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Okay then.
I turn away, finished.
He grabs my hand and I look back.
“I can explain. Just give me a chance.”
I break his hold on me. “Don’t contact me for a while.”
His eyes are imploring, and a part of me wants to stay and forgive him.
Instead, I leave.
CHAPTER13
the farmhouse ladies
DARE
My PR Team is made up of the most creative, highly educated, and ridiculously well-compensated people in the world.
And I’m about to fire all of them.
“Repeat that,” I say smoothly. “I dare you.”
The pipsqueak that spoke those atrocious words—Conner—turns red.
“S-sir?” He looks to Mosely as if waiting for some kind of guidance on where he went wrong.
Mosely just pulls his lips into his mouth in silent respect for the dead. Or the soon-to-be dead.
“Go ahead.” I flick my fingers. The sparkly plastic gemstones on my watch catch the light and disperse it over the five worried faces seated around the desk.
Conner swallows hard enough to make the glass walls rattle. It sounds like an amplifier got stuck in his throat. He might need to get that checked.
Along with his brain.
I arch an eyebrow. “Did you not hear me, Conner? Because, if necessary, I can sign that instruction. I know ASL.”
Behind me, Mosely makes a pinched face and does a shooing gesture.
“I-I said,” Conner stutters, eyes darting back and forth, “right now, Yaya Williams is a bomb and you need to throw it far away from you and the company.”
I hear Mosely smack his forehead in disappointment.
“What else?”
“We should immediately send out a press release stating that you and the company had no knowledge of her involvement with Ru-Carpsel. We need to tell the public you two are taking a break. I suggest we word the press release so you seem just as betrayed and heartbroken as her followers.”
Tensely, I press my fingers together and rest it on the desk. “You’re new here, Conner?”
“Um, yes.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“Where did you get your MBA?”