It’s hard to believe that ten minutes ago, the thought of Cole making me breakfast caused my heart to pitter-pat like a stupid little teenager’s. I’m an idiot for it. Yet again, he’s duped me — pulled liar’s strings to move me like a fool.
Cole sees me and straightens up. His face breaks into a liar’s smile. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was genuine. I’d believe he was happy to see me enter the room rather than laughing at me on the inside.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
I hold up my phone. I give it a singular, minuscule shake, then tilt my head.
“You shouldn’t have that yet. Put it back. And shame on you for snooping.” Cole’s words, which I’ve heard in the past as commands, come out almost playful. This is the twilight time — the strange in-between that rolls between us as personal becomes professional. Technically, he hasn’t let me off the hook, returned the reins of my life. But he’s not in a barking mood, either. Our itches have been scratched. The power trip he’s taken on me these past weeks — the one I was stupid enough, until a few minutes ago, to believe was growing into something more — has left him relaxed. A man satisfied is a man declawed. They’re hardly a threat when their dicks are limp.
I wait. A cold shoulder is cliché, but I don’t trust myself to speak. I’m angry. But there’s another emotion beneath it. One that makes me shy rather than bold, makes me want to curl up and strike out. It’s hard to read this man. He’s not getting it. He thinks we’re still playing games.
“Did you hear me?” Still playful. Still with that fucking smile. Still stirring crepe batter as if we’re a happy couple in a 50s sitcom, ready to sit together, read the newspaper, and discuss our forthcoming days.
I set the phone on the breakfast bar. “When were you going to tell me?”
“When they’re ready.” He nods toward the in-progress crepes.
“Don’t be an asshole, Cole. Don’t insult me.”
He hears my tone and loses the smile. His eyes find my phone. He knows. Not a stupid man, Cole Ellison. Just a son of a bitch.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Or didn’t that matter, so long as I missed the appointment? Was this all a big joke?” I pick the phone up as he reaches for it — to check its screen or snatch it again, I have no idea.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. You’re a snake. And the worst kind — the sort that might just be sociopathic enough to not even realize just how much of a snake you are. Look at you. You and that fucking smile. You thought this was funny.”
“Alyssa, look. I didn’t think it was funny. I—”
“Was it all a game? Ben Stone wouldn’t talk to me, but even for a dumb little girl, I think I’m smart enough to put it together. You and Ben, buddies to the end. People who know you understand how it is. I guess you’re like a mentor to him. And he’s your way of pretending you’re still 25. You get in the ring and beat the shit out of him because you’re stronger even though he’s younger, and it makes you feel like a big man without a mid-life crisis — no sir, you’ve still got it. And in exchange, you train Ben to be a little Cole. The big billionaire and the little one. I hear about the ways you challenge each other like you’re college buddies. I asked around.”
“This has nothing to do with Ben.”
“Did you make a bet? Did he dare you to try and get me into bed?”
“No!” But there’s a flash in his eyes, and I understand.
“You did. He did.”
“It wasn’t like that. He may have said something, but it was in passing. It’s not like we—”
I shake my head. “All your little games. I thought—” But I won’t say the next part, because not only is it ridiculous; it’s untrue. Still, the words want to come, and I hear their echo even as I push on: I thought you actually liked me. I hold myself tall, and instead I say, “I thought we had an agreement. I got something. You got something. We both benefited. So why this … this bullshit?”
“What bullshit?”
“You! Fucking with me! Just to be a macho asshole — to knock me down a peg!” I feel my control slipping, so I fall a notch. “Do I threaten you so much that it wasn’t enough to conquer me — you had to try and humiliate me, too?”
Cole raises his hands. “Alyssa, listen. Just sit down and let me explain. Let me do this for you. A crepe only takes a few minutes to—”
“Stop talking about the motherfucking crepes!” I throw my phone at him, realizing only after it’s launched that I’m damaging my own property to punish him. I miss anyway; the phone careens across the nook and thumps harmlessly against the couch.
I’m moving in, around the breakfast bar, all sense departed. I can’t think. I have no rational mind.
My hand strikes the handle of his pan and the touch of metal infuriates me. I swat it away. The pan totters and falls, taking the bowl of batter with it. Crepe dough paints the white tiles beige, the bowl making slow revolutions until it falls still.
I shake my head at Cole, feeling my eyes fill. I don’t want to cry, or show him how he got to me — this fucking cunt of a man, striking a mortal blow against this silly little woman to prove once and for all who was superior.
I want to keep shouting, to fill the air between my fury and his speechless gaze with accusations of all the ways I was wronged.
The things I let you do to me!
The things I did to you!
The lying way you held me in your arms, as if it was more than lust!
And most of all, the way my fool heart started to believe something impossible!
But I can’t say those things. With each passing moment, I’m increasingly sure that he did all of this — from the night he picked me and Jenna up to this very moment — just to prove the same point Cole has always tried to prove:
That he’s better than me.
That he’s better than everyone.
That in any encounter, he’ll always win — and his opponent will always leave not just a loser, but ruined as well.
