Page 155 of Mine

After the dinner,I booked an Uber to my hotel and waited. And of course, Jeff being Jeff, I spotted him walking towards me.

I held up my hand as he approached. “I’m not interested in talking.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” he snapped. “You’ve been avoiding me for days.”

“Because I don’t want to talk to you,” I said firmly. “I want nothing to do with you outside of work.”

He threw up his hands. “You’ve changed, Pepper. Is he manipulating you? Forcing you to act like this?”

My ears started to ring. “What are you talking about?”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “You know exactly who I’m talking about. The fucking punk tattooed kid.”

What the fuck?

“I reached out to that bass player he fired,” Jeff said. “And he told me how the two of you were together. And then seeing how he treated you last week, I knew it was true. What the hell is going on? What are you thinking?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I was going to keep playing ignorant. “My ride is almost here.”

I started to turn away from him, but his hand shot out and gripped my arm, yanking me back to face him.

“I know the two of you are together because I saw your fucking text messages,” he snarled. “I saw what he’s been saying to you. Telling you to get on your knees and shit? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Youreadmy text messages?” I asked, jerking my body away. “What the fuck is wrong withyou?”

“You’re the one that’s in trouble,” he said. “You’ve been fucking a client, Pepper?—”

“You fucked an intern!” I yelled.

“This is different?—”

“It’s not different,” I said. “Actually, it is different, because Salt isn’t signed yet. He is not a client yet. And the moment he is, I will follow through on my part and notify everyone of our relationship, but until then, I am not violating any of the contracts we have in place. But you know what did violate those contracts? Fucking an intern while married to the goddamn CEO.”

“That was forever ago,” he growled. “This is different. This isn’t like you.”

“You don’t know me, Jeff,” I spat. “You never did. And you’ve lost out on your chance to ever get to know me.”

“He has you under his thumb,” he said. “He’s manipulating you.”

“No, he’s not,” I argued. “I love him, Jeff. I love him and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He scoffed. “Well, I already did.”

Ice filled my veins. “What do you mean?”

“I doubt he’ll take you back,” he sneered. “I know I never would.”

“Jeff,” I rasped. “What the fuck did you do?”

The car pulled up and he took a step back, holding up his hands. “I’m done here.”

“What the fuck did you do?!” I yelled, but he was already walking away.

Fuck. What the fuck happened? I yanked open the passenger door and slid in. My heart hammered as I looked down at my phone. When I’d pulled up the app to call an Uber, I hadn’t seen any notifications. Had I missed something?

Something was wrong.

“What did he do?” I whispered to myself.

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