Nate couldn’t deny that it was very disheartening, and his mood hadn’t been exactly improving as weeks went by.
His phone rang four weeks after he’d left the Caldwell Group.
“Hello?” Nate said groggily, yawning and trying to blink himself awake.
“Hi Nate. It’s Olivia Mendez, the Caldwell Group’s HR assistant. How are you?”
Nate sat up, all sleep gone in an instant. He thought he said something, but he wasn’t even sure, his heart beating fast and his pulse thundering in his ears. He suddenly felt alive and wide awake. The Caldwell Group. What did he want?
He must have asked that, because Olivia didn’t waste time on small talk. “I wanted to let you know that the position of Mr. Ferrara’s PA is open again, in case you were interested.” Her voice was full of skepticism—she clearly didn’t believe that anyone would be eager to return to that job—and yet she was still calling him.
“Did he tell you to call me?” Nate said. “Ferrara?”
“Well, yes,” Olivia said. “His new PA, Abel, quit yesterday—”
“I thought his name was Connor.”
“Connor was fired two weeks ago,” Olivia said, a grimace in her voice.
Nate didn’t feel bad for him. Did that make him a terrible person? It probably made him a terrible person.
Maybe his ex-boss’s horribleness had rubbed off on him.
“So Mr. Ferrara told me to call you and get you back,” Olivia said, her tone a little apologetic. “I told him that you’d likely found another job already, but he seemed so confident that you haven’t. I’m sorry for bothering you. I’ll tell him no, obviously.”
Nate stared blankly in front of him.
I told him that you’d likely found another job already, but he seemed so confident that you haven’t.
“That son-of-a-bitch,” he hissed, his disbelief mixed with rising anger.
“Excuse me?” Olivia said.
“Sorry, just thinking aloud,” Nate said, his mind racing. Now all of these rejected job applications made a horrible amount of sense.
At the same time, they made no sense whatsoever. Why would Ferrara even bother ruining Nate’s job prospects? Raffaele Ferrara was a very important man. He was the COO and vice president of the Caldwell Group, a man with a ridiculously busy schedule—Nate knew that better than anyone. Nate couldn’t understand why the fuck the asshole had bothered to make sure Nate couldn’t get another job. Was it spite? Just because Nate had won their little bet? Ferrara was a dick, but Nate hadn’t thought he was that petty.
“What do you want me to tell him?” Olivia said.
“Tell him to fuck off,” Nate said.
“I... I can’t tell him that, but I’ll tell him that you said no.”
Nate glowered at the wall. No, that wasn’t satisfying at all. “You know what? I think I’ll drop by and tell him what I think of him in person.”
Also, Nate fucking deserved an explanation, and then Satan deserved a fist to his face. Nate wasn’t particularly picky about the order.
Chapter 11
The reception room outside Satan’s office looked exactly the same: intimidatingly fancy and intimidatingly quiet, as if people were afraid to breathe wrong.
Brenda smiled in obvious relief when she saw him. “I’m so glad you are back!” she said, half-whispering for some reason, as if Satan had super-hearing and could hear them through the closed door. “Olivia was so sure you wouldn’t return, but I hoped she was wrong.”
“Why?” Nate said, dropping a kiss on her cheek and studying her. “How are you? You look tired.”
Brenda sighed, glancing at the closed door warily. “I am tired. He’s been in a mood lately.”
“Isn’t he always?” Nate said with a snort.
Wincing, Brenda shook her head. “He’s been worse. Or we just got used to him being nicer.”
Nate looked at her incredulously.
Brenda chuckled, tucking a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. “I know you don’t believe me, but he really was nicer when you were around. Less harsh.”
“Right, he just took out his bad temper on me,” Nate said, rolling his eyes with a smile.
She raised her eyebrows. “Well, he certainly took out his temper on Connor and Abel, but it didn’t seem to help. Abel left in tears yesterday, literally. I’ve never seen a grown man cry.”
Nate scrunched up his nose, unconvinced. He still didn’t buy that Ferrara could somehow be more horrible than he had been with him.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m not here to stay.”
Her face fell.
Nate refused to feel guilty about it. “I just want to talk to him for a moment.”
She frowned, glancing uncertainly at the door. “He’s busy. He has a meeting with the marketing head right now.”
“You know what? I don’t care,” Nate said. “That’s the perk of not being his employee-slash-personal slave anymore. I don’t have to shake in my boots every time His Highness frowns. He’s not the boss of me.”
He strode confidently toward the door, ignoring Brenda’s feeble protests.
Except his confidence seemed to evaporate the moment he opened the door and was pinned under the heavy gaze of those black eyes.