Lola & the Millionaires: Part One (Sweet Omegaverse #2)(79)
“I’ve always wanted to come to this restaurant,” I said, since that was true.
I had always wanted to, but it was constantly booked.
“Let me know next time you want to come. Niko is a friend of the family, so I’m a little spoiled,” Wendy said, shrugging. “Restaurants always hold a few tables if you know who to ask.”
“I’m surprised Designate hasn’t branched out into stuff like this. Not just restaurants specifically, but new cultural landmarks,” I said.
Wendy took a sip from her water glass, eyes watching me over the rim. She had pretty, thin rings stacked on her fingers, different metals and gems winking under the raw lighting.
“You have the mind of an editor in chief, you know that? Thinking of the magazine as a whole instead of just your beauty pages,” Wendy said. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re very good at your specialty, but you should consider starting to map the ladder you’d like to take up your career.”
“Thank you,” I said blushing. Before getting the job at Designate, a Head Beauty Editor position was as much as I’d dreamed of. More than that was a tempting but unknown route of fantasizing about my future.
Wendy sighed and looked down at the table. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Voir is run by a bunch of dusty old white men. They’ve decided Designate’s place is to tell a woman how to see herself in a mirror and nothing more. They’re determined to leave the magazine a dinosaur, rather than let it breathe and change with a new generation of women. Not to mention a new age of publishing.”
I opened my mouth and wondered if I could debate her point of view. Matthieu hadn’t tossed my ideas out the door when I blurted them out in a run the other night after dinner. What was the real rift between Wendy and Voir? It was as if she was taking her anger at Cyrus out on the entire company.
“Betty said you’re interested in starting your own magazine,” I said instead.
“Mmm, more like a website devoted to fashion, to beauty, to culture,” Wendy said. “The age of paper and ink is over, and there’s so much more money to be made with online advertising. So much less money to be spent too. We wouldn’t need offices, wouldn’t need to waste a fortune on floors of a place like the Stanmore.”
My heart sank at the thought. Maybe it was superficial of me, or maybe I was more old fashioned than I realized, but I loved working at the Stanmore. I loved the beautiful old building, and I loved sitting at the table brainstorming with the beauty team. God, I loved playing with the samples of everything.
“Sounds like an entirely different kind of beast,” I said, nodding slowly.
“Absolutely. A sleek, efficient, globally available beast. I want to hire some of the biggest names in the social media beauty trends to work directly with us, reel in some of the independent figures that provide a place like Designate with competition, and turn them into my allies,” Wendy said.
It was smart and it was cutthroat, and it would deliver a major blow to Designate if Wendy succeeded in that alone, never mind taking some of the magazine’s contacts with her.
“Are you a picky eater?” Wendy asked as a waiter approached our table.
I was a little queasy with nerves now, but I shook my head. “Never. Everything here sounds amazing.”
Wendy nodded. “It is. Yes, hi, Marco. We’ll have one of everything, just bring sharing plates. And can we get two glasses of champagne please?”
I swallowed hard. Had I already agreed to take part in Wendy’s plan just by telling Betty I’d come to the dinner? Either way, I had a long night ahead of me, and after hearing Wendy’s broken down, streamlined version of Designate, I was pretty sure I needed to see this whole thing through.
All day Friday, with Cyrus out of town for the heat, our department kept busy with more of the menial tasks. Zane and Betty were in and out of the office, and I couldn’t tell if they were running errands or just helping themselves to a lot of breaks, but I was happy to be able to work alone for most of the day. My head was still reeling from the dinner with Wendy. She was powerful, in a brutal kind of way, and her vision of the future of fashion and beauty reporting sounded uncomfortably impersonal and disparate.
To make matters a little worse—or a lot, if I was honest—I was missing the guys like crazy. Not just Leo and Rake, although my nightmares decided to come calling again now that I was back at my apartment alone. But I was missing seeing Cyrus at work and then again at dinner. I was missing Caleb and his warm scent and his careful words and his constant habit of finding new ways of making me comfortable. I missed helping Wes with the crossword and curling up in the passenger seat of his old Plymouth when he would drop me off at the Stanmore.
And Matthieu…
It was less missing and more craving. I was nervous at the promise I’d made to Leo to return to the house sometime during the weekend. I trusted Matthieu, but I didn’t trust myself around Matthieu. He was a wholly unexpected temptation, and I wasn’t blind enough to ignore the stares he made in my direction. He’d just ended a relationship. Maybe I was just a convenient side piece? An easy rebound opportunity, and a beta to boot, so no real threat to the stability of his pack.
My phone rang at lunch and I grinned when I saw Leo’s name on the screen. I’d called the night before but he hadn’t answered, and it’d been hours later before he’d responded with a series of deliriously tired but sweet texts.