“If you type any faster, you’ll sprain your wrist,” Sloane said without looking up from her computer. “Slow down.”
“I can’t slow down. I have less than a month to finish this book, and I only have”—I checked my word count—“forty two thousand, six hundred and four words, several hundred of which are placeholders.”
It was the week after New Year’s. People were back from the holidays, and the Upper West Side café where Sloane and I had set up camp buzzed with activity. She had a client meeting nearby in an hour, and I needed somewhere noisy where I could focus.
Normally, I used Vivian’s office as my writing space while she did admin work, but it was an offsite day for her. So here I was, my butt planted on a wooden stool, my heart racing, and my hands jittery from four cups of espresso as I attempted to wrangle my manuscript into shape.
The holidays had been a dream. I ate, slept, and floated through the city with Kai by my side and not a care in the world. But now that they were over and Manhattan had resumed its snarling, frenetic energy, the sheer impossibility of my task loomed before me like Mount Everest.
Forty thousand words in three weeks. God, why hadn’t I been more disciplined about my writing before?
Because you were distracted.
Because you always run from the hard stuff.
Because it’s easy to keep pushing the hard stuff to tomorrow until there are no tomorrows left.
Panic and self-loathing formed a tight knot in my throat.
Across from me, Sloane tapped away, her face a mask of cool efficiency. We were roughly the same age, and she owned her own super successful business. So did Vivian. How come they had their shit together and I didn’t? What was their secret?
I had a steady paycheck and a decent lifestyle, but I was merely surviving while they were thriving. I didn’t begrudge my friends their success; however, the weight of my failures sat all too heavy on my chest. Why can’t I show up for myself where it really counts?
“How are things with Xavier?” I asked. I needed a distraction or I’d spiral into a wasteland of productivity. Nothing blocked my creativity more than creeping self-doubt. “Is he still alive, or have you murdered him and stashed his body in the trunk of your car?”
“Alive for now, but ask me again in twenty-four hours,” Sloane muttered. “I’m one irreverent quip away from hacking him to pieces with a butcher’s knife. It’ll be bad PR for me, but I can spin it. He’s insufferable.”
The Lululemon-wearing blonde next to us glanced up and slowly inched toward the other side of the long, communal table.
“Why did you take him on as your client if you hate him so much?” Sloane had been complaining about him since the day she picked him up from the airport. I thought they would’ve learned to get along by now, but her irritation seemed to expand by the day.
“Favor to his father.” Her curt tone disinvited further probing. “Don’t worry. I can handle Xavier Castillo. His stupid smile and dimples and joke gifts will not”—she jabbed at her keyboard—“deter me from my duties.”
My eyebrows skyrocketed. I had never, in all the years I’d known her, seen Sloane so heated.
“Of course not.” I paused. “What are your duties again?”
“Being a professional—” She sucked in a deep breath, held, and released before smoothing a hand over her perfect bun. Her voice leveled off. “Repairing, cultivating, and maintaining his reputation as a valuable member of society, not a spendthrift playboy with zero goals or ambition.”
“Well, if anyone can do it, it’s you,” I said cheerfully, wisely skipping over the reality that Xavier was, in fact, a spendthrift playboy with no discernible aspirations. “I have faith in you.”
“Thank you.”
Sloane and I lapsed into silence again.
I wasn’t sure whether my words were any good, but I kept typing.
Kai hadn’t said anything about the chapters I’d given him on Christmas, which didn’t help my anxiety. Had he read them yet? If yes, why hadn’t he mentioned it? Were they that bad? If no, why not? Maybe he wasn’t actually interested in reading them. Maybe I put him in an awkward position by foisting a half-finished, unedited manuscript on him. Should I ask him about it, or would that make things even more awkward?
“Isa.” There was a strange note in Sloane’s voice.
“Hmm?”
Ugh, I should’ve stopped with the dinosaur erotica. What was I thinking?
“Have you looked at the news?”
“No, why? Did Asher Donovan crash another car?” I asked distractedly.
