Page 22 of Keep Your Friends Close and Your… Work Enemy Closer?

I shot him my meanest ever glare as he slurped a noodle into his stupid mouth. "I swear to God..."

"Sorry, Dee. Really. It just slips out sometimes."

"Whatever." He did seem kind of sincere, but God, that was annoying as hell. All I could think about was getting some work done and getting out of here. "Let's brainstorm some titles for Venus' book."

"Oh, I've got a million ideas," he said around a mouthful of food.

"Yeah? What are they?"

He took a moment to wash down his food with a slurpy drink, of course, then met my stare, his eyes shining brightly. "Venus' Victory for one. Venus' Valiant Voyage. Or this one... Venus La Fleur: From Vulnerability to Valiance. Or maybe Vanquishing—"

I held up a hand. "You know what? I'm going to stop you right there. I mean, what the hell is with all the alliteration? Are you Max Sterling's long lost cousin or something?"

He choked on his drink. "What? No, of course not," he sputtered. "I just... I just like it. I think it's catchy and effective."

"There's such a thing as too much of a good thing, you know."

"But maybe Max Sterling is onto something, though. Alliterationworks. The man is a self-made billionaire. Uber successful. Not to mention extremely attractive. He's magnetic. He's—"

"Oh, my God. Would you stop? It's not like he's right here listening to all your ass-kissing and going to give you a promotion and a raise. Not that he would do that. Billionaires don't get rich by being nice or being generous with their money."

"I beg to differ. Some do." He shrugged at my disbelieving glare. "Okay. Maybe arare few. But from what I've heard, Max Sterling is different."

"Max Sterling is perhaps the biggest asshole of them all," I argued, remembering all the times he'd looked down on me like I was a piece of gum on the bottom of his million-dollar shoe, pretending not to know me or my sisters, like we hadn't met many times before or been to hundreds of the same events together over the years.

"Why do you think that? Have you met him? Has he personally done something to you?"

Oh, crap. I could hardly tell Jared the truth. My brain worked overtime trying to come up with something, anything I could tell him. "He just.. he just..."

"He just what?"

"Nothing really."

"Nothing really? You obviously hate the man. And I'm curious why. I'd like to know what kind of person I'm working for."

"Okay. He's not that bad," I admitted, wondering if I should give him a sliver of the truth. "It's just that I've met him a few times and he never remembers me."

"He doesn't rememberyou? Like at work events?"

"Yeah. And he acts like he's above us all."

That was another layer of truth. Although I had to admit, the one time I'd met him as Cordelia, albeit at a distance, he'd beenvery friendly and personable with us all. But I knew underneath that smooth exterior was the heart of a rich asshole. I'd seen it time and time again with him as my real self. So that meant the work Max Sterling just turned on the charm for his employees.

"He does? Really?" Jared asked.

"Yep," I lied. "Sure does."

"Huh. Strange. I've heard nothing but great things about him." Jared's look of confusion changed to a smile. "Maybe he just doesn't likeyou."

I shot him the middle finger. "Well, I'm pretty sure he woulddespiseyou."

He laughed. And laughed again. "You're probably right."

"Can we please get back to work? Despite the immense pleasure it is to hang out with you, I'd really like to go home sometime before midnight."

"Aw," Jared said. "The pleasure is all mine, Dee."

I decided to ignore him, which I had discovered was the best policy with Jared and all his annoyances. "So back to a title..."

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