Page 6 of Pushing Daisy
She isn’t sure, but she thinks she sees Petra stiffen at her question. That can’t be good. Are they making her do this all on her own?
“You will have a partner, who you are expected to work alongside,” Councilwoman Amare replies.
“When will I be able to meet them?”
“Now,” she hears a familiar voice say from the back of the room. Has this person been here the entire time? Daisy hesitates, not wanting to turn around, fearing that the owner of the voice is exactly who she thinks it is.
Heels click on the marble floor, getting closer to where she sits. At this point, Daisy refuses to turn and look. Please don’t let me be right. Please.
“Hello, Daisy.”
Fuck me with a fork.
“Sloan,” Daisy replies flatly.
Sloan Wilks stops beside her, crossing her arms over her chest. She looks down at Daisy with a stupid smirk on her stupid, pretty face. Daisy’s eyes travel down her body, noting how her tight, dark grey dress cinches in perfectly at her waist, giving her a gloriously disgusting hourglass shape that Daisy could only dream about. As her eyes find Sloan’s again, she thinks she sees a flash of something that could resemble empathy, but she must be mistaken. Sloan doesn’t care about anyone other than herself.
“Can I petition for someone else? Please. Anyone else.”
“No, Miss Hale, you cannot switch your partner. We have purposely selected the two of you to work together,” Clellugs says. Daisy deflates.
Councilwoman Amare continues, “You both have great skillsets that you will bring to this opportunity, and we think you will complement each other well. We know there is some…history between you two, but we trust you will find a way to work through it.”
“Understood,” Daisy replies, feeling admonished.
“If there are no other questions, we look forward to seeing what you two can put together.”
“Thank you, again, for the opportunity,” Daisy says before she feels the rushing, gut-pulling sensation of being ported out of the council room.
CHAPTER 3
Sloan
“Really, Boris! Did you have to make this so fucking hot?” Sloan barks, wiping the scalding tea from her lip. “Fucking twatgoblin.”
“I heard that!” Boris, the goblin assistant, calls from the hall.
“Good. I meant for you to hear it.”
A low huff sounds from outside her office, signaling his displeasure with her. Well, fucking tough titties. It’s part of his job to bring her tea when she asks for it, and it isn’t unreasonable to think that she should be able to drink it without burning off a lip.
Leaning back in her chair, she calls on her magic, relishing the familiar sizzle under her skin as it pools at her fingertips. Sloan touches the tender spot on her lip with the faint silver tendril, and warm relief spreads from the point of contact, soothing the dull ache. Glancing in the small circular mirror on her desk, she checks to ensure any remaining redness has vanished with the sting. Success. Not that she really expected anything less than perfection, but sometimes magic can have a mind of its own, and it doesn’t hurt to check.
The ding of an incoming email pulls her attention. She pushes the tea away, allowing it to cool naturally some more before attempting to drink it again, and reads the new message.
“Blah, blah, blah. Less money spent. Too many risks. Do better,” she mumbles. These messages from her various clients are always the same—less protection for their staff and as little cost to the company as possible. The majority of her work with her family’s insurance company supports supernatural businesses that find themselves in need of revamped policies.
Her job as an actuary at the Wilks family insurance company, Insure Incandescent, means her day-to-day tends to involve answering a lot of emails, conducting meetings with shareholders and clients regarding potential risks as they build plans, and managing a lot of paperwork. It can be extremely monotonous and isn’t glamorous, but she enjoys it. She likes being able to do something, even if it’s filing a mountain of paperwork, that will help people in their time of need. Finding that balance between what the companies can afford and the protection their staff need can be challenging, but nothing excites her like a challenge. So many businesses don’t realize that they should have policies in place to help care for their staff properly rather than try to get away with the minimum. Her job mostly involves telling these scum that it’s far riskier to go cheap than to pay the higher premiums, they will be able to keep more of their money if they select the lowest premiums and minimal coverage. Unfortunately, with her parents as her bosses, she needs to follow their company mission and align her work with their values if she wants to keep her job, no matter how much she may disagree.
As her day unfolds rather uneventfully, Sloan falls into the rhythm of her work.
Answer a call.
Email a follow-up.
Print out this paperwork.
Send out that form.
