THE WOLF

Nicholas

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Several days later ...

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The words “Let me explain” were almost always a bad omen when they left Brenton’s lips, and in the case of Operation: Fake Fiancée, they might as well have been a curse.

“Wait, wait.” The fourteenth applicant of the week stood by my door. “Give me one more chance, and I promise I won’t lie about my past again, Mr. Wolf. I’ll tell you about all the drugs, I swear!”

Jesus Christ ... I shook my head. Sadly, she wasn’t even the worst one we’d interviewed.

“Let’s just go.” Brenton led her out of the office. “We’ll be in touch.”

I pulled out my cell phone and sent him a text.

ME: I’m only seeing one more today, Brenton. I’d like to hold onto the rest of my brain cells. Thank you.

I hit send, and my desk phone rang.

“This is Nicholas Wolf,” I answered. “You have two minutes.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Wolf.” It was a soft female voice. “My name is Heather McAvoy and I’m with the Carriage Firm in Manhattan. I’m calling to ask you about your thoughts in regard to my proposal I sent to your office last week.”

“I don’t recall receiving a proposal,” I said. “Did you get a confirmation email?”

“Yes, it was from the Emily.”

“Emily Johnson?” I shook my head. I wasn’t sure when everyone around me started adding ‘the’ in front of Emily’s name.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Hold on for a few seconds.” I placed her on hold and called my secretary. “Could you tell Miss Johnson to step into my office, please?”

I ended the call before she could answer, and within seconds Emily walked into the room. Dressed in a new dress, a fitted beige one that clung to her curves, she crossed her arms and pursed her puffy pink lips.

Jesus Christ ...

“Yes, Mr. Wolf?” she said. “Are you checking to make sure I haven’t broken away from my chains today?”

“You’ve fantasized about me putting you in chains?” I asked. “Let’s discuss that.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m on a conference call with one of your estate brokers right now. What do you want?”

“I have Heather McAvoy from the Carriage Firm on the line. She claims you sent her a confirmation email about a proposal I’ve never seen. I know you’re attempting to get fired, but surely there’s a better way than hiding proposals from me.”

“I’m not hiding anything from you,” she said. “I read over it and decided it wasn’t worth your time. She’s only calling you because I told her that you had far more important things to do than read a high-school level brief. But by all means, if you’d like to take a look for yourself, I placed a copy of it in your cloud. Can I get you anything else?”

Your mouth. “I’d like some coffee.”

“So would I.” She walked toward the door. “There’s plenty of it downstairs in the employee café.”

I waited for her to softly slam my door as usual, and found the proposal right where she said it was. I managed to make it through the first five lines before surrendering.

I hung up on Miss McAvoy and quickly drafted an email with the subject line, “If Emily Says No, It’s a Fucking No.”

The second I hit send, an intern rushed into my office with a cup of coffee. She blushed as she set it on my desk, offering me a small smile.

“How many sugars did you put in there?” I asked.

“Zero.” She blushed again. “Miss Johnson specifically said you wanted it black.”

Of course, she did ...

I pulled my drawer open and removed my hidden panel, finding a post-it note in Emily’s handwriting instead of my stash of raw sugar packets.

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Stop STEALING the sugar packets from my office.

Thank you.

–Emily

PS—Not that I care (because I DON’T) but your doctor did say your stress could be lessened by limiting sugars in a few cups of your daily coffee.

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I groaned and sipped the bitter coffee. I started to text Brenton about cancelling today’s final interview since it was taking him so long, but he walked into my office with a pretty blond at his side.

“Nicholas Wolf, this is Hannah Stone.” He walked her over to me. “Hannah Stone, this is Nicholas Wolf.”

“It’s so nice to finally meet you in person, Mr. Wolf.” Her cheeks reddened as she extended her hand. “I’ve read about you in a lot of newspapers and magazines.”

“Only half of what’s printed is true.” I shook her hand and pulled out a chair for her, bracing myself for what I hoped would be the final interview.

“So, Miss Stone.” Brenton cleared his throat. “We’re running a bit short on time today, so we’ll skip the small talk and jump right into the improvisation part. I’m going to ask you a few questions regarding the documents I asked you to study and most of what you’ve already read about Mr. Wolf and you’re going to pretend like we’re shooting a documentary and that you’re his wife. Okay?”

“Okay.” She batted her eyes at me. “I’m ready to play Mrs. Wolf. I’m getting paid for this, right?”

“You’ll get paid if you get the job.”

“Wait. What?” She looked confused. “I don’t do free job interviews ...”

What the fuck? I shot Brenton a look, but he ignored me.

“Miss Stone, we’ll gladly compensate you for your time at the end of this interview.”

“Will you also validate my parking?” she asked. “I parked in a NAW spot in the private garage.”

“A NAW spot?” He looked confused.

“Yeah, the spot said NAW and it had CEO painted underneath it, but I figured it was an employee prank because Mr. Wolf is the CEO, not whoever this NAW person is, you know?”

We both looked at her in a stunned silence.

“Miss Stone,” Brenton said finally. “Those three letters, N.A.W., are indeed for Mr. Wolf. They were painted there for brevity.”

“Well, why would you ever go by the name NAW?” She snorted. “You have to know that Mr. Wolf sounds so much better.”

“Can we just get this over with?” I asked, downing the rest of my coffee. I felt like I’d already lost two brain cells during this conversation and I wasn’t going to make it too much longer.

