Carve My Pumpkin (The Night Realm: Halloween Marked #3)

Chapter 16

SIXTEEN

COLETTE

“Colette, you coming to lunch?”

I looked up from the water fountain and found the girls standing there with their purses, ready to leave. I sighed. “No, I can’t today.”

“Why not?” Patricia cocked her head to the side.

“Unless Mateo’s soulmate is your waitress, I have to stay here and pray for a miracle.” I pulled my bottle back and tightened the lid, then I turned to face them. “And that prayer needs to deliver by the end of the day.”

Natalie pursed her lips. “Today? Why not tomorrow?”

“Today is two weeks?—”

“But it’s a Friday?” Tracy cringed. “It seems wrong to fire someone on a Friday. That’ll ruin the weekend.”

Jennifer arched one eyebrow at her. “ That’s the part that seems wrong here?”

I strolled over to them and sighed. “I’m not much for company right now. You guys just go enjoy your lunch.”

Olivia pulled me in for a hug. “I’m sorry, boo.”

When she stepped back, Melissa hugged me. “I’m sure you’ll still have a job at the company somewhere.”

“Yeah! I mean, they didn’t promote Diego yet.” Natalie gave me two thumbs-up.

“She also hasn’t been fired yet.” Patricia rolled her eyes at them. “Let’s go. She doesn’t need us making her feel worse.”

I tried to give them a confident I’m not losing my mind smile, but the way Patricia dragged the others away suggested I failed at that effort too. I rubbed my face with my free hand and sighed.

“It’s not right,” Jennifer said suddenly, surprising me that she was still standing there. “The only task he gave you for your job was to handle his personal life. Mr. Prescott would not approve. If he does fire you, I’d take it to him.”

I grimaced. “Tattling on a prince doesn’t feel right.”

She shrugged. “So go ask one of his much older siblings who work here what they think of this.”

“Maybe.” I pressed my hand to my chest to try and soothe the burning. “I’m just a little . . . deflated right now.”

She reached out and squeezed my arm. “Don’t go down without a fight, my friend.”

I gave her a small smile, but it must’ve been enough because she spun and hurried to catch up with the others. I walked back to my desk and sat down, but I didn’t know what to do with myself. Constantine had given me the idea to use magic, but I’d spent hours in Peggy's magic shop, Bow Ties, last night and nothing jumped out at me. Nothing screamed soulmate hunter. Peggy Bow had been off the Island yesterday, evidently. Her employees at the shop said she went somewhere to get some supplies, so I hadn’t been able to ask for her opinion.

But you do have her phone number. I bit my bottom lip and stared at the phone sitting on my desk in front of me. I’d never text messaged with Peggy Bow before, so part of me worried that reaching out would be inappropriate. If I needed her help, I didn’t want to piss her off first. I tapped my teeth together, then grabbed my phone. I needed advice, so I sent a message to my mother to see what she thought.

Those three bubbles popped up instantly and I smiled. Mom had come a long way. She actually had a cellphone now. Her response filled my screen, ‘ Peggy is the nicest person in the world. And she LOVES to help. Text her.’

I didn’t let myself second-guess that advice. I opened up a new text thread and messaged her. ‘ Hi, Peggy. This is Colette Rothchild. I’m Mateo Vauntero’s executive assistant. I am in need of some magical assistance and was wondering if you’d be available to help me? It’s a . . . delicate issue.’

Then I opened up my thread with Constantine. ‘ He’s going to fire me today. I can feel it.’

‘He’s just a puppy who needs more training,’ Constantine sent back.

I smiled. ‘ I’m not a dog trainer.’

‘No, but he IS a dog.’ Then he sent the winking face. Before I could respond, he sent another message. ‘ Technically, what he’s demanded of you violates company policy. Lex would be furious. But handle my brother with care. He’s delicate these days.’

‘Any advice on how to get him to actually HELP me?’

