Page 5 of The Arrangement (Executive Suite Secrets #3)

“I thought we were blessed in getting you here because of your wonderful brain, but it turns out that you’re also familiar with someone who could save our department for years to come.” She was almost singing, but the terror I had shed swamped me again in a black wave.

“What do you mean?”

Her clawlike fingers dug into my shoulders, and she shook me. “Rome Ashbridge! You know Rome Ashbridge! Do you have any idea how long I’ve been trying to get an introduction to that man?”

“What? But…I don’t…”

“Ashbridge’s charitable foundation is known all around the city. He’s given a great deal of money to the area’s libraries and the art museum. It should be only natural that he supports the sciences properly.”

“Oh no,” I choked out. My legs turned to tapioca. Any attempt to stand so I could pull out of her grasp fizzled. She couldn’t mean for me…

“Oh, yes!” She pointed a finger at me, the perfectly manicured nail coated in a deep maroon.

“If you’ve been reading my regular memos, you know that federal funding for the sciences is way down.

Until we get a leader in office with a little common sense, we have no choice but to lean on private donors and corporations to keep us alive. ”

“But Rome and I…we…we haven’t spoken since we were kids,” I choked out. There was no way I was going to explain to my boss why we were now estranged, and I loathed the idea of being in the same city as him, let alone the same room.

The finger she had pointed at me waggled, and a sly smile rose on her narrow face.

Her pale amber-brown eyes twinkled, a perfect complement to her warm ochre skin.

I could almost hear the adding machine rattling off sums in her head.

“I saw you two talking upstairs. This is the perfect chance for you to rekindle that old childhood friendship.”

Clearly, she hadn’t been close enough to hear the contents of our conversation, but there was no way in hell anyone would think that we’d ever want to talk again after what was said at the bar.

“Um…Dr. Case, I think this could be more complicated than you understand,” Emily interjected while I was trying to get my brain to switch from pure, useless panic into something resembling a working mind that would help me get out of this mess.

“What? Nonsense. It’s only complicated if you make it complicated.”

“But—” I tried to argue. She didn’t give me a chance.

The somewhat warm expression fell from her somewhat skeletal face, and she turned into the stern taskmaster I was more accustomed to seeing every day.

She placed her hands on her slender hips encased in what I was pretty sure was a Chanel dress and narrowed her eyes on me as if she meant to pin me under glass.

“Dr. Rose, you will not make this difficult. Your top priority for the foreseeable future is to rekindle your old childhood friendship with Rome Ashbridge. During that time, you will convince him to make a sizable donation to the Museum of Natural History and Science. Particularly to the paleontology department.”

“How sizable?” I asked.

“At least five million. To start.”

I swallowed hard. That was a big number. A really fucking big number.

“But the dig we have planned for next spring is almost completely funded. We shouldn’t need that much,” Emily cut in. God bless her and her attempts to save my poor sanity.

She turned her glare on my friend. “This isn’t about that funding the new dig.

It’s about saving the department.” She paused and shifted that laser focus on me.

“Saving all our jobs. Because I’m sure you realize that if we have to make deep budget cuts, it will be those who have the shortest tenure with the department who are let go first.”

Ugh.

Message received loud and clear.

I’d been with the museum for six months. Emily had been here for two or three years. If I couldn’t bleed a little money into the paleontology department, my position was going to be the first one to be slashed.

The department director’s expression softened in the blink of an eye, as if she’d never spoken so sternly to us.

With a bright and shiny smile, she reached out and patted my shoulder.

“But I know I don’t have to worry about that.

You have been an involved and conscientious team player since you joined our family.

I know that you’ll do whatever it takes to convince Mr. Ashbridge that he should invest in our endeavor for the betterment of the entire city. ”

Oh, she was fucking good. A threat ruthlessly delivered, followed by a generous helping of guilt. This woman could have given lessons to my mother.

She dropped her hand to her side and turned her attention to Emily. “Dr. Luo, I think it’s your turn to make some rounds upstairs before all the guests depart for the evening. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and you’ll discover that you have a long-lost friend who’s also rich.”

Humming to herself, Dr. Case strode out of the lab, seeming as if she’d landed the answer to all her prayers while I was pretty sure she’d sentenced me to hell.

“What. The. Fuck,” Emily breathed. “Did she just whore you out?”

“I don’t think she meant her directions quite like that,” I muttered.

Emily scoffed. “Yeah, I wouldn’t be too sure.”

A smirk tweaked one corner of my mouth as I lifted my eyes to her. “Now that she’s got me sold off, she’s set her sights on you. Be careful up there.”

She let out a long, aggravated groan as she shoved to her feet and marched to the door.

I held my hand out, stopping her. “Lab coat.”

She glanced at herself to find that she was still wearing the white lab coat we all wore while we were working.

She fought her way out of it and tossed it at my face, obscuring the bright rainbow of colors she was wearing.

Emily was in many ways the tiny, slender Asian girl who appeared as if she were sixteen, but then she opened her mouth and you realized she was a twentysomething genius who’d forgotten more about dinosaurs in her short lifetime than most paleontologists who were more than twice her age knew.

“Knock ’em dead up there, killer,” I teased.

She ignored me. “Don’t sit here and panic. When I come back, we’ll put our heads together and come up with a plan to handle Rome. We can even call my girlfriend. She’s an extrovert and fantastic at knowing what to do with people.”

I nodded, trying to cling to the slim thread of hope she was extending me. We were definitely going to need the help of an extrovert on this one because my first thought was to update my résumé and start looking for another job.