“Noted.” Brenton pulled out his notebook and sighed. “Miss Stone, what’s your husband’s favorite color?”

“Yellow.” She winked at me. “But according to The Business Journal, sometimes it’s green.”

It’s always orange.

“How does he take his coffee?”

“With tons of cream—like at least five pumps. Oh, and he always has to have an extra shot of caramel.”

I’m allergic to caramel ...

“His favorite movie?”

“It’s a tossup between The Titanic and The Notebook.” She smiled. “We watch them together all the time. Sometimes he cries at the end.”

I’ve never cried at a goddamn movie.

“Can you tell me his favorite book?”

“No, but I can tell you mine. It’s Cosmo.”

That’s not a book ...

“Okay, then.” Brenton shook his head and shut the questionnaire folder. “Miss Stone, did you happen to read any of the materials I emailed to you last week in regard to these questions?”

“I started to, but you emailed them to me on a Saturday. Saturday is my me-time.”

“What about the days after? You had six other days of the week to prepare for this.”

“Not really.” She scoffed. “Sunday through Friday are the days I need to get ready for my me-time.”

I let out a few loud coughs. My signal that he needed to end this shit before I did.

“Last thing, Miss Stone.” He stood to his feet. “I called Harvard to verify that you were a student there and they couldn’t locate your records. Did you attend there under a different name?”

“What?” She looked confused. “I never said I went to Harvard.”

“You wrote it right here,” he said, pointing to her application. “It says Harvard right next to the word college.”

“Oh.” She shrugged. “I just wrote that because I figured Mr. Wolf would be more into an Ivy-league woman.”

“Fair enough.” He clicked his pen. “What college did you actually attend?”

“Well, I applied to tons of colleges. None of them actually let me in, so it’s not technically my fault that I don’t have a true answer for that right now, you know? I tried.”

His jaw dropped.

“It was interesting meeting you.” I stood up and extended my hand. “We’ll be in touch.”

“Oh, great! This was so much fun!” She smiled and shook my hand. Then she looked at Brenton. “I meant what I said about being paid for this interview. My time isn’t free.”

“Go to the fifth floor and tell them Brenton sent you. They’ll take care of it.”

“Okay.” She slung her purse over her shoulder and winked at me as she walked toward the door. “I’ll keep my phone volume on high, so I won’t miss the call-back. When exactly will you be making your final decision?”

Neither of us said anything. And thankfully, she didn’t stick around for an answer.

“Jesus ...” Brenton slumped onto the sofa. “I didn’t think it could get much worse.”

“You and me both.”

“You know what?” He sighed. “I’ll find a new, different way for us to get this deal done and have some options to you tonight. I don’t think I can sit through any more of these.”

“My thoughts exactly. Where are we on the Smith & Claxton acquisition?”

“It’s almost done,” he said. “Last time I checked, Emily was having the contracts looked over by three different legal teams.”

“And the Barron account?”

“Secured as of this morning, and the papers will need your signature tomorrow evening.”

Before I could ask about another deal we were pursuing, a knock came to the door.

“Come in,” I called out.

The door opened, and Emily walked into the room with a stack of freshly printed contracts.

“The Smith & Claxton contracts are officially binding and clear,” she said, setting the papers on my desk. “I’ve highlighted a few questionable terms you may want to adjust in the final round of negotiations, but they’re very minor.”

Brenton smiled at her.

“I’ve called ahead to The Four Seasons, since you’re staying there tonight to finalize things with Hayward, and the manager has assured me that there won’t be any caramels or sugars in the coffee stations. You’ll have three suit options in the closet waiting, although I highly suggest you go with the black and grey Armani one, as that one looks best under the lobby’s lighting.”

“You told me you hated that suit.”

“No, I told you I hated how much you spent on that suit.” She uncapped a pen and handed it to me. “One of the interns is going to come by in an hour to pick up the Voss files, so you need to initial all sixty pages by then.”

“Why are you leaving early again?”

“Because my amazing boss is unknowingly treating me to an anniversary spa session on his credit card, and I think I’m going to take my boyfriend.”

“Since when are you dating someone?” I clenched my jaw.

“Seeing as though I never have the time, never.” She sighed. “I’m going with my sister. Jealous much?”

Extremely. “Well, why couldn’t you schedule your session on the weekend and not during the hours I’m actually paying you for?” I swear she was the only woman who could arouse me with her goddamn sarcasm. “I told you I needed your help to prepare for my four o’clock meeting.”

“And I told you I placed some helpful post-it notes in the files.” She crossed her arms. “Any other unnecessary questions before I leave?”

“I have some.” Brenton leaned forward in his chair. “Humor me for a second, Emily. What’s Nicholas’s favorite color?”

“Orange. Although he lies in every single interview by saying it’s green because he somehow thinks that makes him look smarter.” She looked at me and narrowed her eyes. “It doesn’t.”

“How does he take his coffee?”

“Two sugars if no one is watching.” She shrugged. “Black if someone is.”

“His favorite movie?”

“The Godfather.”

“One, two, or three?”

“I think he’s watched them all so many times, he can’t even tell the difference anymore.” She headed toward the door. “Any other random trivia questions?”

“Final one, just for fun. What’s his favorite book?”

“The Catcher in the Rye.” She opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “I’m officially off now. Goodbye.”

The door closed and Brenton looked at me, smiling. “I take back what I said about drafting new idea options. I think we just found your fake fiancée.”

I don’t fucking think so ...