It’s a beautiful day to get back what’s mine.
Even more beautiful day to watch the looks on the faces of the four men whose lives are about to get very uncomfortable.
I snap my folder shut and lean back in my seat. “Final offer, gentlemen.”
Vince clamps his unhinged jaw shut while his white skin goes a mottled purple. “Are you fucking for real? This is the most asinine, childish shit you’ve ever pulled.”
“Ah, yes. I’m asinine. That’s so much worse than being manipulative and attempting to put a man in a corner if he wants to continue his work in peace. What was your finder’s fee on this deal, by the way? Hope it was enough to pay for the lawyers you’ll need when their original backers find out this was an inside job.”
The three other men at the table stiffen.
“They’re out, by the way.” I peer at them over my glass of kombucha. Raspberry mint. Rather delicious. “We had a fascinating brunch yesterday morning. Them. Me. My attorney. Their attorneys. I can honestly say I never knew civil litigation had so many complex layers to it.”
We’re on the deck of one of my favorite San Diego steakhouses, overlooking the marina while I lay out the terms of their surrender to me.
And yes, I mean surrender.
The cost of them replacing me after I left the research world will far outweigh the cost of them selling their company to me at a loss. Especially now that the venture capitalists funding the start-up that Vince was supposedly a silent partner for have decided they no longer have interest in working with people who would fuck over their only researcher.
And once I own the company, I own my research again.
Once I own the research again, I can finish it.
While I’m building a new lab where I won’t have a business partner but will have a life.
I haven’t slept since I left Snaggletooth Creek. I’ve eaten, but only when I’ve gotten lightheaded and realized what was wrong. I’ve asked questions. I’ve gossiped. I’ve dug and dug and dug for what I needed, and I found it.
Proof that owning my research but not owning me if I refuse to do more research puts this company in a pickle.
“Offer expires at midnight,” I tell them. “I’d take this one if I were you. The next one will have at least one less zero attached. Enjoy dinner. It’s on me.”
I start to rise as a commotion breaks out behind me. “Excuse me, do you know who I am?” a startlingly familiar voice says.
I whip my head around.
“No, madam, I have no idea who you are,” the ma?tre d’ replies.
Sabrina Sullivan, the goddess who has haunted my every ten-minute nap in the past three days, lifts her nose high while her massive dog gives a joyful bark. “Good. That means you won’t be able to tell them who just brought her dog in here. I love being a nobody.”
“Ma’am,” the ma?tre d’ snaps as Sabrina strolls past him.
Am I hallucinating?
Is this what not sleeping and getting proper justice will do to a man?
Or is Sabrina marching past the ma?tre d’ stand, spotting me and turning into an avenging angel of gossip and destruction while her eyes narrow and flames shoot out of her ears?
Is she wearing an Avengers suit?
I blink.
No, that was definitely a fantasy-based hallucination. But the sundress and the strappy high-heeled sandals and the way her curly red hair is blowing in the wind is sending me straight to my happy place.
She’s here.
“Ma’am, you need to stop,” the ma?tre d’ repeats.
But I’ve been spotted by a very large brown-and-white Saint Bernard, who woofs joyfully and lunges toward me.
People at the few occupied other tables turn. One woman scoots out of the way.
“Ma’am. I am calling the police if you don’t—”
I finally find my voice. “She’s with me.”
“Oooh, you wish I was with you,” Sabrina retorts as Jitter reaches me. “What in the hell do you think you’re—stop recording this right now, because if you think I won’t toss that phone over that balcony and then dig up every secret every person on this earth has ever known about you and use it against you to haunt you for the rest of your days, you are dead wrong. I’ve done the viral thing once and I am not doing it again.”
She scans the deck.
Every single person at the seven occupied tables puts their phones away.
I smile.
Can’t help it.
“And you can put that away too,” she orders, pointing to my face. “If you think smiling is getting you out of trouble, you, too, have a long life of regrets ahead of you.”