Page 66 of The Grumpy Billionaire

“Big piles of golden eggs. And Wulfric eats them up with a spoon. I hear some of them are massive!”

“Be serious, Stella. I need to tell you something.” I check to make sure the privacy divider’s all the way closed.

She looks concerned. “Do you have to lay an egg right now?”

“I need to tell you why I wrote that letter.”

She regards me warily, but at least she stops with the egg business.

“I play cards every Tuesday night with a group of guys who tend to be pretty well connected in terms of knowing things, let’s just say. I mentioned that I was working on a letter of recommendation for a family friend who was going for a job at Zevin Media, and one of them told me something extremely disturbing about Bennett Zevin, your prospective boss. He’s been accused of sexual harassment.”

She blinks, not looking entirely surprised. “And?”

“There’s even been an assault charge out there that got settled out of court. Sexual assault,” I clarify.

“Uh-huh.”

“There are people who consider him dangerous, Stella, but I wasn’t at liberty to tell you—what’s said at the card table stays at the card table. But I knew you’d gotten several offers. I thought if this one was off the table, you’d take one with a boss who would respect you.”

She takes a deep breath. “And that’s why you wrote the letter?”

“Yes! I didn’t mean for it to be publicized the way that it was. I’m absolutely livid about that, but in any case—”

“You had to save me,” she says. “From big bad Bennett Zevin.”

“Well, yes,” I say. “I couldn’t tell you what I knew because of this ethos in our group that what’s said at the card table stays at the card table, but I had to do something.”

ChapterTwenty-Eight

Stella

Hugo clearly expectssome kind of gratitude.

“Did it ever occur to you, Hugo, that I might have done my research and been aware of this information?”

He looks stunned. “But it’s not public knowledge.”

“Yeah, well, women pass this sort of thing on. They warn each other—it’s how we survive out there. So yes, I did my research, and guess what? I still wanted to work there. I had a strategy.”

“But, assault charges, Stella—not inappropriate jokes, not a hostile atmosphere, but outright assault. The man’s dangerous. Surely there are other jobs just as good—”

“Newsflash—if I ruled out all the companies that might have a lecherous freak on the leadership team, my list would be cut by half. I wanted that job, Hugo. I wanted it a lot. I’m not the helpless little sister, bumbling through life like a doofus!”

“I know! But when I imagined it…this guy…” He gazes into the middle distance with this fierce, primal look, like he wants to set the world on fire.

“Well, I had it under control,” I say.

“A man like that,” he growls. “Imagining this guy anywhere near you, I couldn’t think straight. My judgment got clouded with this irrational, counterproductive impulse…”

An irrational, counterproductive impulse—meaning a caveman impulse, I realize. Leave it to Hugo to describe a caveman impulse as irrational and counterproductive.

Yeah, it’s hot, but having my dream job would be way hotter.

“Again, I had it under control,” I say. “I wanted that job, and you had no right to take matters into your own hands like that. If they came to me and offered me that job today, I would definitely still take it. And it would have been amazing, and I would have handled it.”

“Why not shoot higher?” he says. “Go for what you would truly want instead of a situation to handle, to endure.”

“Like, hold out for the perfect job?”

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