No response.
I looked up. A cold sensation crawled down my spine at Sloane’s neutral expression. She only wore that look when something was very, very wrong.
She silently turned her laptop around so I could see her screen.
The National Star’s distinctive red and black text splashed across its website. Lurid headlines and unflattering celebrity photos dominated the page, which wasn’t unusual. The trashy tabloid was famous for…
Wait.
My eye snagged on a familiar dress. Long sleeves, emerald-green cashmere, a hem that skimmed the tops of my thighs. A fifteen-dollar steal from the depths of the Looking Glass boutique’s basement.
I’d worn it on a date with Kai two weeks ago.
My stomach bottomed out.
They weren’t photos of celebrities. They were photos of us. Kai and me on Coney Island. Us strolling through the New York Botanical Garden, our heads bent close in laughter. Him feeding me a custard tart at a dim sum restaurant in Queens. Me exiting his apartment building, looking thoroughly mussed and slightly guilty.
Dozens of photos capturing some of our most intimate moments. We thought no one we knew would be in such out-of-the-way places, but obviously, we were wrong.
My skin flushed hot and cold. The muffin I ate for breakfast threatened to climb up my throat and ruin Sloane’s pristine MacBook.
I’m so dead.
Once the club saw this, it was over. I’d lose my job and probably get blacklisted from working at any bar within a fifty-mile radius. Even worse, if the reporters did any digging, they’d find out—
“Breathe.” Sloane’s crisp voice sliced through my fog of panic. She slammed her laptop shut and pushed a glass of water in my hand. “Drink this. Count to ten. It’ll be okay.”
“But…”
“Do it.”
In terms of comfort and warmth, she wasn’t the greatest. She was, however, excellent at crisis management. By the time I gulped down the water, she’d already typed up a ten-point bullet plan for defusing the bombshell.
Step one: discredit the source.
“It’s the National Star, which helps,” she said. “No one takes that rag seriously. Still, it’ll be good to—”
“Aren’t you mad?” I interrupted. Liquid sloshed in my stomach, making me queasy. “About me keeping the Kai thing a secret from you and Viv?”
Sloane rolled her eyes. “Isa, please. Anyone with a working brain can see you two have the hots for each other. I’m only surprised it took you so long to do something about it. Besides, I understand why you didn’t tell us. It’s a delicate situation, given your job. That brings me to my second point. Valhalla will—”
She was interrupted again, this time by the buzz of my phone.
Parker. Speak of the devil.
My stomach plummeted further. “Hold that thought.” I sucked in a lungful of air and braced myself. “Hello?”
So. Dead.
“Isabella.” My supervisor’s voice clinked over the line like jagged ice cubes. There wasn’t a trace of her usual warmth. “Please report to Valhalla as soon as possible. We need to talk.”
Half an hour later, I walked into the Valhalla Club’s executive office with a pile of concrete blocks in my stomach.
Reserved for the reigning head of the managing committee, which rotated between sitting members every three years, the mahogany-paneled office resembled a cross between a Georgian library and a cathedral. A massive dark desk dominated the far end of the room.
Vuk Markovic sat behind it with the stiff posture of a displeased general surveying his troops. He must be the current head of the committee. I didn’t pay attention to club politics, so I didn’t even know who the committee members were besides Kai and Dante—both of whom, I noticed with a jolt, were seated across the desk from Vuk. They occupied the chairs on the right; Parker sat on the left, her face tight.
Every pair of eyes swiveled toward me when I entered.
Self-consciousness prickled my skin. I avoided Kai’s gaze as I walked over, afraid any eye contact would unleash the pressure building in my chest.
“Isabella.” Parker nodded at the chair next to her. “Sit.” She was the lowest-ranked person in the room, but she kicked off the meeting by cutting straight to the chase. “Do you know why you’re here?”
I tucked my hands beneath my thighs and swallowed a lump of dread. There was no use playing dumb. “Because of the photos in the National Star.”
