Page 39 of A Deal with the Bossy Devil

Adrien had awakened a surprisingly violent streak in me. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it yet.

“I don’t care what the cup says. It was cold yesterday, too.”

I jutted my lips out into a concerned pout, but only because he seemed to really hate it when I did that. Sure enough, his gaze slashed down to my mouth and hardened, his eyebrows drawing into a momentary frown.

“Would you like me to go back down and order you a new one?” I offered. “I could ask them to make it extra-extra-hot this time.”

It would probably burn the shit out of the milk, but that wasn’t my problem. And the baristas probably wouldn’t have minded either. I’d been tipping them twenty dollars every time Adrien sent me down for a fresh cup of coffee. So… four times a day.

Also, it didn’t matter how hot they steamed the milk. It wasn’t going to offset the little ice cubes I was sneaking into his drink from my own iced coffee.

Adrien waved me off. “I have a meeting in two minutes.”

That was my cue. He wanted me to go away now.

Gladly.

I made my way back to the small conference room beside his office and started working on what was left of his mail.

I didn’t know how he wanted the stupid things sorted, exactly, since he’d never clarified. So, I’d kept my method as simple as possible and limited myself to three piles, because chances were good he was going to make me do it all over again anyway.

There was a pile for the gross, raunchy stuff that made me want to dip my eyes into bleach, one for the super-fans gushing over him and his achievements, and one for the thank-you letters he’d received from various nonprofits and charities for his donations and philanthropic work.

The last pile was surprisingly large, and I had to (begrudgingly) admit that some of the letters were very sweet—especially the ones that had obviously been written by kids. I’d taken special care of those, keeping them piled neatly on top of the stack with little sticky notes outlining the name and age of their sender, plus a two-sentence summary in case Adrien wasn’t planning on reading them.

I really hoped he did, and I really hoped he replied. But I also knew that was just wishful thinking.

By early afternoon, I had the pile down to a short stack of a dozen unopened letters. And I was so eager to be fucking done with the task that I didn’t notice the envelope I’d picked up was entirely bare. It had no stamp, no return address, and no destination address.

Adrien had given me exactly one instruction when I’d started the task: “If you come across a blank envelope, do not open it.”

I opened it.

I didn’t actually realize what I was reading at first, because the content was so bizarrely out of left field that it took me a few seconds. But then it registered, and I dropped the piece of paper, scrambling away from it like it had burst into flames.

It was a death threat. Short and clear and to the violent point.

Oh, and it included Adrien’s address.

His home address. Apparently, he was in unit PH2-32.

I yanked the sleeve of my sweater down to cover my hand before carefully picking the letter back up. Though there was probably no point; my fingerprints were already all over the cursed thing.

Adrien’s office door was hanging open, and my knuckles barely tapped it before I shuffled right in.

He didn’t bother looking up from his monitor, his fingers continuing to move across his keyboard with uninterrupted ease.

“What?” he said when I paused in front of his desk, holding the piece of paper an arms-length away from my body. My heart was bouncing all over my chest.

“Hey. Um… do you remember when you told me not to open any suspicious-looking envelopes with no stamps?”

Adrien’s fingers paused, his flat glare slowly sliding to my face. He lizard-blinked in response to my incompetence.

“It was the one instruction you were given,” he said slowly.

I swear the man was convinced he could count all my brain cells on one hand. I’d never met anyone who was so relentlessly unimpressed by me.

“Mmm, it sure was,” I agreed. “But that’s not really important right now.”

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