Page 37 of Ruthless Ambition
Neil chuckled as I rolled my eyes. “Did you take his UK sponsorship?”
“Yup.” I beamed at him.
“And was it worth it for what you lost?” Neil asked me sadly. “You seem to be very invested in this boy, Ryan? Was the sponsorship worth the price you just paid?”
My smile faded as I looked down at my desk. “No.”
“You’re smart, possibly as smart as Onyx—”
“Possibly?” I challenged him.
“You keep losing — be smarter.” Neil stood and crossed over to the door. “And keep the swearing and the name-calling to areas of the office where you don’t have witnesses. Thehe said she saidis less effective when there’s another ten people in the room to back a party up.”
“Noted,” I said as he gave me a friendly smile and left me alone.
I really did need to be smarter. Action because of reaction wasn’t the way to win a game against the Devil.
“Or I could ignore him,” I told myself. “Just forget he exists and do your job.”
That was good advice. I could totally ignore him. I did it for almost two years. I just needed to channel my rage into calmness and forget him. Easy. I’d done it before, and I could do it again. How I’d ever fallen for his charm . . . ugh, I still cringed when I thought of that night of the party at college when the two of us were trapped in the basement and he was all good looking and charismatic, and talking to himhadbeen easy.
Realizing that the door wasn’t going to open anytime soon, we went back down the stairs, and now we both stood looking up at the window. I felt his eyes on me, and I returned his stare. “Trust me to lift you up so you can crawl out of here?”
Sweeping my gaze over him, I gave a slight dip of my head. “I guess,” I said as I thought about it. I wasn’tthatheavy, and he looked strong. Fidgeting about the thought of his hands on me, I pulled my dress down again. He wasn’t going to miss much with me wearing this.
“I won’t look,” he promised. I think my snort told him exactly what I thought of that. “Hey, we’ve only been in here a few minutes, ten at most, maybe fifteen. We can go back up to the door, see if things have calmed down?” he suggested.
The loud bang against the basement door couldn’t have been more well-timed if it had been planned.
“I think they’re still fighting,” I said in exasperation. “Ugh, Ihateparties.”
“You hate parties?” he asked me, and he looked genuinely surprised as he appraised me and my dress, and I knew I was giving off the wrong impression.
“My roommate had a really successful interview for her postgrad degree,” I explained. “We were celebrating. Then her boyfriend suggested we come here after our meal.”
“Ahh.” Did that explain my dress? “What are you studying?” he asked me as I heard the music resume, and somehow, I knew we were never getting heard at the door now.
“Sports management,” I told him, as, self-consciously, I pulled at the dress again. I wasn’t giving off the sports person vibe, and I knew it.
“If you hate dresses so much, why are you wearing one?” he asked teasingly.
“Chrissy made me. Said I had to make an effort.” My accompanying eye roll made him laugh.
“I think your friend Chrissy has a lot to answer for,” he said to me. “Dresses, parties, anything else I need to know?”
I thought of the date she set me up on with Dave, and I almost nodded. I was being unfair. That wasn’t her fault; she never knew he was a sick pervert. “Um, no.”
“You seem unsure?” he asked me softly, and I almost told him. I almost told him what had almost happened to me.
“Do you know what Mayhem is?”
He frowned at the change in topic but nodded. “Yes, the Devils’ Mayhem,” he said casually and then pointed upwards. “It’s what’s happening upstairs.”
“It’s stupid.”
“Some see it as harmless fun,” he countered as he looked around.
“They hurt people.”
