Page 564 of Manhattan Bossholes

“No,” she said in a firmer voice.

“Are you not hearing me, Miss Rhodes? I’m taking an already generous package and offering to double it. Are you so flush you can walk away from an offer of that size? Because that really would surprise me.” I gestured up and down her body.

She stomped her foot, her face bright red.

“And that’s exactly why my answer is no,” she fumed at me. “You’re insufferable. And rude. Do you really think more money will make it easier for me to deal with you?”

“A lot more money,” I reminded her.

“Whatever,” she shouted back at me. “It doesn’t matter! My answer is still no!”

“I’ll triple the initial offer.”

The air in the elevator went still while Felicity slowly turned to me.

“You can’t be serious,” she said in a soft voice.

“Try me.”

“But…” she mouthed some quick calculations to herself. “No way. That would be enough for…”

“Enough for what?” I asked, taking note of the tiny smile she was trying to hide.

“Nothing,” she said quickly, arranging her face back into the tense, annoyed expression I was used to.

She returned to pacing.

“Why are you always in motion?” I demanded. “Stop already, it’s really annoying.”

“I hate enclosed spaces, okay?” She shook her hands like they’d fallen asleep and felt prickly. “This is stressing me out, and I’m doing everything I can to avoid losing my shit. You being in here too definitely isn’t helping.”

I wanted to backtrack immediately because Tyler felt the same way. I’d seen him have a full-blown panic attack the time his label had forced him to make his entrance on stage in a coffin-sized box, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Okay, okay, I understand,” I said calmly, backing up as much as I could to give her more space. “Take a minute to center yourself while I check to see if Brian has any updates. We’ll be fine, I promise you.”

Felicity bent over at the waist and placed her hands on her knees, letting out long breaths. She was worse off than I’d realized.

Brian texted me back within seconds to let me know the techs were working remotely and were close to figuring out what had gone wrong.

“Almost there,” I reassured her.

She craned her neck to look up at me. “It’s not just my claustrophobia that’s making me freak out right now.”

I tilted my head at her, waiting for her to continue.

“It’s that I’m saying yes to your offer.”

And with that, the elevator cranked back into service.

Life was about to get very interesting.

5

FELICITY

Ihoped I didn’t look as overwhelmed as I felt.

Of course, I knew I looked good in the outfit Nina had helped me pick—new gray pants that showed off my assets and a yellow blouse, both from Ann Taylor—even if everyone else in the room was probably wearing labels I’d never heard of. But what really had me rattled was the fact that I was sitting elbow-to-elbow with some of the most powerful people at Veritique, in a window-filled conference room that looked down on the skyscrapers around it. We were so high up I swore I could see Pennsylvania on the horizon.