Page 4 of Hate Notes

Yet here I sat in front of Cole's massive mahogany desk, feeling like I was shrinking by the second.

He sighed, standing from his chair as it groaned with relief. Cole was a large man, thick with muscle and well over six feet. Once upon a time, I had swooned over him. Now, it was impossible to look at him the same way. After our breakup, the mask had slipped, revealing the nasty, heartless man who had been there all along.

Outside his office windows, Manhattan sprawled before us like his personal kingdom. With an ego like his, he probably stoodthere regularly having thoughts like "I own this fucking city" or "This city wishes it could ask to suck my cock! And if it did, I'd turn it down... unless Chicago was watching. Then I'd do it just to make that slutty little city jealous."

Okay, maybe I was just a touch bitter. But I had wasted two years of my life on this man, and now I was dealing with the repercussions of letting my career get tangled up with him, too.

"No," I said carefully. "She doesn't have a single point, Cole. If this were a math test, it would be zero out of a hundred points.”

"What am I supposed to do, exactly? Choose my ex over my fiancée?"

"Sure. Let's do that," I said with forced cheer. "Or, door number two says you can not make it a competition since I have absolutely no romantic interest in you. I'd happily swear as much under oath. I'll take a lie detector test. Hell, I'll skywrite it if that would help your precious Kylie sleep at night."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned. "Kylie isn't comfortable with you around the office. She says you give her looks."

"Looks?" I blurted. "Is it my fault that I look more closely at snakes than rabbits?"

"What?" Cole asked, voice heavy with exasperation. "You're always making things so... ridiculous. Can't we just have an adult conversation about this?"

"Snakes bite people," I explained with exaggerated patience. "So if a snake was slithering around the office in designer heels and smiling at me, then yeah, I think I deserve some slack if I keep a close eye on it."

"This is exactly why we've reached this point, Em. You can't talk about another employee that way. Technically, she's your superior now, too."

"I'm aware," I said. After all, she was quickly riding the coochie train to the top of the company, and she had purchased an express ticket. "You want us to have an adult conversation about this? Okay. You’re asking me to do something I’m pretty sure is illegal and threatening to fire me if I don’t. Am I understanding correctly?”

“All I need is a little information, Ember. He wouldn’t even need to know it came from you.”

“Right. Somehow infiltrate your business rival’s company, wait until they show me something you can use to sabotage him, report back, and hope nobody is the wiser. You do realize my degree is in business, right? I passed on the espionage classes. Speaking of educated and qualified employees… what is Kylie’s degree in, again?”

Cole clenched his jaw. We both knew Kylie didn't have a college education. She started as an intern and worked her way down below his belt, then up the company ladder, qualifications be damned.

Cole had blonde hair and a beard that made him look a little like Chris Hemsworth. I had always told him his hair looked best short, but he started growing it out when he met her. Kylie was the type of woman who treated a relationship like it was a process of breaking in a wild horse. In her mind, successfully dating somebody was like taming them and seeing how much influence you could exert on your partner.

Bleh.If you asked me, a relationship was about bringing out the best in your partner, not molding them as if they were a ball of clay.

"I'm not saying I need you to be a spy," he said carefully. "I just need you to keep an eye on things at Foster Real Estate. Maybe feed me some information now and then."

"Is that all?" I asked sweetly. "Just casual corporate espionage? No big deal?"

"Em—"

"How about you tell me why I would ever agree to this. Let's start there. Because I'm pretty sure I could lawyer up and go after your ass if you’re actually threatening to fire me over this."

"We don't need to make this dirty," he said, voice dropping to that warning tone I used to find sexy. Now it just made my skin crawl. "But I'm sure I could find a reason to fire you. The incident with Tucker, for example."

"Oh, come on," I complained. "That was funny. And no staplers were harmed in the prank. They were just... stickier. It's hardly a fireable offense."

"What about the time with Lauren?"

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. Okay. That one had gotten slightly out of hand. I could admit that much. In my defense, she really shouldn't have eaten my clearly labeled lunch three days in a row.

The truth was, I didn't have the patience or the money to pursue legal action. That lack of money was exactly why I knew I would lower my standards and do whatever it took to keep my job, no matter how much it stung.

"I'll consider it," I said with a defeated sigh.

Cole's smile was predatory, even though I knew he was trying to look gracious. "That's all I ask."

Except it wasn't. The subtext to this conversation was that I was done at Northman Group, whether I accepted this job or not. Saying "yes" would just be a way to collect a few more paychecks while I tried to find new employment.

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