Page 14 of Sensual Games

I was proud of myself for getting through this without punching him straight in the face. Why was he doing it? Was he so insecure? From where I was sitting, he had absolutely no reason to be. He was the crown prince, the only child of Connor Diamond. Fate had smiled on him before he was born. If I were anywhere near as lucky as him, I would’ve spent a good part of every day thanking my lucky stars instead of coming up with ways to squeeze everybody else out.

“I remember some of the ideas you were putting together back at Jones.” Laney was doing her best to help me pull things together, and I wished I knew how to feel about it. She was a good and supportive friend, but I didn’t need Lucian thinking I couldn’t fight my own battles. It wasn’t like I could come out and say that kind of thing in front of everybody, obviously, meaning I could only bite my tongue.

“Didn’t you already have a plan put together for the Midwest market?” Brad asked.

“Really?” Lucian dragged out the word, swiveling my way. “Maybe that’s something you should share with everybody too. I know I would love to hear about it. Unless it was something you were working on privately.”

More Games.

This was not a conversation we needed to have in front of the rest of the team. There were more than a few soft coughs, the sound of a few people shifting their weight in their chairs.

“These are only ideas I was working on before I had the pleasure of coming to work here.” And what a pleasure it had been so far. If I made it through the rest of this joke of a meeting without murdering him, I would deserve an award.

To think, I had such high hopes. I should’ve known better. Feeling sorry for myself wasn’t something I considered a habit, but I was starting to understand how some people made it their life’s mission. All I wanted to do by the time everybody started getting their things together was fold my arms on the table and bury my face in them.

Brad lingered on the other side of the room, looking at me rather than leaving with everybody else. I offered a brief smile and shook my head just enough for him to see and understand.

“Did you need something?” Lucian hadn’t gotten his things together, no surprise, and now, point-blank leveled Brad with a cold stare. It wasn’t enough for him to make me look like an asshole in front of everybody. He had to stick around so he could gloat in private. While I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, I had more than a few things I needed to get off my chest.

Brad scowled but left the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. That was as long as it took for me to shove my chair back from the table with a grunt and jump to my feet. “What the hell was that about?” I whispered fiercely, aware of the people sitting only a few yards from where I stood.

The man had the art of looking innocent down pat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Poison,” he had the nerve to say.

“Bullshit. You changed the time without telling me.” Pulling out my phone, I opened my calendar. “Look. No update, no reminder, nothing. You deliberately kept me out of it for thirty minutes, and for what? To prove you’re a big man?”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” He closed his MacBook and even had the nerve to sigh as he stood. “I’m good at a lot of things, as you know, but I don’t consider myself a tech genius, so I have no idea why you didn’t get an alert about the new meeting time. I look forward to seeing your presentation or whatever it was you put together.” If he’d made air quotes around the word presentation, he couldn’t have been more condescending.

There wasn’t much I hated more than being patronized. Something about it made me see red and always had. My chest painfully tightened as I spat, “You can’t handle me being here. Just admit it already.”

He clenched his infuriatingly sharp jaw and narrowed his unfathomably dark eyes. Of all times for me to be this aware of how good he looked. “Yes, that’s right,” he muttered, scoffing. “Keep imagining I care that much about you.”

“It’s the truth. You can’t handle knowing somebody might know more than you do about anything. And what’s worse,” I added, even as my good sense told me to stop. “You can’t handle the idea of there being competition for your position. Welcome to the real world, buddy. That’s how it is for everybody.”

He had the nerve to lift his chin like he was proud. “I’m not everybody.”

“Thank God for that because I don’t know how the world would keep spinning if everybody was like you.” Boy, was this going off the rails. He had my blood up. I couldn’t let him get away with the things he was saying and doing. Somebody had to hold this brat accountable.

“I’m sure it wouldn’t be able to keep spinning without people like you.” Sneering, he shook his head. “Willing to do anything to get an edge on the competition, even if it means fucking the boss.”

At first, I didn’t understand what he meant. When he saidboss, my mind immediately went to Connor, who I, of course, hadn’t slept with. Then I remembered being in Connor’s office last week and how suspicious Lucian had looked. Is that what he thinks happened before he came in?

It only took a second for my brain to catch up. He was talking about himself. He was accusing me of sleeping with him to get this job and keep it secure. Just when I thought he had scraped the bottom of the barrel, he found a way to go lower.

I didn’t know whether to laugh myself sick or cry over how pathetic he was. “You are unbelievable,” I said, shaking my head. “You honestly thought that’s what this was all about? Like I’m so damn desperate, I would sleep with you to keep my job secure? What is it like living in your head?”

“Sure, give me all the stupid bullshit you want,” he insisted. “Don’t act like you’re above that kind of thing. You would be the only person who refused to use what they had going for them.”

“That’s usually the case if the person in question has nothing else going for them but what they can do in bed.” I could not believe we were having this discussion right here in the office, no less. But at least I now had a clue where his animosity was coming from. Here I was, figuring it all had to do with stepping on his toes in front of his dad. But really, he felt used. Poor little thing. “I have a brain going for me too. Or do you think I fucked my way to where I was at Jones Media?”

I knew it was a mistake before his head snapped back. The last syllable was barely out of my mouth, and I knew I shouldn’t have said it. Not here, in the conference room, where we were supposed to at least pretend to be professional.

This is it. You just doomed yourself, your mom, and your whole future.

When his eyes went narrow, I realized I was in a cage with a tiger staring me down. I couldn’t exactly run screaming from the conference room, so there was nothing to do but stand straight and tall under his heavy stare. “Let’s get one thing straight, Poison,” he growled out. “We had fun, but that doesn’t give you the right to talk to me the way you do. I am your superior.”

“What you are is out of your mind. I actually feel sorry for you right now.” I finished getting my stuff together, shaking with rage. More than that. It was the bitter sense of being deliberately misunderstood. Underestimated. No matter what I said, he was going to believe exactly what he wanted because, in his head, that was the way things made sense.

Still, I couldn’t help setting him straight on something, turning toward him with my hand on the doorknob. “Let’s get one thing straight. You can’t live in New York without knowing the name Diamond. I recognized it during the wedding.”

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