His brown eyes spark with laughter as I swear. I’m talking his language now. “Is it fucking awesome, Sabrina? Because I think I should be the judge of that.”

“Of course you should judge it. I have it with me if you’d like to read it and consider it for your media empire.”

He makes grabby hands, and I take the printed copy from my purse, handing it to him.

Ten minutes later, he raises both hands in the air. “Sold.”

“You didn’t even finish it.”

“I don’t need to finish it today to know I want to buy it. That’s why I’ve been emailing you. Not everyone has the guts to come up to me at a party and say they want to work for me. In fact, most journalists don’t. That’s why I gave you a hard time that night. One, because I enjoy giving people a hard time, and two, because I wanted to see if you had thick skin. Seems you do, and after the party, I looked up your work. You’re good,” he says, and he admits it begrudgingly. I suspect it’s hard for him to give compliments.

“Thank you.”

He heaves a sigh. “Look, I know I’m an asshole. But I’m good at what I do, and I know talent when I see it, hear it, and read it. You’re ballsy. I’ve been reading your stuff. That’s why I reached out to you.”

“And you’re fine, then, with running my piece on Flynn, as long as we disclose I’m involved with him?” I ask once more, doing my job to fact-check his offer on my pitch.

He waves a hand in the air. “Yeah. Fine. Disclosure. Good. But I want more than a piece on Flynn Parker. I want you working for me.”

Must get hearing checked. “Excuse me?”

“News flash. I wasn’t emailing you for any other reason. I’m not holding on to old-school notions of journalism. People meet these days in a million ways, including reporters who bang CEOs at parties. I hope you get good stories on Flynn, but the world is much bigger than Flynn Parker.” He stabs the paper with his finger. “I want to run this piece on the site, I want you to turn it into a long-form podcast interview, and I want a ‘top ten takeaways’ piece in video form.”

My lips twitch into a grin. “You do?”

“Yes. And then I want you to do that every other week on someone else.”

“You want me to do that regularly?”

“Yes. Insurance. Bennies. The whole nine yards. I want you to interview business leaders. I want them raw and unfiltered. I want to run them in their entirety. And then I want you to produce video reports on them too. I want you to work for me because these dinosaur newspapers and magazines are done. They’re toast.”

“And what about you? Are you un-toast?”

“I have money. I have advertisers and, most important, I have an audience.”