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❛ 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄 . . . ❜ 015. sympathy for the devil ━━━━━━━━━━━
NEW YORK. . .❜
She had to give it to Mark, really.
He really was a specific flavour of asshole.
Apparently, the sort of asshole that thought she deserved a grade.
She'd been good in school, had always excelled in her subjects out of a hunger to learn things. Her goal at every turn had been to kick the shit out of the high expectations Bizzy had set out for her–– in retrospect, she'd think it was funny.
Her idea of teenage rebellion had been to bum cigarettes as she did her math homework three weeks in advance. Addison's had been wearing last season Dior.
But, this wasn't a math test. This wasn't the quadratic equation or long division––
This was the Mark Sloan seal of approval and Beth had scored a C-.
(A C-? A fucking C-? Beth had never been given a C- in her life. It didn't satisfy her, even when paired with the condescending glimmer in that man's eyes. She was an overachiever, through and through, and she'd scoffed at it, shaking her head against Addison's earnest, folded brow.)
Mark had given feedback too:
Nice girl, He'd said to Addison in Beth's absence as the redhead tried to grasp some semblance of how the suicide mission had gone, Nice girl and all... but a little too high strung.
(Oh, that MotherFucker.)
In return, Beth had ordered another Mimosa over brunch as Addison relayed it all, tossing her hair over her shoulder and trying her best not to say every insult under the sun. Her feedback had been perfectly fair, given the circumstance:
Not a nice guy, had been her commentary on the night, Ungraded and fucking ungrateful.
It was needless to say that Addison had taken Beth's side on this one.
Really, Beth wasn't sure what her sister had expected. The night, naturally, had been a shitshow.
She'd teetered around the room full of research executives on her own, holding a flute of champagne so tightly it had almost snapped in between her precarious manicure. The only time her head had turned had been to watch Mark from across the room as he did exactly what she'd told him not to––
She wondered whether it was worth it.
Had it been worth it? To hit on every leggy socialite in the room and make everyone squint at the woman who had arrived with him?
