Page 4 of Billionaire Fake Fiancé Daddy

“Well?” he demands. “Answer me. Are you incompetent or do you just not care?”

“I don’t get what Tom sees in you,” I burst out.

Instantly I regret it. Gage might be a jerk, but I don’t want to sink to his level.

Also, I need this job.

Gage crosses his arms. “This is exactly why I don’t hire people I know. You think because you’re a friend of a friend, you deserve special treatment. Well, you’re not going to get it here.” He narrows his gaze. “It’s not fair to everyone else. And this isn’t a job where you can afford to make mistakes.”

“I don’t want special treatment,” I say between clenched teeth. “But I would liketraining.”

Gage frowns. “No one showed you how to work the phones?”

“No.”

He grimaces. He doesn’t look happy. But he’s not yelling anymore, and right now that feels like a win.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, thinking. Then he takes a deep breath like he’s trying to maintain control of his emotions. “Don’t make that mistake again. Ever. And have IT show you how to use the phone system and anything you don’t understand. Now get out of here.”

I turn and flee.

The day just goes downhill from there.

When I try to familiarize myself with Gage’s online calendar, I accidentally delete every meeting he has scheduled in February. I call IT for help, but even they can’t fix it. After staring at the blank month with growing panic, I finally decide that since February is several months away, it’s a problem for February Violet to deal with.

Besides, at the rate I’m going, I’ll probably be fired long before then.

After that, I try to figure out how to make a fresh pot of coffee using the giant, overly complicated coffee machine...and accidentally flood the kitchen with coffee.

And those are just the disasters that stand out. The whole day is a string of me getting things wrong, no matter how hard I try.

Finally, I watch the clock tick over to 6:00 p.m. I feel like crying.

The thing is, I’m agoodart teacher. I can whip up an awesome lesson plan for any level of artists, whether it’s teens who desperately want to be treated like adults, or retirees who want the fun of acting like teens again. I can coach uptight suburban moms into being comfortable drawing a nude model. I can make any drawing technique accessible and useful. Before it shut down, people at my old Coney Island community center would sign up for any class I taught, just because I was the one teaching.

But here all my skills are useless. I feel like I’ve been thrust into a foreign country where I don’t speak the language. Everything is abbreviated. COO, HRM, QC, EOD, EOM, OOO. And they keep trying to use nouns as verbs, which drives me up the wall.

I’m all for creative expression, but if someone is wearing a suit that costs more than my rent and scowling down at me, they should know that calendar is not a verb, okay?

Part of me wants to storm into Gage’s office and shoutWhy did you give me this job if you don’t want me here?

But a bigger part of me wants to be able to pay my rent next month.

I’m about to go home since everything I can find in the instructional binders says our offices close at 6:00 p.m., but I don’t want to make any more mistakes. I get up and knock tentatively on Gage’s office door.

“Come in,” he calls.

I open the door and poke my head in. “Um. Hi. I was wondering if there’s anything else I can do for you. Before I go home for the day.”

He arches a brow. “Haven’t you done enough?”

My anger rises, and for a second I want to march right into that room and smack that mocking look off his beautiful face.

Yes, I’m bad at this job. But I’mtryingdammit. IT can see that. Tina can see that. Gage’s mom Lorelei even gave me a faintly pitying look when she saw me mopping up the flooded coffee.

Why can’t Gage see it?

I remembered him being a self-absorbed jerk. I didn’t remember him being cruel.

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