‘Don’t fight fire with fire. Stay calm and collected. He’s not the wild one people think. He can be reasoned with. Appeal to the humble side of him.’

‘I’m not sure I know how to do that.’

‘Pretend he’s Nash.’

I scowled. ‘ But they’re so different.’

‘Actually, they’re not. He’s more like Nash than people realize. Mateo started that department for a reason, and it wasn’t selfish. He’s just not as good at showing people who he really is, and traveling all the time doesn’t help them get to know him. He’s been through a lot in the last year and is not handling it well. So, when he calls you into his office, don’t threaten to take this to Lex. Talk to him as a person, like you would Nash.’

I groaned. Constantine had never texted me that many words at once. That probably said more about Mateo than anything else. His eldest brother disapproved of his actions but was still trying to help him. I sighed and leaned back in my seat. ‘ Thanks, Constantine. I’ll do my best. Wish me luck.’

“Why aren’t you at lunch, Ms. Rothchild?”

I flinched and looked up to find Mateo standing in front of my desk. My face flushed. I licked my lips and tucked my hair behind my ears. “Wasn’t in the mood?—”

“Come into my office.” He walked around me and pushed through the doors to his office. “Now, Ms. Rothchild.”

I cursed and leapt to my feet, scrambling to follow him before he got pissed.

He sat at his desk and looked up as I entered the room, then he folded his hands in his lap and nodded once. “Let’s not stretch this to the end of the day when we both know where this is headed. Your two-week trial expires today, and I shall not be renewing.”

My heart sank. I closed my eyes and exhaled, trying to summon the will and strength to fight this decision of his.

“I will meet with Lexington to set up your return to the small business department, or wherever he wants to place you.” He spun his chair away from me. “Until he reaches out to you, you may go home?—”

“No,” I heard myself say with an exhale.

Mateo’s hands froze over his keyboard. His face turned toward me but all I got was his profile. “Pardon me?”

“I said no.” I cleared my throat, then pushed my shoulders back. “Please turn and face me so we may have a conversation and I feel less like the gum stuck to the bottom of your shoe.”

Constantine said NOT to fight fire with fire.

Calm down.

Take a deep breath.

But he spun back around. Both black eyebrows were lifted to his hairline as he just stared at me. “I get your pardon?”

I held my chin high. “Mr. Vauntero, I have worked at this company for eight years with a pristine reputation and recommendations. I cannot simply let you dismiss me and tarnish that.”

“Are you?—”

“Tired, Mr. Vauntero. I’m very tired.” I clasped my hands behind my back. “Look, I know you hate me, and while I can’t fathom why, it is your prerogative. But working for this company is like a second home for me. While I can survive giving up my dream job because it’s in your department, I can’t survive being treated like an incompetent employee. This will affect my career here.”

“Ms. Rothchild?—”

“We both know the job description, per Prescott Tech rules, for the position I was given here does not include me finding your soulmate. The task you gave me was strictly personal.” I threw my hands up. “And yet I have devoted every day of the last two weeks to working on finding her. Nights, weekends, special events—I’ve been on the job for each one. I have worked my ass off, and you are firing me without much of a conversation.”

“Ms. Rothchild?—”

“You hate me. That’s fine?—”

“I do not hate you?—”

“Don’t lie to me, not now?—”

“Colette.”

I gasped and jumped a little. He’d only called me by my first name once. My eyes widened.

He sighed. His eyes looked pained and tortured. It was the first sign of real emotion I’d gotten out of him. “I do not hate you.”

All I could do was stare at him.

“We just do not work together. We don’t make a good team.” He gestured between us. “We cannot travel the world and do the job I do if we cannot do it together. For that reason, I have to let you go. But it’s not firing. That’s the whole purpose of the trial period. It allows bosses to try employees and see if they’re a good fit. If not, they can be returned to where they came from.”