My head fills with the way he’s mocked me since we met, since we started working together. The way he treated me like a secretary. His face, in front of me, remains a lie.
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear he felt bad about what he did. But I can see through him now: what I take for regret is only Cole trying to get one last set of digs on me.
Maybe she’ll believe this wasn’t all a big joke at her expense, I imagine him thinking, and I’ll be able to fuck this uppity ice queen’s hot ass one last time before laughing in her face.
“Alyssa.” His words and gestures balance on a razor’s edge, as if he fears a detonation. “Please. Just hear me out.”
“I’m through listening to your bullshit.”
“I didn’t do what you think I did. Not for the reasons you believe.”
“So you didn’t take a call from Onyx Scott’s assistant, pretending to represent me? You didn’t listen to every detail about a meeting I was supposed to attend at eight this morning — including, I’m sure, a stern reminder of how seriously his partner Aiden takes timeliness — and confirm it on my behalf? Is that what you’re telling me, Cole? That you didn’t tell him I’d be there, come Hell or high water — at the most important meeting I’ve ever had in my entire fucking career?”
Cole steps closer, his eyes on mine, hands still raised in surrender. “Look. Okay. Yes. But—”
My anger has crested. After painting the floor in batter, there isn’t much steam left inside me. My climactic shout came too early. I can no longer maintain my angry facade.
To crown the humility, tears spill down my cheeks.
I knew he lied to me. But hearing him admit it? For some reason, it breaks my heart so much harder.
“You asked for my trust, and I gave it to you. You were supposed to take care of me, Cole. You were supposed to steer for me, so I wouldn’t have to steer myself for a while.”
“I did, Alyssa.”
I shake my head
.
“Alyssa …”
I’m backing away from him. I’m through with Cole Ellison, as I should have been weeks ago.
My head is still shaking as he take a few hesitant steps to follow. Such a brilliant liar. My heart is breaking, but if I weren’t too smart to keep falling for his bullshit, I’d believe by Cole’s face that his heart is breaking, too.
“Alyssa … just wait.”
“No, Cole,” I tell him, fighting a wash of tears. “You promised that you’d catch me, but instead you let me fall.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ALYSSA
I’M HALFWAY TO MY OFFICE — knowing I’m sort of a mess, and will need to run home before attempting anything valiant — when it dawns on me that it was only one stupid meeting.
I call Onyx and try to explain, but I can’t say much without revealing more than I’d like to about my relationship with Cole. I don’t have a male assistant, and even if I did he wouldn’t be picking my personal phone up past working hours. Probably wouldn’t ever pick up my personal phone. Some people are willing to abdicate their cell to an assistant, but not Alyssa Galloway.
Onyx knows I need things a certain way — that I’m always cool, calm, collected, and in control. Or at least that’s how it used to be, and how it’ll be again, from here on out.
Listen, Onyx. I have a perfectly good reason for missing the meeting. You see, I give up all control of my life to Cole Ellison each night. Yes, the same Cole Ellison that I said is a reprehensible misogynist. So, Cole was in control of my phone when your guy called. Why didn’t he give me the message, you ask? Well, that’s a funny story. Turns out, Cole never really liked me. He just wanted to fuck me and humiliate me in the most elaborate way possible, so he deliberately scheduled an appointment he knew I’d miss. He wanted to try and cost me the opportunity of a lifetime. I was unaware of everything — super distracted last night, since Cole DPed me for the first time with this big yellow dildo.
Yeah. I didn’t think I could give my real excuse, so I passed the buck and told him my assistant forgot to inform me of the appointment. Stupid assistants, always dropping the ball.
“Let’s schedule another meeting. I’ll write it down myself. My assistant? His ass is fired.” I laugh a little so Onyx knows this situation is amusing rather than dire. “How’s tomorrow? Or, hell, today. I can do it whenever. Name the place and time. I’m at your disposal.”
Onyx sighs. “I can try. But honestly …”
I go for the throat. I’m done being timid. I got to my current position by being a pit bull, so that’s what I’m going to do 24/7 from here on out. Fuck taking breaks and playing it safe. I’ll rest when I’m dead.
“Oh, come on, Onyx. I missed a meeting. I’m really, really sorry. Are you seriously implying that after all the good work we’ve discussed — ideas you seemed plenty excited about — that I had only one chance to make this work? One shot to please Aiden?”
“Honestly? Sort of, yes. Aiden was on the fence about this from the start. I was the one who was sold. I bent over backward to try and set this up, once I realized I’d be moving to Inferno. You’re right about Mia, of course, and I need you by my side if I’m going back to her hometown. But even though Aiden understands the need for Forage Education to build in Inferno and believes I need to be there to make sure it happens right, he doesn’t think my little problem is worth the worry. Arguing for a half-percent stake in the module? That was tough. And—”
“Look. If the half-percent is a sticking point, I’m more than happy to discuss working for a flat—”
“And the Banner Agency half of the deal was even tougher. Cormac is retiring either way, but convincing him you could run the whole thing? That took Aiden in your corner. And if he feels you’re untrustworthy …”
“But Aiden is supposed to be this great philanthropist! Come on, Onyx. You can convince him to have a charitable attitude toward me, can’t you? It was one mistake, and not even mine. Come on. You can’t throw my neck on the chopping block for this. You just can’t.”
