Ruthless In A Suit(22)

Money we desperately need.

Not only is that stupid, bad business, and irresponsible, it might also get me fired from the job I was hoping to move into full-time once I graduate next year.

Plus, all that money could have changed so many kids’ lives, and isn’t that my mission in life? Why I’m busting my butt in the graduate program at Boston University to get my master’s in educational leadership? I want to make a difference, add some good in the world.

And now what—I have too much integrity to have dinner with a gorgeous billionaire? Am I clinically insane?

But I know that the game he was playing was dangerous. If I’d agreed to that dinner, if something god forbid had happened between us—then I’d basically have been no different than a prostitute.

And I didn’t get into this to sell myself to rich men.

Not even sexy, gorgeous ones like Jackson Croft? I ask myself.

My chest aches, knowing that a bigger part of me than I’d like to admit, actually wanted to give into him. Was dying to give in to his demands. The reality of the situation is that I was lucky to make it out of his office by the skin of my teeth…and if he’d said one more thing, perhaps touched my arm…it all would have been over and I’d have crumbled before him.

I transfer to the green line on autopilot, headed back to my place in Allston. I have class later this afternoon. No way will I be able to concentrate. What am I going to tell everyone at work, anyway? I have to tell them the truth—that he offered, and I said no.

To calm myself, I imagine telling this story to my mom and dad. They’re the ones who raised me to live a life of service to others. We may not have had a ton of money, but we always give what we can to helping others. It’s how I was raised, and it’s the only way I know how to be.

Which makes Jackson Croft that much more confusing.

The thought of someone—especially someone so privileged—having zero interest in helping others, even so much as to write a freaking check, is totally foreign to me. I just don’t get it.

I get off the T at the Allston stop. There are hints of fall in the air, and I relish the crisp air on my cheeks—much better than the suffocating heat I was feeling in Jackson’s office.

As I head into my studio apartment in the back of a blue house on Greylock Road, I get the story straight in my head. I had a bold plan to ask a huge corporate boss-guy for a donation and he turned me down. That’s one part of the story, the one I’ll tell to my co-workers. The other part of the story is that I met one of the sexiest, most ridiculously attractive men I have ever seen in my life.

The way he acted repulsed me. The way he looked drove me insane in a completely different way.

I sigh with relief as I kick off my shoes. Stupid blister. As I hunt for Band-Aids, my phone buzzes. It’s Jules from work, no doubt wanting every detail of the meeting. I had gone in with total pipe dreams of securing a donation and gradually getting Jackson—and his money—more involved in CEF, but it backfired in a humiliating way.

“Hey, Jules,” I answer. I take a deep breath, preparing myself for blowing it so badly. If things had at least gone differently—like, if Jackson Croft had said he’d think about donating to such a worthwhile cause but needed to see more research, I could have brought in Jules to close the deal.

But now the deal is dead before anyone else had a chance at it. That’s my big mistake—going for such a big prospect with no backup.

“So?” Jules asks. “You’re on speaker. Talk.”

“Tell us!” voices say in the background, and there’s laughter. My stomach churns. It’s a small office but it sounds like most of the staff is there. Did they really think I was going to pull it off? Get Jackson Croft of Croft International to give money to our little charity?

“There’s not much to say,” I offer lamely.

“We need to know all about it,” she says.

“I’m just,” I begin, not knowing how to tell them all, where to begin. My mind has gone suddenly blank. “I don’t know what happened.”

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Jules says. “Because whatever you did needs to be standard operating procedure from now on. You’ll have to train the interns on how to ask for donations.”

“And get the big ones!” someone calls in the background.

I pause, confused. “Wait…” My mind is racing.

“So tell us how you did it,” Jules says. Why does her voice sound upbeat instead of pissed off to the point of terminating me?

Cautiously I say, “Did what?”

“You tease,” Jules laughs, and I hear a chorus of whoops in the background. “How did you get Jackson Croft to give the single biggest donation in CEF’s history? Emily, you’re amazing!”