Treat him like Nash, that’s what Constantine said. I nodded and wrung my hands in front of me. “How can you know we don’t make a good team when we haven’t tried?” He scowled. I continued. “At most, you’ve entertained my ideas a few times and tagged along but that’s not what makes a team. You haven’t provided me with assistance the way a good boss should.” I took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to go tattle to Mr. Prescott, but there’s no way I won’t be asked why this position failed, especially when everyone here knows how much I wanted this job. Your own siblings, my former supervisors, know this. When they ask, I won’t lie. I will tell them you fired me because I couldn’t find your soulmate in a two-week window despite that you searched for nine months and were unsuccessful.”

His face fell.

“Give me one more week. Please. Let me try a few more things?—”

“What do you think you’ll be able to accomplish with one more week?” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “What good will that do, Ms. Rothchild?”

“If you’re going to fire me for personal reasons, then you could at least call me Colette so the crime fits the punishment.”

His eyes widened. “You’re . . . you’re not being punished?—”

“Says the prince who has no idea what this job means to me.” I shook my head. “Or how much losing it will leave a mark that’ll never heal.”

He frowned. “I wasn’t aware this job, with me, was that important to you.”

I laughed a humorless laugh. “Because you do not know me at all, and yet you hate me?—”

“I don’t hate you, Colette. I’ve said this many times?—”

“Actions speak louder than words.” I arched one eyebrow. “So, prove it. Give me more time to complete my task. Get to know me a little. Let me know you a little. Let’s try working together as a proper team and see if we can figure this out.”

“I’ve already failed. I don’t know what more you think I’d bring?—”

“You’d be surprised what people can come up with when brainstorming together. One thought spoken out loud could trigger an idea in another person.” My phone vibrated in my hand, but I was afraid to break eye contact with him. “I have rough ideas, but you have much more experience than me with things and might be more helpful than you expect.”

He took a deep breath, then stood up and stretched his legs. His sapphire gaze was cold and distant. He walked around me to the door for his office and opened it. I turned to head out, since he was about to kick me out, but then I spotted a teenager standing outside his office holding a plastic bag.

Mateo handed him a hundred-dollar bill and took the bag. “Keep the change.”

“Thanks, Mateo!” He grinned, then spun and danced down the hall.

Mateo shut his office door, then turned to face me, still holding the bag. Except he didn’t move. “Do you like penne a la vodka?"

My eyes widened. “Um, y-yes?”

He nodded and crossed the room back to his desk. “Good. I wanted the fettuccine alfredo more anyway.”

“Excuse me?”

Then he sat the bag down at the end nearest the couch and gestured for me to sit. “I do not hate you, Colette. Not by a long shot. But you are right in that we are barely more than strangers, and I am being harsh on you. I had a craving for pasta this morning but couldn’t decide which I wanted, so I got two. Call it fate. Sit. Eat. Let’s talk.”

I sat on the couch as fast as I could so he couldn’t change his mind.

“Okay. Tell me something, Colette . . .” He peered down at me through dark eyelashes. “Why is the position of executive assistant to me your dream job?”

My heart sank. “Well, it has nothing to do with you, to start.”

He smirked but didn’t say anything as he dove through the plastic takeout bag. “And to finish?”

“My mother is a nine-hundred-year-old fae who refused technology of any kind until I was sixteen and started sneaking it in the house. My closest friends are three mortal senior citizen females and a two-thousand-year-old vampire?—”

“Constantine?” He frowned down at me. “You’re close friends with him?”

I smiled. “He’s in our book club.”

His eyes widened. “That . . . is unexpected.”

“Yeah, we thought so too. Please don’t betray that secret, I only told you so you’d understand me a little better and I know you’ve noticed me talking to him.” I tugged on the hem of my lavender blazer. “Anyway, I’ve always felt Isolated and alone. Hard to relate to people your age when you have no television and you can’t even fly.”

He sat a silver take-out bowl of pasta in front of me with a plastic fork wrapped in a plastic bag. “I’m listening.”