Onyx sighs. “Fine. I’ll ask him.”
My eyes close, and in that moment I realize how completely a definitive no would have destroyed me. Yesterday I thought I had it all, and right now it feels like I have nothing. The idea of returning to my solitary life in my lonely apartment, tending only to my existing client list, suddenly seems woefully inadequate. It’s hard to believe that it once felt like the very definition of success. How can I be so dissatisfied today with the same lifestyle that thrilled me last week?
“Thanks, Onyx.”
He mumbles something noncommittal, then hangs up.
He calls back in less than ten minutes. I pick up before the first ring has ended.
I answer enthusiastically, every inch the eager-to-please young go-getter Onyx already knows I am. But I hear his breath and know the news isn’t good.
“You’re not serious,” I say before he can actually offer his answer. “You’re not seriously about to tell me it’s over. Because that’s not cool, Onyx. You can’t persuade me to do something I didn’t even want to do, somehow get me all excited, then yank it away. All that does is make me disappointed by the status-quo I was quite comfortable with before you started dangling carrots.”
“I’m sorry, Alyssa.”
My heart sinks. Part of me isn’t through with this, but his pat response gives the issue finality that a fuller explanation wouldn’t have. If he’d given me a series of logical reasons why our deal is now blown, I’d have something to argue with. But this is … nothing. Him giving up on my behalf. I can only beg.
But I won’t. Not when I’m still one of the country’s top publicists. Not when I’m at the top of my game. I won’t beg for something that didn’t exist yesterday morning — even if it does make all of my accomplishments to date feel like carnival prizes. You did pretty good for a girl.
“Can I at least know why? Is it that Aiden feels missing a meeting means I … I don’t know, that I hire irresponsible help or something?” I hate my words but can’t help saying them. My rambling question isn’t just undignified; it’s self-pitying and passive-aggressive. I’m not admitting fault in my own condemnation. I’m reminding Onyx that I’ve been unjustly ousted, and that the factors judging me aren’t even my fault.
I should be happy. I don’t want to move to Inferno. But I keep hearing chance of a lifetime and validation in my mind. I keep feeling like I was inches from finally being able to say “I told you so” to a few self-righteous assholes who think they’re better than me just because they were born with balls.
The loss of it all feels like an ugly little death.
“At first that was the reason, yes. You know how Aiden is about being on time. It’s not just about the other person’s reliability. No matter how good an excuse someone has, he takes lateness personally, as a sign of disrespect.”
I’m about to tell Onyx that I meant no disrespect to Aiden when he cuts me off — probably knowing what I’m about to say.
“And if that’s all it had been, I’m sure I could have convinced him. But now there’s something else. A new factor Aiden just told me about that honestly might have nixed this deal whether you were in this morning’s meeting or not.”
“What factor?”
“Aiden was approached by a venture capitalist. And I know what you’re thinking … what does Forage want with venture capital? But it’s tied into Nathan’s Syndicate, and that changed the rules.”
Someone in the Trillionaire Boys’ Club offered Forage venture capital for their education module? Onyx is right; I don’t understand.
It must have been Caspian White, whose company wrote the code that Forage Education is using as its backbone anyway — turning open source into for profit in a way that only Caspian could. It wouldn’t be the first time he went in for some backdoor shenanigans. GameStorming’s contract with LiveLyfe was a legal tightrope.
“So Forage can’t offer me a percentage of the educa
tion module without permission. I get it. But that doesn’t mean we still can’t—”
Onyx sighs, and I imagine him shaking his head. I wait for whatever additional bad news is coming.
“The same investor contacted Banner Agency a half hour ago, and made Cormac Ghast an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
I’m confused for a few seconds, but then perplexing gears begin to turn. Is he really saying that on the eve of my perfect, career-defining deal, someone managed to stick their nose right into both Forage Education and my PR agency at the same time? Is he really saying that the stars aligned so perfectly that our arrangement was completely and decisively killed — coincidentally during the lone window when it could be?
That’s quite a coincidence.
Because it’s not one at all.
“Who was it, Onyx?” My tone is short. My no-bullshit I’m-cutting-throats voice. “Who was the investor?”
“That’s confidential. I’m sorry, Alyssa.”
“Who was it? You’ll tell me, Onyx. You’ll tell me right fucking now, or maybe the media won’t have any trouble connecting the dots between you and Mia Stover. Maybe the wrong person will write the wrong thing at the wrong time … you know, by some stunning coincidence.”
“Are you threatening me, Alyssa?”
“No. I’m just making incredibly accurate predictions.”
Onyx sighs again, sounding more tired than angry. I know he’s going to do as I say, because when I put my foot down, I have a hell of a way of getting what I want.
I know he’s about to tell me the name of the person who’s ruined my dreams.
But of course, I already knew it.
“It was Cole Ellison,” he says.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
COLE
Trillionaire Boys' Club: The Producer Page 14
