Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
But also, what a waste of fossil fuel it was for him to be flying back west by himself.
He should have pushed his meetings and waited to take his family back with him.
If those meetings were pushed, however, other meetings would need to be pushed, and he’d be running to catch up for the next year.
He also had tomorrow off.
Completely.
No meetings. No phone calls. No reports to read, files to go through, numbers to crunch.
It had been so long since he had—he counted—thirty-nine hours all to himself, he didn’t even know how to plan what he intended to do with them.
Which meant he hoped to do nothing.
Maybe get some surfing in. A run on the beach. Lose himself in cooking a meal. Or grab one of the three hundred books he had piled around the house that he’d wanted to read and never had the time or headspace to give them.
He set all this aside and pulled out his computer.
He’d made the request before they took off.
He was not surprised he had what he asked for now that they’d leveled off.
His father’s team, a team he’d inherited, was preternaturally efficient.
He pulled out his phone, punched in the number he’d been given, and he made the call.
“Hello?” The woman’s voice was tentative in answering, unsurprisingly, as his was an unknown number.
And she was who she was.
“This is Hale Wheeler. Do I have Elsa Cohen?”
A long silence, and then, “Hale Wheeler?”
“Is this Elsa?”
“Yes.”
“Great,” he bit off, making no bones about the fact he did not feel it was great that he had to give her any of his time.
He also didn’t intend to waste more of it.
And he set about doing that.
“What would it take for you to lay off my family?”
A long pause and then, “Are you trying to buy me off?”
“I asked a simple question.”
“It’s my business,” she pointed out.
“I hope somewhere inside you, you understand it’s a shit business to be in,” he stated bluntly.
“Not everyone can be Robin Hood,” she returned smoothly. “Someone has to share all Robin does so people know there are good guys out there and maybe inspire them to do something good too.”
He didn’t hide his feelings for that, and as such, his voice was scathing when he said, “Don’t pretend what you do is altruistic.”
“You’d know about that,” she shot back, then explained her meaning. “So there’s no ulterior motive to you giving away all the money your father deserted you your whole life in order to earn?”
Jesus Christ.
She didn’t hesitate to go for the jugular either.
“So the answer to my simple question is no,” he noted. “You’re not going to lay off my family.”
“Hale…can I call you Hale?”
“Since this is the only conversation we’re ever gonna have, I don’t give a shit what you call me.”
“Right then,” she said quietly. “Obviously, I heard what happened this afternoon. I also knew where you were within minutes of you arriving. And I never, not ever, Hale, divulge the current whereabouts of anyone I cover. For precisely the reasons why you’re calling now. It can put people in danger, and I don’t want to be responsible for that.”
“And she thinks she has scruples,” he muttered.
“You don’t know me enough to pass judgment on me,” she snipped, her famous cool slipping.
“Baby, I don’t want to know you,” he retorted.
“Baby?” she asked in an infuriated whisper.
He ignored that.
“Shoot me a deal, Elsa,” he urged. “There’s practically nothing you can ask that is outside my means to give to you.”
“Okay, Hale, for six months of me laying off your family, specifically Tom and Mika, and I know this is about your beloved Tom, so let’s not pretend it isn’t. And by the way, even if I blackout coverage of them, they’re going to get gnawed on. There are still Team Tom people out there who are pissed Imogen moved on. They know the story of her and Holloway and Szabo, and they think she dumped her husband for her childhood love.”
Fucking hell.
Hale hadn’t heard anything about that.
Elsa wasn’t done.
“And Mika just became the new Lisa Bonet, except the tragic one, which makes her all the tastier. Still, her ability to attract the best men hasn’t gone unnoticed, no matter the time that has elapsed in between. So I might have broken that story, but it was going to break without me. All of that said, I’ll give you six months. In return, I want an exclusive, one on one with you, in person, in your home, or one of them. No pre-approval of questions.”
“I don’t do interviews,” he informed her.
“It’s in your means to give,” she reminded him.
Fucking hell.
“Well?” she pushed.
“Forever blackout, interview via Zoom, pre-approval of questions,” he fired at her.
“You’re not going to get a forever blackout, Hale,” she said, almost gently. “I was being generous with the offer of six months.”