“I just have always felt lonely, like I’m on the outside looking in. Like I don’t belong here.” I gnawed on my bottom lip. “When I was a kid, I was convinced my ears and wings were fake. That I was just a human playing dress-up.”

“You’re not a human, Colette?—”

“I know, but still . . .” I shrugged. “Traveling the world has been my dream since I was little. Leaving here is all I’ve ever wanted but not on a permanent trip. I thought this job would be perfection because it would mean I never had to travel alone. I could go where you go and help people. I don’t know. Sounds silly out loud I suppose?—”

“No, it doesn’t sound silly,” he said softly, his voice tender.

“Thank you.” My face flushed hot. “Your turn.”

He stared at his bowl of pasta silently for a long, long minute. Then he sighed and shook his head. “Realm royals always have soulmates. I learned this as a kid. I also learned that the Vauntero family are considered realm royals. I was told as a kid that I’d end up with a soulmate eventually. Dating a woman, when both of our emotions were on the line, felt like the greatest betrayal. So, I became a rake instead, promising myself I would stop the moment I met my soulmate.”

We both looked at the mark on his arm.

“When I woke from that coma in December, my whole family told me I had a soulmate and she was amazing. Then I met Torren and knew they were right. She is amazing. But I saw the way she looked at my twin, and I saw how he saw her. It was a very confusing time.” He rubbed his forehead with his thumb. “I was relieved they were the couple and that it was all a misunderstanding, but I still have the mark on my arm. I have a soulmate of my own . . . somewhere. I have not touched a woman since I woke from my coma.”

My eyes widened. “At all?”

He smiled and shook his head. “Not once.”

“That’s . . . impressive.”

“For a rake.” He smirked and shrugged. “At first, I was so confident I’d find her. She had to be here somewhere, right? After two months of no luck, I started to wonder if my soulmate had seen that she was fated for me and ran away, that I was that much of a disappointment. It’s an intrusive thought that has been consuming my every waking thought since. One that you echoed just a few days ago.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were hurting so much?—”

“I know the task I gave you was hard. I know it violates company rules. But I was stuck at the bottom of a dark pit and couldn’t find my way out. I needed you to help me out.” He pulled his glasses off and sat them on his desk. “Perhaps I am a little consumed by this search.”

“For good reason, I think. I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t be, given the circumstances.”

“Thank you,” he said softly.

Silence filled the room.

I peeled the lid off my pasta bowl, then stabbed my fork into the noodles. “Let me stay longer. Give me more time. I think I can find her. I just need to try new methods.”

“Like what?”

“Have you tried magic?”

He scowled. “Yes, but just whatever I found on the racks at Bow Ties. Magic isn’t really my strong suit. Nor was it Dennis’s.”

“Mine either. I’m a fae failure. But I texted Peggy a few minutes ago to see if she had any ideas for us.”

His eyes lit up. “Did she respond?”

I looked down at my phone and smiled. “Apparently, yes.”

“What did she say?”

I opened her text message and found her reply, so I angled my phone for us both to read. ‘ FINALLY.’

“What?”

Before I could type a response to Peggy, she replied again, ‘ I didn’t want to interfere without being asked. BUT I have this spell I can do to help find her, but I need you to bring Mateo to my shop. Together. Tomorrow. I’ve been off the Island until now so I need time to prepare.’

I peeked up at him to find him reading over my shoulder. “You available?”

He nodded.

‘ What does the spell do?’ I sent back.

‘ You’ll see. It only works for a fae, but have no fear . . . I have lots of ideas.’

I smiled. “So, what do you say Mr. Vauntero? Can I get an extension and a little teamwork to find the love of your life?”

His face flushed pink. “Okay. Sure. Let’s see what Peggy can do.”

I grinned. “Thank you, Mr. Vauntero. I appreciate this and the conversation we just had. I like getting to know the real you.”

He nodded as his smile widened and his blush deepened. “Please, call me Mateo.”