Parker glanced at Vuk. Those pale, eerie eyes watched me with unnerving focus, but he didn’t say a word.
“The club has a strict non-fraternization rule between members and employees,” Parker said when he didn’t speak up. “It is clearly stated in your employment contract, which you signed upon being hired. Any violation of said rule—”
“We weren’t fraternizing.” Kai’s even voice cut off the rest of her sentence. “Isabella and I have mutual friends. We see each other often outside the club. Dante can attest to that.”
My head jerked, unbidden, in his direction. He kept his attention on Parker, but I could practically feel the tendrils of comfort wrapping around me.
A messy knot of emotion tangled in my throat.
“It’s true.” Dante sounded bored. “Kai and I are friends. Isabella and my wife are best friends. You do the math.”
I wasn’t sure why he was here. Kai, I could understand since this involved him too. Maybe Dante was a character witness? We technically weren’t on trial, though I felt like we were.
Either way, I was grateful for his support, even as guilt wormed through my gut. Kai and I had wittingly broken the rules, and now other people were being dragged into it.
Parker paused, clearly trying to figure out how to respond without being taken for an idiot—the photos revealed far more intimacy than that between casual acquaintances—or pissing off her employers.
“With all due respect, Mr. Young, you and Isabella were alone in those photos,” she said carefully. “You were spotted holding hands—”
“I was simply guiding her over a rough patch of ground,” Kai said, his tone so smooth and confident it almost concealed the absurdity of his excuse. “We met several times over the holidays to plan a surprise party for Vivian’s birthday.”
“You were planning a surprise party for Vivian Russo on Coney Island?” Parker asked doubtfully.
A short but pregnant pause saturated the room.
“She likes Ferris wheels,” Dante said.
Another, longer pause.
Parker glanced at Vuk again in an obvious plea for help. He didn’t answer. Now that I thought about it, I’d never heard the man utter a single word.
It didn’t escape my notice that I was the one in the hot seat even though Kai and I were both in the wrong. But he was a rich, powerful VIP and I wasn’t. The difference in treatment was expected, if not necessarily fair.
“The photos aren’t proof we broke the non-fraternization rule,” Kai said. “It’s the National Star, not the New York Times. Their last issue claimed the government is harvesting alien eggs in Nebraska. They have no credibility.”
Parker’s mouth thinned.
My guilt thickened into sludge. I liked my supervisor. She’d always been good to me, and she’d kept my secret all this time. I hated putting her in such a tough position.
“I understand, sir,” she said. “But we simply can’t let the matter go unaddressed. The other members—”
“Let me worry about the other members,” Kai said. “I’ll—”
“No. She’s right.” My quiet interruption ground their argument to a halt. My heartbeat clanged with uncertainty, but I forged ahead before I lost my nerve. “I knew the rules, and the details don’t matter. What matters is how it looks, and it doesn’t look good, for us or the club.”
Kai stared at me. What are you doing?
The silent message echoed loud and clear in my head. I ignored it, though a warm ache twisted my heart at how adamantly he was trying to defend me. He didn’t lie, but he had. For me.
“What I’m trying to say is, I know what I did,” I said, focusing on Parker. It’s just a job. I could get another one. It probably wouldn’t have the same benefits, hours, and pay, but I’d survive. And if Gabriel gave me shit for changing employers again…well, I’d cross that bridge when I came to it. “And I’m willing to accept the consequences.”
There was a time when I would’ve been happy to let others fight my battles for me, but it was time I took responsibility for my actions.
Kai’s stare burned a hole in my cheek. Next to him, Dante straightened, revealing a spark of intrigue for the first time since I entered the room. His presence was clearly out of loyalty to Kai and not any particular interest in my future at Valhalla.
Parker sighed, the sound laced with regret. I was one of her best employees, but she was a stickler for the rules. As my manager, she took the heat for my fuckups.
She looked to Vuk for confirmation. His chin dipped, and though I’d been expecting it, asking for it, her next words still punched a hole in my gut.
“Isabella, you’re fired.”
