Page 35 of Best Served Hot
‘You didn’t confirm,’ he complained.
Alex thought he had a cheek moaning that she wasn’t being a good enough former mistress. ‘Well, I’m here now. What’s up?’ she said, sitting down in the chair opposite him, popping her feet up on his fancy desk.
He looked at the feet like he might say something. Instead, he opened his drawer up and pulled out a small stack of cash, plopping it next to her feet. ‘That’s twenty grand.’
She took her feet off the desk quickly and looked at the stack, shocked. ‘Right…’
‘It’s yours. But you have to leave today,’ he told her.
Alex raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Your wife would be out an AD. You don’t think that might cause some problems?’
‘I could have a replacement in about fifteen minutes,’ Ethan said. ‘And even if I couldn’t, so what? They’ll scrabble through. They’ll shootsomething.’
Alex was appalled. ‘Wow. You don’t care about this show at all, do you?’
Ethan was angered. ‘What does that have to do with—’
‘It’s not a surprise to me that you don’t care that much about the quality of the show, but I guess I didn’t realise how little the show itself means to you.Foundationscould be anything. It’s just money and a title. That’s all you’re about.’
Ethan eyed her sourly. ‘Oh, shut up. You don’t know me.’
‘I know you better than you think,’ Alex said. She looked at the money. ‘Twenty grand, but I have to leave right now?’
Ethan perked up. ‘Yes. Take it and go.’
‘What would you tell Nicole?’ Alex asked.
‘You can let me worry about that.’
Alex looked back at the money. It really was a lot. And it must have been some effort for Ethan to get that amount of cash in such a brief amount of time.
There was only one way to go.
She looked back at him and said, ‘OK, Ethan. Let’s see what twenty grand buys, shall we?’ She stood up, leaning across the desk and grabbing the stack in both hands. And then she walked around Ethan to the open window behind him and flung it out.
‘THE FUCK?!’ Ethan screamed. He gave her a look of wild bewilderment and then ran out of his office, presumably to go and collect what money he could find outside.
Alex popped her head out of the window and saw Ethan run around the side of the building moments later, three floors below, looking manic. Alex was positively high from what she’d done. Throwing stacks of cash out of a window was as much fun as she’d thought it would be. And therehewas, on his hands and knees, like the little grub he was, scrabbling for his beloved money. It was delicious.
Alex took the phone out of her pocket and gave Nicole a quick update. ‘For those unable to see the action, Alex threw the cash out of a window.’
Laughter exploded down the line. ‘You threw twenty grand out of the window?!’ Nicole sputtered, barely able to catch her breath.
‘Yep. He dashed out to get it, so I’m just gonna watch and enjoy.’
‘Tell meeverything.’
Alex leaned out of the window to get a better view. The stack had exploded on contact with the ground, and notes were blowing around in a light wind.
‘Oh my fucking Jesus bastard shitting…’ Ethan muttered to himself, panicked, while he scrabbled around for the dispersing cash.
Just then, a couple of actors happened to walk by. One of them was Kendall Evans. ‘Ethan?’ she asked. ‘Is everything OK?’
He looked up, his face a picture. ‘Er, hi! I… I dropped some… I dropped my money.’
‘As we speak, Ethan is trying to explain to some passersby why he’s scrabbling around for twenty-pound notes on the ground like he’s in a somewhat lo-fi Japanese game show where the primary goal is humiliating yourself,’ Alex told Nicole.
‘How’s he explaining it?’ Nicole said.
