“Just good?”
I grin. “Better than good. But you have some flaws that you still need to work out.”
“Yeah? And what are those?”
“You haven’t slept in two days, so you aren’t thinking clearly.”
“What are the flaws in my plan?”
“You’ll figure them out after a good night’s rest.”
She rolls her eyes. “Tell me now. We already screwed up once with Lily. We can’t do that again. We are supposed to be working together to ensure that we don’t mess this up anymore. That means, there can’t be any secrets. We have to tell each other everything.”
I lean back in my chair as I rub the back of my neck. She watches me.
“I’ll make sure that we don’t fuck up again. My reputation is on the line, too. But I want to help you grow. And you will never grow if I just tell you what you fucked up. I’ll guide you, but you have to figure it out for yourself.”
“Why are you trying to help me?”
I get up out of my chair and walk over to get my laptop. Then, I plug the projector into it. I’m trying to help her because I don’t know how to turn my emotions off now that I’ve turned them on. I don’t know why, but I actually enjoy listening to her voice. She talks so confidently about what she wants. It’s nice, hearing her. It’s nice, being near her.
“It’s because you feel guilty for spilling coffee on me, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s because, when I see someone with talent, I can’t help but nourish that talent.”
“Was that a compliment?”
Victoria bites her lip, and I ache to have that lip in my mouth. I don’t know what’s come over me, but right now, my brain is obsessed with her.
Lily chooses that moment to walk back into the room. I knew she was coming back soon. She’s been gone for hours, and I have an instinct when it comes to clients. This isn’t the first time a client has walked out on me.
“Do you have a plan, or am I firing you both?” Lily asks. She folds her arms across her chest, and her face is stiff and rigid. Gone are the tears from earlier. Gone is the anger. She’s all business now.
I can feel the nerves oozing off of Victoria as she sits at the table. She has a thorough plan, but I know it makes her nervous not to have visuals and a written plan for Lily. She wants to look as professional as she can. She thought she would have more time.
I click on the projector, and my plan pops up on the screen. I should be nice and let Victoria talk about the plan while I show the visuals. Our plans are similar enough that it doesn’t really matter anyway. But I’m not nice. And the longer I pretend to be nice to Victoria, the more likely it is that she is going to get hurt later on. I’m the kind of person who would fuck her and leave her without a second glance.
Victoria doesn’t deserve that. She doesn’t deserve that kind of pain. Being an ass to her now is the only way to keep me from breaking her heart later on. She needs to hate me. So, I’ll make her detest me by presenting our ideas as my own, by myself. And then she’ll hate me.
My plan works. Victoria hates me.
I can feel it from the second she walks into Logan’s apartment.
“Where is he?” I hear her ask Logan in the living room from where I’m sitting on the bed with my laptop on my lap.
She’s angry, and she should be. I don’t hear Logan’s answer, but I’m sure that he’s pointed her in my direction because I can hear her stomping down the hallway toward me.
“What the hell was that?” she yells, throwing my bedroom door open.
“I did my job. You can’t hate me for that.”
“No, you weren’t doing your job. You stole my ideas and claimed them as your own.”
I fold my arms across my chest, amused at how worked up she gets. I think that’s why I like teasing her so much. She’s adorable like this.
“I didn’t steal your ideas.”
“Yes, you did! I told you every single idea, and then you shared them with Lily. Now, she thinks they were all your ideas.”