Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 101488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
She frowned. “I’m getting ready to leave, so I called back to Mr. Rothschild again. He said to let you know it turned out he didn’t have two minutes to spare today.”
What a bastard. That had been his game plan all along—make me waste the entire day. Well, lucky for me, I had no job and no place to go. So rather than get upset, I decided to dig in. I stood and lifted my pocketbook to my shoulder.
“Could you let Mr. Rothschild know I’ll be back again tomorrow? Perhaps he’ll be able to spare the two minutes then.”
The receptionist’s eyebrows jumped, yet she smiled. “Sure thing.”
The following day I came more prepared. I brought my laptop, some snacks, a charger for my cell, and my to-do list. When the morning went by again, and Hudson still couldn’t find a couple of minutes to speak to me, at least I’d knocked off a bunch of things from my list and cleaned out my emails—two things that were long overdue.
In the afternoon, I updated my resume and uploaded more than a thousand pictures from my phone to a storage website and organized them. I then spent an hour and a half online planning a dream vacation I could never afford—picking out luxury hotels and a private, captained sailboat to get me between the Greek Islands I wanted to explore. Again at 5:30, the receptionist came over.
“Good news. I think…”
“Oh?”
“I just called back and told him I was leaving and you were still here.” She shrugged. “He didn’t tell me to ask you to leave.”
I chuckled because I’d clearly lost my mind now. “So I should wait?”
She pointed to the glass doors. “He has to walk out that door sometime…”
I nodded. “Okay. Have a good night, Ruby.”
“You, too, Stella. Hopefully I won’t see you sitting here tomorrow.”
I smiled. “I hope not, too.”
By 6:45, I’d watched most of the staff at Rothschild Investments leave, and a cleaning crew walked in and started to vacuum around me. I’d taken a break from dream vacation planning to text with Fisher for a while. When I was done, I again opened my laptop and went back to vacay-planning mode. Mykonos was the last island I still needed to find the perfect hotel on. As I sifted through photos of the incredible scenery, trying to decide if I wanted to be on the north or south side of the island, I must’ve become engrossed in what I was doing.
Suddenly, a deep voice scared the crap out of me, and I jumped from my seat. My laptop went flying to the floor, and my hand flew to my chest. “You scared me to death.”
Hudson shook his head. “I should’ve just walked out the door. You wouldn’t have even noticed.” He bent and picked up my laptop, which luckily was still illuminated and not broken. Looking at the screen, he said, “Going on a vacation to the Greek islands? Good business plan. Have fun at…” He squinted. “The Royal Myconian. Looks expensive.”
I snatched my laptop from his hands. “I’m dream vacation planning, not actually going.”
Though he didn’t quite smile, I could’ve sworn the corner of his lip twitched. Hudson pushed up the sleeve of his suit jacket, revealing a big, chunky watch. While I felt like punching the arrogant bastard for making me sit here for two days, I couldn’t help but notice how sexy the damn watch looked on his masculine wrist. Shaking my head, I tamped down that feeling.
“Two minutes,” Hudson said, folding his arms across his chest. “Go.”
For the next hundred-and-twenty seconds, I rambled on—telling him I wanted to know the real reason he’d decided to decline investing, because it couldn’t possibly be that he didn’t like the scent I’d created. I even told him it was the same one he’d told me twice that he liked—once at Olivia’s wedding and then again at his office when I’d come to pick up my cell phone. Then, for some insane reason, I started going into detail about the samples he’d rated and the chemicals I’d used… Somehow my diatribe morphed into a science lesson. I don’t think I took a breath or used any punctuation during the entire two minutes I speed-talked.
When I finally shut up, Hudson stared at me. “Are you finished?”
“I guess so.”
He gave a curt nod. “Have a good evening.” Then he turned and walked toward the door.
I blinked a few times, sure he couldn’t possibly be just leaving. But when he got to the door and pushed it open, it became apparent that was exactly what the jerk was doing. So I yelled after him. “Where are you going? I’ve been waiting for two days to have this conversation.”
With his hand on the door, he didn’t look back as he spoke. “You asked for two minutes. I gave them to you. The cleaning people will lock up after you leave.”