Reborn to Dodge the Bad Marriage novel Chapter 45

Chapter 45 Seven People

She meant every word. Her plan for that meeting had been to clear the place out and rebuild it from

scratch.

Mandy, with her little brain, had done the whole job for her.

The message stopped Mandy cold, and it felt a lot like a miscalculation.

Mandy texted, “Don’t force the brave face, Nora. Good people are hard to come by. Still, I felt for you, so before I left I lined up plenty of work to keep you busy.”

Nora didn’t answer. She looked up at the handful of people left in the room.

“Tell me who you all are.”

Two of them turned out to be the office cleaner, a 49-year-old woman, and the security guard from the lobby downstairs.

A third ran the front desk, and the fourth was Chloe, an intern who’d started a month ago.

The fifth kept the books and was three months pregnant.

That left Wolf Bait the streamer and Sabrina Cole the actress.

By the time all seven had finished, Nora was laughing, and none of it was because anything was funny.

Mandy had left her a pile of problems. The cleaner and the guard needed no particular skill, the front desk was the same, and Chloe had never held a job in her life.

The bookkeeper was actually useful, but a pregnancy came with appointments, sick days, and then maternity leave, which amounted to paying a salary for an empty desk.

As for the two golden geese Mandy hadn’t taken, they were almost certainly about to blow up in some way. Nothing else explained leaving them behind.

Nora turned to WolfBait and Sabrina. “Why didn’t you go with Mandy? Her company looks like the better bet.”

One of them answered for both of them. “She never asked us. We couldn’t cover the penalty for breaking our contracts, and we’ve both got a pile of bookings and endorsements lined up.”

Nora went through what the two of them had signed. There were dozens of contracts, all of them small and scattered.

Sabrina had been booked onto a stack of terrible streaming shows, and the lead role she’d fought for had been turned down on her behalf. Mandy really did have a talent for making trouble.

Nora looked up at the two of them. “Work hard, keep your noses clean, and trust me, and I’ll take you both higher than you’ve ever been. I won’t let either of you go to waste.”

Whatever Mandy threw at her, she’d answer it and send it back twice as hard.

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Chapter 45 Seven People

Nora thought for a moment and sent a message back. “Thank you for the gift, Mandy. I believe in returning a favor, so expect one from me.”

Mandy scoffed at the screen. “All talk. No matter how clever you are, you can’t beat somebody who’s already lived this once.” She had the future in her pocket and every head start that came with it.

Nora sent the staff home and stayed at the office herself…

Every partnership with any future in it had been signed over to Mandy on the way out the door.

Wolf Bait had been loaded up with one endorsement after another, all of it unregulated junk that paid almost nothing. Every deal was a landmine, and every one of them carried a penalty for walking away.

Sabrina’s schedule was no-name survival reality shows and bit parts in scripts that went nowhere, with fees that were an insult. Some of them paid $1,000 an episode. All told there were close to a hundred agreements.

She couldn’t get through them at the office, so she took the contracts home.

She still had a business plan to write.

Back at the Weston estate, Constance was waiting up for her.

“You’re home. How was the office? Are you worn out?”

“It was all right,” Nora said.

She looked up as Julian came toward them and blinked at him. “You’re here?”

Julian nodded. “Day’s over.”

Constance was smiling. “He never used to walk through that door before eleven or midnight. Two days married, and he’s home the minute the day ends.”

The way she put it made it sound like he’d hurried home for her.

Heat came up in Nora’s face and she looked away.

She didn’t linger after dinner and went straight up to work.

Julian watched her switch between laughing and frowning at whatever was in front of her, and he drew his

own conclusions.

He set a bowl of fruit down in front of her. “Eat something.”

“Thanks.” Nora smiled at him, picked out a bright red strawberry, and put it in her mouth.

“You’re not going to bed?” Julian said.

Nora kept turning pages. “I want to get through these contracts. Mandy dug me a hole before she signed the

company over.

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Chapter 45 Seven People

“Take this jerky endorsement. $1 a bag. No brand, no license, no factory anyone can trace. I looked it up. and it’s an unlicensed operation running out of a warehouse. Half the meat is spoiled and some of it has

gs in it.

“Then there’s this canned nacho cheese. Reclaimed fryer grease, chemical flavoring, and moldy dairy going into every batch…”

Nora pulled out Sabrina’s contracts next. “These are the actress’s. $100.a day, signed for three years. Every project is garbage, and it’s the same unregulated junk on top of it.”

It was a thick stack, not one or two agreements, and the penalty for breaking any of them ran high.

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