Page 18 of Keep Your Friends Close and Your… Work Enemy Closer?

He burst out laughing again. "You're hilarious. You know that, Dee?"

"So glad I can amuse you. Now could we please get back to work? I have a million other things to do in addition to this."

"I can help, you know."

"Oh, yeah?" Not in a million fucking years. "Why don't you start by reading everything you can find on Venus La Fleur. We need to scour the internet, learn every little tidbit about her past, about her background, her career, her personal life, what makes her tick, her likes and dislikes, how we can possibly win her over enough to partner with us. And you get to write it all up for me in one cohesive report."

"So I can put the slush pile on hold?"

"For now. Yes. But one wrong word and you're back to it."

He frowned at me while I turned to my computer, intent on ignoring him andfinallydigging into my pile of work. But only a few minutes later, I heard him whistle, and I turned to him with a sigh, fully expecting to see a risqué picture of Venus on his computer. I knew the woman had an exaggerated hourglass figure and liked to flaunt it in numerous photo shoots, her cleavage spilling out of whatever tight thing she was wearing.

Expecting to see an image search of Venus' boobs, I was surprised to see instead a wall of text, like Jared was actually reading an article. But knowing men in general, it was probably someone's porno fantasy fanfic regarding the famous/infamous actress and what they wanted to do to her.

"What? What is it?" I asked, annoyed that he was so engrossed he hadn't even noticed me.

"What's what?" he finally replied, completely clueless.

"Why did you whistle?"

"Oh. Well, I just happened to find out that Venus' favorite charity, Furever Friends, is having a big event next weekend, and guess who's expected to be there?"

"I'm guessing Venus."

"Bingo. She's the guest of honor." He beamed at me, obviously very proud of himself. "And the best part is it's right here in the city."

"It is?" That surprised me. It just seemed too good to be true.

"So I'll get us tickets and we can go hang out with Venus."

"Go hang out with Venus. You think it'll be that easy to just walk right up to her and, in the short amount of time we have, convince her to work with us and write a book?"

"Yup," he said, popping the p sound. "It's all about connections, baby."

"And you think you have connections to Venus La Fleur."

"I know I do."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Sure you do. Whatever you say. Well, you work thoseconnections, and later, when I'm done with this shit-ton of work I have, I'm going to do it the old-fashioned way, work my ass off and do what's always worked for me in the past."

He had the nerve to scoff at me. "You do that."

"I will. Oh, and Jared?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't fucking call me baby."

Six

Annalise

"Did you see that email from Veronica?" Mona asked, perching against the counter in our spacious breakroom/kitchen area, hand curled around her steaming mug. "About birthday celebrations going forward?"

"What? No."

She leaned forward, her eyes gleaming like she had the juiciest bit of gossip to share. "So apparently, it's banned now to ask for money for co-workers' birthdays."

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