I didn’t flinch at the accusation, but instead nodded with a calm smile. It wasn’t meant as a barb. These people admired persistence. More than that, they admired the self-importance it took to foist yourself upon other people under the arrogant assumption that you were absolutely worth their time.
Either way, apologies and doubt were signs of weakness I couldn’t afford to show in this room. Not now. Not ever. I already had enough working against me.
“Abigail Wilder,” he murmured, reading some more. “You come highly recommended, but I must admit, I haven’t heard of you.”
First trick of the trade: turn a negative into a positive with just a bit of creative spin.
“Mark of a good publicist,” I replied evenly. “I guarantee you haven’t heard of my clients either. At least...nothing that I didn’t want you to know.”
He glanced up, looking as close to amused as I think the man was capable, before returning to the papers. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. First obstacle down. I would have to get these out of the way quickly and efficiently. Because my relative lack of experience wasn’t the only thing I had working against me.
I was twenty years old. Unable to order a drink at any of the bars we went to. The first thing I’d have to do after dashing back across the bridge to Brooklyn, was get myself a fake ID.
But like I said, I had one of those faces that shifted to fit the part. And from everything I’d heard about Mitchell Hunter, when it came to the ages of his women, he tended to round up.
At long last, the file came down. The glasses came off, and he looked at me instead. The resume part of the interview was over—it had told him everything he needed to know. The rest was up to me. Sink or swim. A life in Brooklyn...or the Upper East Side.
“You’ve come on an interesting day,” he murmured, pulling out a monogrammed handkerchief to clean off his glasses. “Must be wondering why you’ve applied to jump aboard what looks like a sinking ship.”
I didn’t miss a beat.
“It doesn’t look that way to me.”
“Oh no?” He gazed at me sharply from atop the throne. “What does it look like to you?”
Time to sell it, Abby. You’ve got twenty seconds.
“It looks like you’re moving in a new direction. No more dead weight. Only fresh things on the horizon.” Keeping my eyes locked warily on him the entire time, I pulled a pen and paper from my bag. “I’m sure if you tell me what those things are, I can start getting the word out.”
He blinked three times. Each one sending me into a mild heart attack. Then the corners of his mouth twitched up into an unnatural smile.
“You’ve got the job.”
I couldn’t believe it. Could not believe it.
Ninety percent of me thrilled with the opportunity—to work for the Hunter Corporation was a dream come true. In all the ways that mattered, there truly was no bigger client. The other ten percent was absolutely terrified of what I’d just gotten myself into.
“Excellent.” I kept my cool for just a moment longer, holding in my celebration until I’d reached the lobby floor. “Who would you like me to coordinate with in corporate office?”
“Oh no, my dear.” He reached over the table and poured himself a glass of scotch. A precise measuring. Not a drop’s deviation from day to day. “I don’t want you for the company.”
My heart fell as I simultaneously wondered if my own family was on their way up just to watch me fail. The pen and paper slid slowly back into my bag.
“You don’t?”
“Not at all.” He lifted the glass to his lips and said the fateful words that would go on to change my life forever. “I want you for my son.”
Now here we were.
I hastened to smooth down my dress, pulling my hair back into a tight bun. I wished Nick would wake up, but he was still passed out cold—oblivious to the dark force that had just walked into his bedroom. Fortunately, a single word from his father was enough to remedy that.
“Nicholas.”
He jerked awake like he’d been having a nightmare, only to open his eyes and gaze upon the real thing. There was a hitch in his breathing, and half the color drained from his face as he hurried to make sure the blankets were still firmly around his waist.
“Dad—what are you doing here?”
That was another thing that had always surprised me. As much as Mitchell going by his first name. The informality of it. That Nick would address him as dad, instead of father. It was as if the family had sat down years ago, and read a book on what a family was supposed to look like. Talk like. Some things had stuck. The others had never really taken in the first place.