Page 72 of The Bargain

I had to bite the inside of my cheek at her snarky tone, but I got myself under control and launched into a lengthy description of my process for developing my idea and how I’d worked with the other departments to gather the financial proof I’d needed to show that it was a viable idea.

From there, Danielle ran me through a variety of initiatives that I’d worked on. After a short time, I no longer needed her to prompt me. The interview gremlin in my brain finally fucking woke up and remembered how to sell me and my skills. She’d slipped us straight into an interview without making it feel like I was being interviewed.

Two hours flashed by in the blink of an eye. I stopped only to take a sip of my now-lukewarm tea to wet my painfully dry mouth after so much talking.

“So, what you’re telling me is that you have experience working with multiple departments to organize and spearhead long-term initiatives to meet goals by a set deadline. You can designandstick to a strict budget. And you have no problem dealing with people from all levels of a business.”

“Yes.”

“And since you worked for my son, I know you are an expert at handling frantic, impulsive, idea-driven people who just might have a tendency to flit from one shiny thing to the next.”

“Um…yes.” That was a frighteningly accurate description of her son. However, Sebastian could focus and worked very hard at getting tasks done even when he was haunted by shiny new things.

“Good. I need a COO. We’ve never had one. I’ve overseen everything and I have presidents who oversee the workings of the individual charities, but I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy the managing part as much. I am a big ideas and big plans person. What we need is someone to manage the general operations of everything. To direct this giant ship to keep my crazy ideas from steering us toward an iceberg. Someone who will tell me no.” She paused, a smirk growing on her lips. “I know for a fact that you told Sebastian no plenty of times, stopping him from running off with new and crazy ideas.”

Heat burned my cheeks. I had told Sebastian no many times as his assistant, but not nearly enough times as the man he was dating. But I pushed through my embarrassment to tackle something a little uglier.

“Mrs. Courtland?—”

“Danielle.”

I nodded. “Danielle, I don’t know what Sebastian has told you about my situation, but I will freely admit that I need a job. Badly. This would help me out tremendously and I think I wouldenjoy working here, but I don’t want a job offer that has been made out of guilt or pity.”

“Oh, no, not at all. I asked you here because I think you’re best suited for this position. My charity is important to me, but I’m not about to hand it over to someone to run into the ground because I feel bad for that person.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your honesty.”

Danielle rose and walked to her desk to pick up a thick packet of papers. She brought them to the sitting area and handed them to me. “This contains all the details of the job position. The list of expectations is long, but I am confident that you can handle it. There is also a detailed list of the pay and benefits for the position. I’ve also included an overview of the charities, what we’ve done during the past several years, how they’ve performed, and some rough ideas of how I’d like to expand in the future. My direct phone number and email are in there. Take a couple of days to review everything. Give me a call or shoot me an email if there’s anything you have questions about. We’ll discuss it. If possible, I would love to get an answer from you by Friday about whether you’ll accept my offer.”

It was on the tip of my tongue to say that I didn’t need to take any time to think about it. I could accept right this second. I didn’t have to look at the pay offer. There was no doubt in my mind that it was very nice. Throw in that I would be in a position of executive management and working for a charity in an area that was very near and dear to my heart. How could I turn it down?

But she was right. I needed to look over everything and seriously consider whether I was up for the challenge. My college education was in business management, and I’d worked on many projects with different department heads, but it had always been with the feeling that I was Sebastian’s voice, borrowing his power. This would all be on my shoulders.

“Yes, I think I should be able to decide by Friday,” I agreed, my fingers tightening on the packet of information. The weight of it was daunting, but I was sure it held my future. A much brighter future that could not only help me, but also my mother.

“Excellent, and don’t worry if it feels overwhelming at first. I’ll be there every step of the way. I’m not going to just toss you in the deep end with the sharks.”

“Thank you,” I murmured. I stared at the packet and repeated those two precious words a little louder. “Thank you so much for considering me for this opportunity. Regardless of what happens after I leave here today, I am very honored that you believed I would be a good fit for this role. And it would mean a lot to me on a very personal level to help with your charities.”

Danielle’s smile grew so wide that her eyes became narrow slits and sparkled in the afternoon light. “That makes me so happy to hear. You’re very welcome.”

After that, the interview was done. We shook hands and she walked me to the door, but my feet dragged. Now that the business side of things was complete, there was a personal matter that was screaming loudly, demanding that I at least ask.

“Mrs. Courtland?”

“Danielle,” she corrected, but I didn’t change because this was something else entirely.

“May I ask you a personal question?” I stopped walking, and she turned to face me, her expression silently inquisitive. “How is he doing?”

That warm grin became wickedly sly. She returned to my side and slipped her hand into the crook of my arm before directing us to the sitting area we’d just left.

“Oh, that is personal. And how long have you been wanting to ask that question?”

“Pretty much since you confirmed that this wasn’t a job offer out of pity or guilt.”

She chuckled as we sat at the same time. “To be honest, he’s a mess. Does that make you happy?”

“No!” I shouted in her face, but I didn’t care. The idea was abhorrent and disgusting. “Of course not! I’ll admit that I was pissed at him that first day, but I was angry at a lot of things. Mostly myself. But what happened wasn’t his fault. It was mine. He’d made a lot of silly promises that deep down I logically knew he couldn’t keep, but I let myself believe them because Iwantedto believe them. I wanted to go out on one date with him. I’d had a stupid crush on him for years, and I thought I could be happy with one date. Afterward, we would realize that we were being silly and return to our normal working relationship.”

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