you are!”
Okay, maybe not that.
Nonetheless, the deed had been done. And so, committed to my public fall from grace, I tornadoed out of her office, after which I anticlimactically waited for the lift for three minutes under excruciatingly dumbfounded gazes before it pinged open.
To make matters worse, Gretchen’s assistant number two, Billy, appeared next to me, a pile of flower bouquets in her hands. She, too, was helping my boss with getting rid of all the goodbye presents.
“Hi, Duffy.” She pushed her reading glasses up her nose.
“Hey, Billy.” I rubbed my forehead tiredly.
“There’s something you need to know,” she said in a hushed voice when we entered the lift and the doors closed. I angled my face toward her. Had I spoken the mind of the entire office? Were people cheering for me? Had I become her role model? Hope bubbled in my chest.
But Billy looked unnaturally pink and insisted on staring at a spot above my head. “I think you got your period. When you made that speech? There was a red stain showing.”
I collapsed on the stairway leading from the WNT building, then proceeded to stuff my face with Swiss chocolate I couldn’t even taste and was already regretting.
I was into my seventeenth truffle when someone plopped down beside me. A large someone. A tall and muscular someone who smelled like wild woods and leather and sex.
Someone I really didn’t want to talk to right now.
“So.” Riggs reached to steal a Black Forest truffle before popping it between his lips. “When’s the next show? I didn’t even have time to make it to the concessions.”
“Ugh.” I hiccuped into my chocolate box. “I’m mortified. This is the first time this has happened to me.”
“That’s supposed to be my line.”
“That’s your pep talk?” My head shot up. “A sexual innuendo?”
“Well, now that I know I’m being graded for it . . .” He took another truffle, sucking on the cherry-jam topping. “How about this? ‘Tomorrow is another day. The best days of your life are still to come. There is no such thing as bad publicity. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Our biggest breakthroughs often come after the darkest times.’ How am I doing so far?”
I glared at him with open annoyance. “You sound like my Pinterest inspiration board.”
He chuckled softly. “You okay, Poppins?”
“No. Clearly, I’m never going to be okay.” Wasn’t he there a second ago, when I’d annihilated my entire reputation and career? “I made a complete eejit out of myself. I should just move back to England and change my identity.” I covered my face with my hands.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna fly.” He ribbed me. “You owe me a marriage.”
“You’ll have plenty of eligible women to choose from,” I said, realizing I was probably right. He was handsome and worldly and oozed big-dick energy. Not everyone wanted to marry a walking, talking wallet.
“But I don’t want an eligible woman. I want an unhinged one who yells at her boss and laminates random documents and arranges her salad dressings by date, fat percentage, and list of ingredients.”
Well, excuse me for not wanting to eat my greek salad with blue cheese dressing. Not all of us thrived in chaos.
“There’s a fine line between insanity and genius,” I reminded him primly.
“And you straddle it like a seasoned stripper.” His aqua eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Everyone must think I’m mental.” I felt my lips wobbling and knew I was close to tears. More than anything, I was gutted to be comforted by my boss’s lover. No one promised me he wouldn’t go straight to her afterward and tell her about this pathetic scene.
“And you care about what people think because . . . ?” He elevated an eyebrow.
“Social standing equals power.”
“Not giving a fuck about what people think equals power,” he corrected me, tapping the tip of my nose as if I was an adorable fawn. “And right now you’re choosing to be powerless. Change that, Poppins.”
“I still want to run away and change my name.”
He stroked his chin. “Would you consider Desiree?”
This was the second time he’d brought up this name.
“Why on earth would I—”