She slips her hands away from my chest and clasps them at her hips. “Yeah.”
“Insocial work?”
“Yeah.”
I squint and jut my head forward, incredulous. “Then why the hell are you working in sales?”
Elle crosses her slender arms over her chest. “I have a mountain of student loan debt, and everybody who knew anything about the workforce told me that sales commissions are the best way to make a lot of money a lot faster than in any other line of work.” She huffs. “But apparently you have to actually be good at sales. Which we both obviously know I’m not.”
I lift my eyebrows and pull in my chin. “Well, after this weekend you’ll have more than enough of a commission to make up for any lost time.”
“I know,” she says, “which is why after that commission goes through, I’ll be serving you with my two weeks’ notice.”
My eyebrows drop. “Oh.”
Well,thatwas fucking easy.
I don’t have to fire her now.
Which means I won’t be burning any bridges with her.
Which means we might actually be on good terms after this weekend.
Which means a few weeks or months after she quits, I might actually be able to—
Get your shit together, Flannery.
Right.
In the world of sales, Elle is what we refer to as a lost opportunity, and I need to just cut said losses.
“Well,” I add, clearing my throat. “Good to know, and thanks for the heads up.”
She hitches one shoulder. “It’s not personal. I just always had other career plans, and this gives me the opportunity to finally go after them. So I actually really appreciate you coming up with this totally smarmy arrangement. Just please don’t leave me to the wolves when we go in there. I’m legitimately scared of being left hanging in a situation like that, so please don’t do that to me.”
“I won’t,” I promise, and then hold out my hand to her. “Let’s go get shit done.”
“Let’s,” Elle echoes in a put-on snooty tone that causes me to smirk, while taking my hand, but not holding it. No, she doesn’tholdmy hand, rather she stands at my side and reaches behind her to plant my palm on the small of her back. “Like this, Colin. Aboyfriendwould do this.”
I’ve had girlfriends in the past, and she’s not wrong, so I allow myself the indulgence of doing it to her.
“Right.” I nudge her toward the door and away from the bed we’ll be sharing only a few hours later, and God help me in the face of this kind of temptation.
The person of interest, one Señor Ernesto Reyes, is missing from the welcome mixer of this over-the-top engagement celebration spectacle, but I expected that. A man running a media empire such as Ernesto’s has a lot of shit to deal with, even during the celebration of his eldest daughter’s impending nuptials to a guy who’s literally Europeanroyalty.
In fact, given that this is a family affair, I know he’s likely dealing with keeping his own familial drama under control and on the downlow. Ernesto is a self-made man, but it wasn’t without a significant leg up from the Reyes dynasty’s historical business dealings. It’s hard to create something from nothing, and even though Ernesto built his empire from the ground up, the rock-solid foundation was an inheritance from a certain underground organization known as Los Dolorosos. Los Dolorosos are—you guessed it—a drug cartel. Ernesto made a clean cut from his extended family’s seedy empire way back before any of his kids were born, but given the nature of the empirehecreated, it’s obviously something he has to keep his heel on.
So giventhat, I knew he probably wouldn’t be at the welcome mixer. I suspect he’s probably got cousins visiting from California who came to offer their congratulations, but also try to “talk business.” A very different nature of “business” than I’m here to talk to him about. And truthfully, that’s one more advantage to me, and Elle, and ultimately Archer, because the idea of buying a fleet of planes will seem downrightwholesomecompared to what his cousins have in mind.
In the meantime, it’s standard schmoozing amongst all the boujee New Englanders with whom Ernesto purposefully immersed his family decades ago as a protective barrier from his own sordid history and connections.
Stepping into the lush, ornate, French countryside-inspired courtyard, Elle and I are greeted with crystal flutes of champagne and the strains of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons from a string quartet set up in a far corner of the space. She’s got her hand on my bicep in a death grip that’s starting to cut off my circulation, and I turn to her.
“Elle, you’re going to cause me to lose my arm.”
Her nervous, shifting gaze flicks to my face. Her eyes are suddenly so wide that her long lashes resemble fluffy, onyx flower petals framing a liquid, seafoam green center. “What?”
I slip my arm out of her vise grip and hold her shoulder. “Relax.” I tilt my glass toward her in an invitation to clink them together. “Drink. It’ll loosen you up. You look like a hostage.”
