Page 30 of The Price of Scandal
“So I called her.”
I was suddenly very,very tired. “Derek, why are you in my office? Surely this ‘fixing’ doesn’t require you to shadow me 24/7?”
“My darling Emily, how else can I help you?”
“Are you in my calendar right now?” I barked. Appointments were moving, times changing right before my eyes.
“Why, yes, I am.”
“How did you even get access?”
“Do you really want me to bore you with the details of how I do things?” he asked.
My printer whirred to life and spat out several pages. “Stop using my equipment!”
“You’re welcome to use my equipment at any time, Emily.”
I was going to find a way to destroy this man. Somehow. Someway. I would make him rue the day he agreed to be my babysitter.
I snatched the papers out of the tray and marched them over to him. “Derek, I mean this in the nicest possible way. If you don’t get out of my office and let me get to work, I am going to lose my shit in a scene so un-Stanton-like that the entire building will be talking about it for years.”
“I’d better get you two donuts tomorrow,” he mused.
I threw the papers in his face and had to restrain myself from wrapping my hands around his neck and choking the life out of him.
“Take it easy, love,” he said, relenting. “I’ve got a few things to go over with you first. I’ll be quick. I promise.”
“I give you five and you leave me alone?” I pressed.
“Is everything a negotiation with you?” he asked, amused.
“Yes. Now get out.”
“You give me five and I’ll stop distracting you.”
That was definitely not a promise to leave my office, I noted.
He patted the cushion next to him.
I took a deep breath and counted backward from ten. Luna swore by counting away the mad. But it never worked for me. It just made me angrier that I’d wasted ten seconds in which I could have done something more productive.
“Five minutes,” I repeated and sat, making sure to leave several inches of couch cushion between us.
“First up, a non-disclosure agreement,” he said, spreading the paperwork out.
“You want me to sign an NDA?”
“No. I’m going to sign one for you, which is something your team should have done the second they hired me.” He pulled a fountain pen from his pocket and scrawled his name across the contract.
His signature was bold, confident. Just like the man it belonged to. It irked me. Just like the man it belonged to.
Derek looked up, our eyes met and held.
“There. Now I’m all yours. You can tell me your deepest, darkest secrets, and I’ll never tell a soul.”
He was using his physical appeal against me, and I was not exactly falling for it, but my foundation felt a little shaky.
“I don’t have any secrets,” I lied.
