Page 10 of Dead Set on You
I’m in control.
I breathe out.
A flash of sitting at the restaurant cuts through the mental fog.
Anger—the kind I usually experience in stress dreams where I show up to work in only my running shoes and Rafael taunts me from the break room—buzzes through me as details from last night click into place, one puzzle piece at a time.
The two of us and Cyril having dinner at the Aviary, the final step in our courtship of OhLaLove. Dinner. Drinks. Business talk. I do two of those things well, but drinking? It’s not one of them. It dulls my edge and breaks Dana’s Doctrine.
Our boss, Dana Casper, vice president of Media Lab and unflinching purveyor of corporate discipline, has three rules when it comes to client meetings: No drinking (more than two drinks). No gambling. No funny business (up for interpretation, but it isn’t rocket science—if it sounds like a bad idea, it probably is).
Dana came up through the ranks during a different time, and she’s dead set on making sure we don’t have to stoop to old-school tactics to win business. I like rules as much as checklists (a lot), but Rafael? He went for the tequila, and I played along because the account was—is—everything.
And now I may have screwed it up because Rafael knows exactly what buttons to press to make me explode, and last night he smashed all of them. One by one. Until I actually passed out.
Was Cyril somehow still around when it happened? Did I sabotage the account because I let Rafael get to me? Did he bring me here because he thought he was helping?
The thought of Rafael thinking Ineededhim makes me shoot off the sofa—too fast.
The room spins. My knees buckle. And I almost topple over.
Somehow I’m still in my heels, because, of course, he didn’t have the decency to remove my shoes or cover me with a blanket like a halfway-evolved human.
Not that I should have expected anything decent. It’s Rafael we’re talking about.
WhatdidI expect?
That he’d hail a cab or call Gemma?
As my best friend, she would’ve been more than happy to take me home. As a junior associate on his team, Gemma is always a phone call away.
A man with basic reasoning skills would have called her. He’s not that man.
I swallow a growl.
I’m going to make him pay.
Right after I pull my thoughts together and make a plan. Right after I find my phone and prepare my speech—because sure, I may have fainted, but he’s the one who tipped me over the edge.
Keeping my movements quiet and my wrath in (temporary) check, I slip off my black pumps, tuck them under one arm, and start across his loft, scanning for my purse. The backstabbing jerk probably hid it to make me suffer this morning.
Illegal-adjacent ideas of payback moving solidly into felony territory, I pad across the hardwood floor from the living room to the dining room overlooking the city.
Dazzling morning light streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows, which open to downtown Chicago. The glossy facades of skyscrapers gleam back. Beyond them, Lake Michigan sparkles. I can make out the Aviary … and the corner where I passed out. People and cars move through their morning, business as usual.
And I’m here—temporarily out of office. No phone. No way to check my emails and see what I missed. I can imagine at least a couple of emails and several Teams messages asking for afollow-up on last night’s meeting, and I haven’t even responded. Because Ican’t.
So much for being a game changer.
Last night, I messed up the game.
That’s what I get for thinking I could sit across from Rafael long enough to make it through dinner, win an account, and secure a promotion.
The need to get out of here has me feeling like I could crawl out of my skin. I scan as I go, desperate to escape the enemy’s den. If this were any other time, I’d scour through Rafael’s things, I’d take notes, and I’d use them to my advantage.
That day isn’t today.
I make a mental note in big, bold red letters toneveragree to work with Rafael on any account, no matter how big or life-changing. Ever.
