Love Handles (Oakland Hills #1)(20)

“Look at that. All itemized. I tried to keep it simple.” Ellen flipped open her laptop screen. “This is your last chance to get anything out of a confused old man.”

Bev glanced down at the sheet in her hands with two bullet-pointed paragraphs. One listed a promise of a lump-sum cash payment of a hundred thousand dollars. The second was titled “Cabin In Tahoe” and noted an address, website, and appraisal value of nine hundred and sixty thousand.

She gave up on the relaxed breathing and gaped at her. “I couldn’t take this. You don’t have to give me anything. I just want to work here.”

Ellen turned a wild gaze on her. “I can make some very talented people interested in this company, pros from real companies. In New York, a real city. I want to get Fite into the big leagues too much to let Ugly Betty come in here and mess it up for fun.”

Bev sat up taller, her pride stinging. “I’m not going to mess anything up.”

“Exactly.” Ellen handed over another paper. “Here’s where you sign.”

Bev smoothed the first paper over her lap with her palms, making no move to take the contract Ellen shoved towards her. Two weeks ago, she’d been happy to give Ellen whatever she wanted, but now she knew she’d been too hasty. She met her eyes. “I’m not signing anything. I’m sorry.”

Ellen looked at her watch. “If you don’t sign that within the next five minutes, I’m going to hand over my resignation, effective immediately. Without me or my father, an over-promoted, color-blind jock will be the only person with any executive experience in the company. On an average day I work thirteen hours, but compared to my father I was a part-timer. An hour from now, an email will go out forwarding all calls and complaints to you. If they can’t find you, they’ll page you over the PA—which is even wired into the bathrooms. Which is good, because that’s where you’ll be hiding.”

Bev’s palms were damp; she wiped them on the sides of her thighs. Maybe she was fooling herself—seduced by a fantasy, of false glamor, of being the boss—but she hadn’t driven all the way up from L.A. just to give up in the first five minutes. Besides, Ellen had to be bluffing. “What about Richard? The CFO?”

“He hasn’t been allowed back in the building since our first little negotiation.”

Bev felt a surge of guilt. And anger. She doubted Liam even felt guilty about that. “I see.”

“Take it.” Ellen stood up to glide the paper over to her. “You can’t possibly expect me to offer you anything more.”

“If you really think I’m that bad for Fite, why leave? Why not stay and protect it from me?”

Sinking back down into her chair, Ellen’s hard face twisted into a half-smile. “You’ll learn your lesson soon enough,” she said. “And I’ll get Fite then.”

“You think I’ll give up and sell to you anyway.”

“Not sell. Give,” she said. “Three minutes.”

Bev looked down at the paper in her lap, studied the numbers, the address in Meeks Bay. I bet it’s beautiful.

Ellen smiled.

“You just have this kind of money lying around?” Bev asked. Having had a salary of less than thirty thousand a year, Bev couldn’t conceive of what it would be like to have so much all at once.

“Daddy may not have been clear-headed at the end, but before that he knew which one of us really loved him. He was understandably generous.”

Bev shook her head, dispelled the fantasy. She would never be able to live with herself. The last thing she wanted were deeper divisions in her family. “If you let me work alongside you, Fite would pay my salary. You wouldn’t have to give up anything.”

“Just everything that matters,” Ellen said. She clicked the end of a pen, flicked it across the desk like a spear.

“I can’t take this,” Bev said.

“Two minutes.”

“Ellen, please reconsider. I’m not going to mess anything up. I’m an organized, intelligent person, I work hard, I—”

Ellen blew her nose loudly into a tissue and walked across the room to an open file box. With her back to Bev, she lifted an ornate ceramic vase filled with peacock feathers off a shelf and began wrapping it in newspaper.

Jesus, what a bitch. Her mother had given up on her only sister thirty years ago. Even now, after the funeral of their father, she expressed no regrets about their cold war. Bev stared at Ellen’s narrow, rigid back and thought, I can see why.

So maybe a family reunion   was unlikely. But Ellen had to be bluffing about quitting. After a lifetime of working at Fite, she couldn’t just walk away—

“Sixty seconds.” Ellen dropped the box on the floor with a thud.

“I’m not going to sign it like this.” Bev struggled to think fast enough. She fell back on what she knew best. “How about I get us a snack, and we can talk about it—”

“Last chance, Betty.” She strode over to her. She’d slung a large bag over her shoulder and held the box in her arms, the peacock feathers curving up behind her left ear like green and purple iridescent antlers.

Bev glanced at the papers in her lap and got to her feet. “I can’t, Ellen. Surely you can wait—”

“Just sign it.” Eyes fixed off into space, Ellen waited, unmoving.