Worth the Risk(35)

Fuck you, Claire.

Fuck.

You.

That isn’t saying a goddamn thing about the hatred I feel for her because of what she did to me.

“Hey,” I call after him, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look back. He just keeps walking down the hall.

Fuck you again, Claire. Seven ways from Sunday.





“My God,” I mutter as I press my fingers to my eyes for a second.

You’d think it would be simple. A click and drag here. A justification of the text there. A change in font size there. But I’ve been trying to master Rissa’s little challenge of the day—how to do a print layout of a magazine—and failing miserably.

Well, not miserably. Rather it’s just taking about ten times longer to do the print design than it takes the normal staff to do one. As in, my light is the only one still on in the office and everyone else is long gone home and the rest of my to-do list is left sitting there with nothing else checked off on it.

I jump when my cell rings.

“Sidney.”

“Dad? This is quite the surprise.”

“I was just calling to see what you were doing.”

“That’s code for you were calling to check on me.”

“Perhaps.” His chuckle fills the line, and it’s silly that a part of me wants to crawl into the phone and go back home with him. Back to the life that I hadn’t realized I’d missed until now.

Back to the beautiful view of the bay where there weren’t men who frustrated me to no end one minute and then kissed me breathless the next. Back to my friends and my bed and familiarity instead of this office where my light is the only one left on most nights and the stray cat that comes into my backyard is the only thing I really speak to once I get home.

“Figures.” I shouldn’t be surprised.

“Did you expect any less from me? How’s it going?” He asks the question, but I know he already has the facts and figures and web traffic at his fingertips. He just wants to make sure I know my stuff and that I’m not relying on others to do the work for me. I’ve seen him do this in meetings too many times before.

I figure I’ll drive him a little crazy first.

“I’m good. I told you I’m staying in the Kraft house, didn’t I? You remember the Krafts, don’t you?” When he begins to answer, I just talk right over him. “He was the grouchy old guy who used to complain about everyone at the farmers’ market. Well, he passed a while back, and his kids decided to rent the house he was restoring as a vacation home for those interested in the vineyards. Oh, and I know I just talked to mom the other day but tell her—”

“Sidney.”

That lasted longer than I expected it to. “Yes?”

“Skip the runaround and get to the facts.”

I laugh. “Couldn’t you have at least let me get to the part about the next-door neighbors and how they are so very loud at night when they leave their bedroom windows open?”

His laugh is full and rich and makes me smile. The hard-ass who sometimes shows he has a heart. “Great. Good for them. Now if you’re done trying to annoy me, we could get to the reason I called, other than to say hi to my daughter.”

“You think I don’t know what’s going on, don’t you? You think I have interns doing the legwork while I’m out at wine tastings.”

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.” I clear my throat, offended but not surprised. I hadn’t really given him reason to think differently before. “You’ll be happy to know that I haven’t handed anything off. We’re all set to start the third round of voting,” I lie, knowing Grayson’s pictures and bio are the main things holding us up from being one hundred percent ready. I glance down to my sad attempt at writing his bio in case he fails to come through, and the only line I have on there, which is actually scratched out, “Grayson Malone is a man who can kiss the breath out of you.”

Not exactly the type of bio Rissa is looking for.

“And the third round will cut the field to . . .”

“Ten.”

“Advertising?”

“I’ve pulled in double the advertising than what we normally do. Possibly because I’ve opened the option to advertising more male-oriented products—”

“Why?”

“Because women are looking at this contest side by side with the products. They assume that these men use them, and it tempts them to click and buy.”

“Okay.” The word comes out in murmured consent.

“And according to the hits on the site and for each link, it seems to be working. We’ve had a fifteen-percent increase for the advertisers’ links, and overall, the website has seen a twenty-percent increase in traffic.”

He makes a noncommittal sound, but I know it’s because he’s writing all this down. The man loves his numbers. “How do you plan to sustain this?”

“Why are you asking? I’ve never seen you this involved in the day to day of your other magazines. Don’t you have a set of managers who would love to ask me all of this?” I tease, knowing he would likely double-check their work too.

“Yeah, well, it isn’t every day I have my daughter doing such great work.” Is it sad that a part of me sags in relief over not having let him down and the other stands tall from his praise? “So . . .”