Snow Job by Tara Wyatt (best large ereader .txt) 📗

Reply hazy, ask again later.

As he entered the resort’s conference center, he couldn’t help but replay how perfectly yesterday afternoon had gone. How perfectly pissed off and indignant Kayla had looked. And okay, maybe a little freaked out. But that was all part of the plan. This was what he wanted to do. This was what he needed. Getting Kayla fired in a little tit for tat action would bring him some closure. Somehow. Maybe.

Okay, fine. So maybe he was feeling ten percent less enthusiastic about this plan today than he’d been yesterday. Stupid Lane. Why’d she have to get in his head with all of her talk about not really wanting revenge on Kayla and just wanting Kayla, period?

Because she didn’t plant that idea in your head. You’ve always wanted Kayla.

Pushing his thoughts aside, he made his way through the conference center and into the tech booth at the back of the space. He’d been to enough conferences and corporate events over the past several years that he generally knew how things were set up and how they ran. Sure enough, there was a Silver Stream laptop hooked up to the AV system, ready to display a video or a Power Point presentation. Perfect. Rubbing his hands together, he opened it, relieved when he saw that it was unlocked for the AV person who’d be running the booth.

Later this morning, all of the retreat guests would be in this auditorium, watching a presentation coming from this laptop. With a few clicks, Sebastian found the Power Point file with that day’s date on it and opened it. Skimming through it, he could see that it was pretty standard stuff. Financial forecast for the coming year, updates on projects in progress, new initiatives, etc. At one point, there was a link to a video, an interview with Stammler talking about the company’s new partnership with the city to provide low-income housing. With a few quick clicks and keystrokes, he replaced the link to the video with a different link, this one to a recruiting video from the Followers of Light, a total nutjob cult. He wasn’t sure if people would be offended by it or think it was a joke, but either way, it would make Kayla look bad since this was her presentation.

His work done, he saved the updated Power Point, closed the laptop, and then quickly left the conference center and headed back outside. Tomorrow, the company would be having their scavenger hunt, and Sebastian needed to go switch up the prizes with what he’d bought yesterday at Hanky Spanky. Grinning to himself as he walked, he pushed away the little pebble of guilt trying to settle in his stomach. He didn’t want to feel guilty about what he was doing to Kayla, because if he felt guilty, then it meant that Lane was right. That this wasn’t about getting revenge, but about Kayla herself. And that…that was complicated. Not just because she hated him, but because he wasn’t in a position to offer a woman much of anything right now, so…Not that he was thinking of offering Kayla anything or wanting…

He shook his head and walked faster, pushing everything away. It was time to sex up the scavenger hunt prizes.

Kayla strode across the auditorium’s stage, her heels clicking on the wooden floor. She pressed the small silver button on the remote in her hand, transitioning to the next slide and moving into the portion of her talk about ongoing projects. To her right, Stammler, along with a few other top execs, sat on tall chairs, sipping water, eyes on her and occasionally their phones, which she was trying not to take personally.

When she was a kid, she’d been on the shy side and had always hated public speaking, but not being good at something wasn’t an option for a girl depending on scholarships to see her plan through, so she’d forced herself to join the debate team in high school, facing her fear and discomfort head on. By the time she’d reached senior year, she’d been the captain because that was just how she did things. She pushed herself outside of her comfort zone and then got good, fast. And if she couldn’t get good, fast, she moved on to the next thing.

The ache in her muscles reminded her that she was not getting good, fast at snowboarding. Pretty much the opposite actually. And the worst part was that she couldn’t decide if she wanted to take another class with Sebastian or not. Her brain was in staunch disagreement with pretty much the rest of her body parts, leaving her a tangled knot of emotions who didn’t know how she felt or what she wanted. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to.

With a smile, she concluded her talk and then pressed the button again, moving to the next slide where she’d inserted a link to a video of Stammler talking about community partnerships. The screen went dark as the video cued up, giving Kayla a chance to grab a sip of water, which she nearly choked on when the video started playing. This was not Stammler’s interview. The screen was filled with a completely crazy-looking old man staring directly at the camera with his wide, wild eyes.

“I’m here today because you want to know the truth,” he said, his tone earnest yet edgy, like he was barely holding it together. “Planet Earth will no longer exist in the very near future, and you, my friends, my companions, have two options before you. You can accept your meager mortality and perish along with this planet, or you can open your eyes to the truth and the way of the Light Keepers, for we are the ones who hold the key to the Great Procession into Stellar Heaven.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered through her teeth, frantically pressing the button on the remote to go back