Page 38 of The Forever Rule

“Do you want me to kill him?” he asked, his voice low.

I was a little worried he was serious.

“Mr. Howard? Or your brother?”

He burst out laughing, and I relaxed marginally. “We can fight that, you know. You shouldn’t have been fired for a single dance. And it’s not like we’re in a rivalry with the Howards.”

A smile covered my face, and he gave me a quizzical look, raising his brow. “I thought to myself earlier that I wasn’t sure you guys were aware you were in a rivalry. And it seems that I was right.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll never understand some business practices, but here we are. Blakely? We need you here. You’re good at what you do, and we wanted to snap you up before, but you were a constant at Howard Enterprises. Now you’re not, and we want you. Are you going to be okay working here?”

It felt as if everything skidded to a halt, and it took me far too long to catch up. We had sat down as we had begun talking but I stood up then, confused.

“Just like that? I’m hired?”

He shrugged as if he hadn’t just changed my life. “Wecan go over salary and benefits and hours and everything, but we want you. And I know you need the job. And to be fair, I was a little worried that you weren’t going to want to take it because of well…”

And the other elephant in the room raised its trunk.“You don’t have to worry about that. I haven’t spoken to him since that evening.”

Confusion covered his face. “He didn’t call you?”

I winced. “I don’t know if that’s any of your business in an interview, but no.”

He flinched. “I think we are past the point of not allowing any personal things into this interview. I apologize.”

I shook my head, wondering why I’d snapped back as I had. “No. You’re right. I’m the one that blurted that Isabella was my best friend.”

“And that’s the second thing. Is she going to be okay with you working here?”

This time I smiled. “I think she promised to come and kick shins if I didn’t get hired. So thanks for that.”

He grinned then. “I think I’m going to like this sister of mine.”

“She’s mybestfriend. And one of the most amazing people I know. So I hope you do. And I’m really sorry all of this happened and it’s such a mess. But we do not need to talk about that. And I’m sorry that I know so much about it.”

“It’s actually kind of nice that someone else knows outside of the family. I mean the media pretends they know, but they don’t.”

I shook my head. “I can’t even imagine.”

He waved it off as if it was nothing, though I knew it couldn’t be. “So, are you okay then working here? We’re complicated, we’re demanding, but we’re not going to fire you because you dared to even breathe next to our supposed rival.”

I press my lips together, wondering what the catch was. Who were these Cages? And why was I inevitably connected to them?

But in the end, it didn’t matter.

“Yes. I’m in.”

He held out his hand again, and I shook it, as a wide smile covered his face. “Good. Now we can let the world know we poached you from our new rivals.”

This time I rolled my eyes. “Oh, he would love that.”

“Oh, we’ll makesurehe knows.”

“As long as it doesn’t blow up in our faces.”

“We can handle the embers.” He looked over my shoulder and from the way that he stiffened ever so slightly, I froze.

I knew exactly who was behind me in that moment, and who I knew I would inevitably see here.

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