Page 5 of Beyond the Hate

Jeremy chuckles as he sits at the table. “You have to give her credit. She’s persistent.”

I shrug. I have no interest in my secretary. She’s not the one who heats my blood. “She does her job well.”

“Do you have the presentation ready?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m not the one who thinks a deadline is a suggestion.”

“People get way too worked up about deadlines.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re a billionaire.”

“Hey!” He points a finger at me. “You are, too.”

“Because I invested in your app.”

When Jeremy asked for seed money to launch his app company while we were still in college, I offered him the money I’d saved up for the next semester’s tuition. I figured I’d never see the money again and would have to take out a loan for tuition.

Instead, the app had more than one thousand downloads on the first day. And from there, things went crazy.

“Don’t sell yourself short. You worked just as hard as I did those first few years out of college.”

Between being the CFO forApparooand the CEO ofBuccaneer’s Whiskey,I still work my ass off. But now, instead of couch surfing to save money, I have a luxurious apartment here in California and my dream house on Smuggler’s Hideaway.

Life is good. If a bit lonely. Thoughts of Paisley flash into my mind again but I force them out. A senior management meeting is not the time or place to think about the woman who hates my guts.

I wake up my laptop and connect it to the screen. I open my presentation andHelp me!screeches from the speakers.

“What the hell?” I press escape to get out of the presentation but nothing happens.

Jeremy bursts into laughter. “Look.”

On the big screen, a man labelled Eli is being chased by a shark labeled Miranda. The theme song ofJawsplays in the background while the cartoon Eli screams for help.

“It’s a good thing the other managers haven’t arrived yet,” Jeremy manages to say between his barks of laughter.

I glare at him.

He holds up his hands. “It’s not me who pranked the IT team.”

I grit my teeth. “It was an accident.”

“An accident? Their coffee machine broke and you were doused in coffee. You could have at least covered your tracks.”

I throw my arms in the air. “For the last time. I didn’t break the machine. I was trying to fix it.”

He pats my shoulder. “Maybe you should stick to numbers instead of actual machinery.”

I growl at him. “Says the man who doesn’t know how a toilet plunger works.”

“You’re the one who wanted to go out for Mexican food.”

“You could have told me you were allergic to Chipotle peppers.”

“I didn’t know.”

I narrow my eyes on him. “You’d never eaten Mexican food before in your life?”

“We’ve been over this. It’s not my fault I never ordered extra spicy before.”

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