Page 15 of Red

"You have not only wasted my time, but now you're wasting my staff's time. You want to know what will make me whole? Tack on more zeroes to the end of that number." She tapped her Bluetooth and turned her full ire on Peter. "Since you have something to share, why don't you go first." Peter opened his mouth, but she wasn't done. "Name first. Lead second."

I felt him bristle beside me. He'd been at The Dish for over a year and she didn't know his name?

"Peter Rhodes...and I don't have any new leads."

Now my face was as white as the board on the wall behind us. He gave me his lead, his opportunity to escape the firing squad?

"Peter," I hissed.

Perri snapped her fingers at me like I was a dog. "You, brunette. I haven't gotten to you yet."

Her pink lips smoldered as she flashed her bleached white teeth at Peter, like a lioness bearing her fangs. I'd seen pictures of her when she was younger; soft, even beautiful in an understated way. Now, she was all sharp angles, thin and brittle, her face a frozen mess of plastic surgery and Botox. Her hair was the color of scissors, the same pair of scissors that had been used to carve out her heart.

"Mr. Rhodes," she sneered. "Please tell us why you've bothered to join us when you don't have anything to offer? You're just taking up space and wasting oxygen."

This was my fault. I had to fix it.

"He has a lead,” I blurted. “I'm the one that's unprepared." Before Perri could spew more venom, I kept talking. I ignored the fact that I was now in her crosshairs, and she'd fired people for a lot less than not coming to a meeting prepared. "Peter's lead is Desmond O'Connell. Apparently someone overheard him telling the last contestant who was axed that he was let go because he didn't make good TV."

All eyes in the room shifted from me to Perri, standing in the doorway with her shades and crimson sheath dress. We were transported to some Roman coliseum where she was the Empress, and me and Peter were bloodied in the dirt. Whether she flipped her thumb up or down was anybody's guess.

"Is this some sort of Romeo and Juliet thing happening here?" She waved her hand, dismissing that thought. "Never mind." She breezed into the room, sitting in her plush seat at the head of the table. Her assistant appeared and filled her glass with sparkling water. "The lead is a solid one. Follow it, brunette. Since you two have annoyed me and I feel a migraine coming on, please feel free to excuse yourselves so the rest of us can get on with taking care of business."

Peter was fuming and I was disgusted, but we managed to walk out of the room with our heads held high. When the doors closed behind us, the sea of cubicles empty because everyone was behind us, trying their luck with a perpetually disappointed boss, I almost felt relieved that we got a pass.

Not we, you.

I reached for Peter's arm. "You didn't have to do that-"

"I know I didn't have to. I wanted to." He pulled from my hold gently, but I knew he was angry. And not just at Perri. "I'm gonna go get some air."

If I was a better friend I would have gone after him. Said the right thing to make it all better. I shouldn't have taken his lead, period...and I shouldn't have stepped in to save him when I'd seen him stand up to Perri and hold his own. And now I had a story, his story, a story I could care less about considering the massive one I had brewing-

Just let it go.

I trudged back to my seat, exhaling and doing my damnedest to do just that when my phone shuddered to life on my desk.

I looked at the screen, murmuring the words as a smile stretched across my face from ear to ear.

I hope I don't need any introduction, but just in case, I'm the man in the black mask...and you're the submissive that I can't get out of my head. Come find me tonight, Dungeon #3 and I'll do things to you that make you scream.

If I were smooth, I’d wait a few minutes before I replied. Instead, I wasted no time shooting him my answer: Yes Sir. :)

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