When she put the phone down she sat there for a moment, blinking.
I lowered my middle finger, suspecting she’d heard fromMr Brock. “Don’t often get called directly by the Big Boss?”
“Never.” She blinked again, then shook her head and met my eyes. “You can go up. Let me just sort your visitor’s pass. Access only to the top floor, again. He said he’ll be in his office.”
I beamed at her. “Thanks, Jenni.”
“You’ve got balls.” She was speaking admirably, but so quietly I could barely hear her. “Or whatever the feminist equivalent of that saying is... you’ve got... pussy?”
I burst out laughing.
She grinned into her keyboard. “Sorry.”
I already liked Jenni. Finding out she was secretly weird despite her demure receptionist persona was the icing on the cake. Jenni and I were to be best friends somehow, I decided.
She handed me the visitor’s pass and I made my way up in the elevator. Each of the security guards had somehow been already informed of my ‘appointment’. Regathering my fury, I marched down the final corridor and pounded on Forest’s door.
“Come in.”
I stalked in, closing the door a bit heavily behind me. “Was it you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Was it you? Who paid off all my debts? And my mother’s medical debts?”
“Oh. Yes.”
“Why?”
We stared at each other. I pettily decided we were in a staring contest and refused to blink.
He blinked first. “I can’t see why you’d be angry.”
“Oh, you can’t? You’ve seen my face, have you not?” I made sure to deepen my scowl.
“You do look rather furious.”
“Why did you do it?”
He sighed. He did look tired. “You said your mother was considering giving up her treatments because of the amount of debt you were in.”
“Yes, but I solved that. Myself.”
“Forever?”
“For now. And my business is doing well.”
“That’s not stable, though, is it?”
“The point is, I could have done it myself. And now I’ll never know, because you waved your magic wealth wand and it’s all just... solved.”
“I can understand why it’d be a shock to you.”
“A shock? No! It’s an intrusion. I didn’t consent to any of this. You could have asked me, and I’d probably have said yes. But you didn’t ask. So it’s a power play, that’s what it is. You showing off how much money you have...”
“Absolutely not.” Forest was gripping his desk so tightly that his hands had gone pale.
“If you’re so generous, why aren’t you paying off people’s medical bills all the time? Or is it only if they fuck you?”