Fortunately, she was able to catch a cab just outside of her building. She needed a cab. Public transportation would double the time it would take for her to get to Calendri Corp, and if she drove, there was no way she wouldn't cause a giant pileup with how much of a hurry she was in.

Thankfully, the cab drivers in this city were all samurai in traffic. She had no doubt this guy would get her to where she needed to go, especially when she said she was in a damned hurry and there was a hundred dollar tip for him if he got her to her destination safely.

He did, but she was still late. Every time she checked her phone, the minutes were ticking by regardless of how much she wanted them to stop. Her body was buzzing with all kinds of energy she couldn't get rid of until she made it to Calendri Corp. That was where she needed to be and nothing else would do. She needed to stand in front of Arturo and tell him she was going to take his deal.

And then probably end up begging him to not turn her away.

She tossed the money at the driver when he pulled up in front of the tall glass building. There was probably more than a hundred dollars there for a tip, which she could ill afford at the moment, but it would be worth it so long as she could convince Arturo to not be an asshole.

Isla ran through the doors, nearly breaking her ankle when she almost slipped, and shocking quite a few men in suits who were coming and going from the building. She also almost knocked over an older businesswoman carrying a briefcase and talking on her phone.

She didn't stop, didn't look back, and didn't apologize like she knew she should have.

No time. No time. No time.

Then, of course, the fucking elevator.

She didn't have to wait for it to open for her. It was already open and teaming with passengers.

She hit the button for the top floor, and of course, the stupid elevator had to stop every second or third floor to let people on and off.

She tapped her phone against her hip, trying to keep her knee from jittering too much. If she started tapping her foot, the shoes she wore would give her away in an instant.

All the same, why couldn't any of these fucking people use the stairs? Some were going up only a flight or two, and yet they waited for the elevator, stalled progress, and made sure that another five minutes went by before she was almost to the top.

"Going to the see the boss, are you?" asked the man standing beside her.

He was well dressed, cute, and had the boy-next-door type of face, but had enough maturity in his eyes and age in his looks to be the sort that she liked to go for.

"Are you late?" He asked that particular question with a smile on his face that normally would have made her melt, especially with those perfectly white teeth and the way he looked at her making it obvious he was interested.

Yeah, there was definitely no melting happening at the moment. She glared at him, and the smile left his face quickly as he turned away.

Not a good time, and she was not in the right mood. A part of her hated that she was acting like a total bitch, but she couldn't help it. The stress inside of her was too big, and it was taking over.

Finally, she was at the top of the building, squeezing through the doors before they were open all the way, and by then, it was a quarter to four. She'd made it in good time, really, but it didn't feel like it. She was out of breath and angry.

Sylvia was behind her marble desk, soft brown hair pulled back into a tight bun on her head, and she had a smile on her face as she watched Isla approach.

"Is he in his office?" she asked, forcing herself to a stop, her knees trembling like she'd just run a mile in the heels she wore.

"He is," Sylvia said, nodding and still smiling.

She didn't wait for an invite or for Sylvia to get out of her seat. She marched over to the doors herself and let herself on in. Sylvia didn't follow or call out for her to stop and wait. Curious, but not curious enough that Isla cared.

Arturo was there, in plain sight this time instead of banging some chick in his back room.

He probably still had a couple of girls back there.

He was jogging.

A treadmill that hadn't been in there yesterday—unless she'd just missed it—was set up and facing the far wall. A projector, which sat in a little compartment in the ceiling, put an image of a park on the enormous white screen, which had been pulled down from its hiding spot in the ceiling.

There were numbers on the screen in the top right corner. At first, she thought they were stocks, but then realized they weren’t. The program was keeping track of how far he had jogged, and there was a best score beneath it. He’d run whole marathons on this thing. That was incredibly impressive. She’d known he was good looking and kept in shape, but this was actually something of an accomplishment that she hoped to achieve one day.

If she ever got into good enough shape to do more than a half marathon, that is. She had yet to finish one of those.

The image of the park passing by slowed down, and the computerized people Arturo was running with sped on ahead of him.

“You’re late,” he said.

He’d stopped jogging and was simply walking, cooling down.

“I called your secretary, but she told me I couldn’t leave a message. My answer is yes,” she explained.

