“Is that what this is all about?” Her nostrils flared. “Signing that contract, meddling in my career—you want to punish me for the way I left things five years ago?” His eyes thinned. “Are you serious?” “Are you?” she demanded, surging a step closer as he broke into a disbelieving laugh. “You come to New York of all places, you pick Gossinger and Fink of all agencies—” “You know what, you’re right,” he said, waving a sarcastic hand. “You caught me. I obviously came to New York not because it’s the publishing capitol of the entire world, not because it’s where I always planned on ending up, but because you made me sad once in high school. And I obviously chose Gossinger and Fink not because Nora Gossinger is a luminary and the only person I’d trust with a manuscript I’ve spent six years bleeding out of me, but because I really wanted to mildly inconvenience you at work. And you know, why stop there—did you know I actually wrote this entire book in hopes that you’d become an agent one day and I could track you down and go ‘boo’?” “I get it,” she bit out, and he loomed a step closer. “See, I don’t think you do, so let me make this categorically clear.” He closed in and brought his head level with hers. “I didn’t sign that contract to spite you. I signed it despite you.” “And keeping me in the dark about it?” she countered hotly, tipping her chin up. “Making me think we were on the same page and then blindsiding me the next day—that was all ‘despite’ me, too?” Against his better judgement, his mouth gave a humorless flicker. “That one might’ve had a little spite.” Her glare was blistering as it held his. Even in the dim light of the supply closet, it shone a bright, sulfuric black.
the supply closet fights are back friends
