Page 20 of Deal with Mr. Cruel

Jonas

Jonas sat in his home office, sipping a cup of hot coffee. The steam crept up and fogged up his glasses. He took them off and wiped them with the sleeve of his robe before placing them back on the bridge of his nose. He checked the time. It was five on a Sunday morning, and a rare day off from the office. Despite this, he still had work to do.

He had been up all night typing up notes for the agreement he would enter with Mae. He had to work quickly and send it off to his lawyer in case Mae changed her mind. Of course, he was using his private lawyer. The team’s lawyer was obviously out of the question. He typed a few more notes into the margins and sent it in an email to his lawyer.

As he heard the swish of the email being sent, he stood from his desk and made his way back to his bedroom. His California king-size bed sat plush on a large wooden canopy bedframe. The white, crisp Egyptian sheets were calling his name after the night he had. He took the last sip of his coffee and placed it on his nightstand before crawling under the sheets.

He lay back and put his hands behind his head, closing his eyes. As tired as he was, too many thoughts were trickling into his head. He wondered how the office would react when he and Mae made their announcement. The plan was to go public on the first night of the festival. Their news would really kick things off.

In his office that day, when she agreed to his scheme, he laid out his master plan. Or at least what he had come up with so far.

“So how are we doing to do this?” Mae had asked skeptically.

“We will say we eloped one weekend.”

“Newsflash. You never take a day off. No one will believe that.”

Jonas realized she was right. “True. Well, we will both take this weekend off, and no one will be the wiser.”

“That’s too short of notice. Braydon will flip,” said Mae, crossing her arms. He could tell she was being difficult on purpose.

“Don’t worry about Braydon. I’ll lend him Wendy. Plus, I’m his boss, remember?”

“Yes, you’ve made it clear you’reeveryone’sboss,” she said, rolling her eyes. “So what? We are going to elope this weekend?”

“Yes, except we aren’tactuallygoing anywhere. We will be hiding out in our homes.”

“You know Nico lives with me. That won’t work.”

“Then I’ll put you up in a hotel for the weekend.”

Jonas watched as Mae pursed her lips and thought for a moment

“The Ritz,” she finally said.

“What?” Jonas asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I want to stay at the Ritz with your card on file,” said Mae with a smirk.

She was definitely going to take advantage of this situation. He couldn’t help but smirk. Maybe she wasalmostas bad as he was.

“Fine,” he said.

She sat back in her chair and lifted her chin triumphantly.

“So where are we ‘eloping?’” she asked, making air quotations with her fingers.

“Mexico,” he said confidently.

“Of course you’d choose Mexico,” she said under her breath.

“We both know it. We both have memories from there. It will make it more believable. We can even tell the story of swimming with our clothes on.”

“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not sharing those details, especially with my brother or my boss.”

“Come on, Mae. We have to make it lookreal. Plus, people will think it’s cute,” he said with a shrug.

“Nothing about this is cute.”

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