He grabbed a fresh white towel from the rack next to him and tossed it around his neck. Grabbing his water bottle, he took a pull on it, tilting his head back and exposing the sexy, shining, and strong length of his throat.

He tapped the screen on his treadmill, then pulled it free from the machine as he stopped walking. His tablet had been controlling the program he’d been using. It shut off and the screen on the wall silently pushed its way back up into its compartment in the ceiling. The projector did the same.

“No deal,” he said, stepping off the treadmill.

“What? But I’m here! I’m telling you I’ll do it!”

“I told you twenty-four hours, not twenty-five.”

He started walking away from her, and her sense of panic quadrupled. It multiplied in ways that felt about a thousand times worse than anything she knew, in higher numbers than she could calculate in her head.

“No, don’t do this. I’m only forty minutes late.”

“Forty-eight,” he corrected, moving to his desk and setting his tablet down. He started tapping and swiping, probably playing angry birds for all she knew. He didn’t care one bit how much she needed this, and it showed.

She clenched her fists. “Please, okay? I’m sorry. It was an accident. I thought I could call in and accept the offer.”

Arturo barely spared her a glance. “Kind of a deep and personal offer for you to want to discuss over the phone, don’t you think?”

“Well, you didn’t exactly tell me I couldn’t phone in either,” she snapped, her inner bitch getting prickly.

He lifted a dark brow at her. That was all it took. It was pathetic, but that was all she needed for her to force that inner bitch into a calm, submissive kitten. She needed this, and even if it meant eating a lot of crow and apologizing for something that was most definitely not her fault, she would do it.

She cleared her throat. “I should have asked. I’m sorry.”

He smiled. “All right.”

She waited, but he said nothing else. “All right?”

“I accept your apology.”

It clicked with her what he was doing. He was teasing her. Had they been anything close to friends, she would have smiled and teased back. Hell, if she didn’t know who he was and just thought he was doing a little harmless flirting, then she would have done the same thing.

This was not funny. This was so beyond not funny, but she had to play along.

“Please, accept my apology and allow me to also accept your offer,” she said. There was no way he could purposely misunderstand her now.

He knew what she wanted, and she was fairly certain he was going to give it to her. He just wanted to make her squirm first.

The unimaginable prick.

He heaved a heavy sigh, as though her request was something a little bit more on the inconvenient side than he would have liked. His eyes met hers again. “All right. I accept.”

She blinked, stunned. “You… you’re going to do it?”

She’d figured he would, but she’d also expected him to make her grovel a little more.

He didn’t. He was ending it now before his fun really got a chance to start up.

His smile lit up the damned office, even with sunlight coming in through the floor–to-ceiling windows behind him. Isla shivered, and she just knew a number of women had probably creamed themselves looking at that smile as well.

“Did you think I was going to torture you and make you beg?”

“Well, yes, actually,” she said. Sometimes honesty was the best policy, but not when trying to kiss someone’s ass. That was when lying through her teeth and schmoozing was the best policy. “But I figured you were too good of a man to tease me too long.”

Arturo smiled at her, but not a calm, pleasant sort of smile. It was the wry kind, like he was seeing through her bullshit.

He pulled his tablet closer to him and began some more tapping and swiping. There was a whirring noise, a shuffling of paper, and he leaned down to grab something.

There must have been a printer in a compartment under the expensive and massive looking desk, because he had a stack of papers in his hands.

He tapped them on the desk, straightening them out, took his stapler, and stapled the edges before holding the papers out to her. “This is your contract. Since you already showed up late, I expect you to read this and have it signed and returned to me within the hour, or the deal will be off. No more chances, no begging for forgiveness, and I’ll strip apart your grandfather’s business and send it to the dogs.”

She stared at the man. She couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe that a guy she didn’t know would be so damned mean and cruel about something when all she’d done was tell him to fuck off.

He stared at her, a hint of impatience in his eyes. “You can go now. Sylvia will find a place for you to sit and get a pen for you to sign.”

He already knew she was going to sign. That was it. He just wanted her to go and do it already, as though her very presence was an annoyance to him.

He tapped on his screen, and the doors to his office opened. Sylvia was right there, looking too damned prim and perfect in her well-fitting business attire as she held the door open.

Isla felt wrinkly and terrible as she turned and left Arturo’s office.