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I pursed my lips, folding my hands on the bar surface. “It’s now or never. I… think… we can close.”
“You worried about it, hija?”
I chewed my cheek. “No.”
She looked over at me. “That confident?”
“I think you’re right to worry. They haven’t liked my… style. Once the thing they brought me on for is done, coinflip says they’ll fire me ASAP. But I don’t mind.”
She paused. “Out of curiosity… have you ever been fired?”
I laughed. “You know? Technically, no. Always just the company dissolving. Guess I’m turning all kinds of new leaves.”
“You know what you want to do instead? If they do let you go? Or… I feel like you’re on your way out even if not.”
I laughed, studying her out of the corner of my eye for a while, swirling my drink, before I said carefully, “You already know, though, don’t you?”
“Ah, I can hazard a guess. You’ve gotten a bit more transparent lately.” She sipped her drink for a while before she said, “You don’t want to answer to a boss anymore.”
“Don’t think I have anything against answering to a boss, just… not that boss. If you were still running Queen Pearl, I’d work for you.”
She smiled thinly, and even though she tried to put it away, play it cool, I could see that vulnerability written all over her features when she did. “Not too sore then about how it ended?”
“You did what you had to, María. And so did I. So did we all. It was just bad luck.”
She looked back down into her drink, cupping it in both hands. I gave her the space she needed—sipped gingerly at my drink, tasting the way the bitter, dry flavors almost sparkled over my palate. Letting the moment steep.
And then María broke it with, “You know, if you do manage to close Mercier, I might learn from your methods and start sleeping with clients.”
I choked on my drink. “María—that’s not exactly—”
She gave me a dry smile. “Oh, is it? Are you going to deny it, then?”
I huffed, looking away. “You know what? I will, actually. We were already at it even before I knew she was our next client. So, technically…”
She set down her drink, turning on me. “You and Cameron Mercier were having a secret fling, and you didn’t tell me when we were about to take on her case?”
“Well—”
“Let alone just that I want to hear about it if my friend is sleeping with Cameron Mercier?”
I laughed awkwardly. “I, uh,” I started, looking down into my drink, distantly aware I was blushing like a teenager. “I kinda really like her, honestly.”
“Of course you do. She’s why you’re staying in Miami, isn’t she?”
“Ah…”
“Guess your bad luck streak finally ended. She seems like a catch. I’d try out the other side of things if it were her offering.”
“Experiment on your own time, María, just don’t tell me about it.” I scratched my head. “I mean… she is a hell of a catch. But there’s also, well—a hell of a catch. Given that you’ve clearly been poking into this whole thing, you probably know the situation.”
“The exmarido, he’s jealous, yes?”
“Jealous is an understatement. Sabotaging her brand, trying to get the parent company to drop her. They’re the ones who actually own all the shopfronts, the warehouses, the manufacturing contracts and distribution centers… if they drop her, her whole brand is going to be devastated.”
She looked down into her drink, narrowing her eyes a fraction. “Ah… men.”
“I’m not the biggest fan of men, but even I don’t think they’re typically this bad.” I pursed my lips. “I don’t think it’s really even about me. I think just… he hates how she’s wealthy, powerful, and in charge of herself. He’s telling her to come back to him and he’ll drop everything against her brand.”
