“You wish, asshole,” I seethed, leaning back. “And the only thing I need you to remember is that you’re not my boss in this scenario. We are equals. I’m not going to be running around like your errand girl, that shit’s done.” He seemed genuinely surprised at that, as if the last ten minutes of whatever the fuck we were doing had clearly put us on a level playing field. “This is not some game for me, Theo. I will not get a chance like this again.”

He got all intense again, his hands fisted on the arms of the chair.

“I would never do anything to hurt you or your business. I want something good to come out of this for both of us.” I was a damn fool because I believed him.

“Fine,” I breathed out, feeling completely wrung out when I knew that barely a quarter of an hour had passed. “I assume there will be a million meetings and things to do for this to happen, so I better go check in with Dani.” I took out my phone, figuring the most sane approach would just be to get to work. Dani was my point guy for most logistics things and he needed to be filled in about this development. “I’ll probably have to keep him here all night getting everything ready.”

I whipped my head from my phone when I heard something very much like a growl coming from the direction where my ex-boss was sitting. In the three years I worked for him I became what one could call an expert in the complex science of Theo Ganas’s many unhappy noises. This was one I had not heard before, but I could tell it was in the “distress sounds” category.

“What’s wrong?” I forced myself to loosen my shoulders since I was no longer paid to care about any of this man’s many discontents.

“Who’s Dani?” He looked pissed, but I was not deluded enough to think this was jealousy. Just Theo’s control freak ways kicking in. He could insert himself fully in the middle of my professional life without warning, but how dare a person exist without him knowing about them.

“Dani is the liaison for the renovation. He used to work for the store, but last year he moved to the foundation and he’s helping me.”

“Do you pull all-nighters a lot?”

I rolled my eyes at the way he said all-nighters.

“Not that it’s any of your damn business, but no. I’ve had a couple of late nights when I was preparing the designs, but Julia and Rocco’s guest bedroom is also their home office so I worked there.”