Authors: Emily Snow
"I have insurance, but
thanks." I smiled tightly and started to walk around him. "Now, if
you don’t mind, I—"
When he reached out and
grabbed my wrist, the first thing that registered in my brain was how hot his
fingers felt on my skin. Grazing my pulse point, his touch was soft and yet
commanding. It was a touch from a man used to getting his way.
"Wait," he ordered,
and my pulse skipped. Unhurriedly, I turned on my heel to look at him warily.
Although he should have released my arm, he didn’t. Instead, he pulled me
closer to him and touched my chin with his thumb.
“What do you think—”
He tilted my face up so we
were eye-to-eye. "Your name. I asked you your name.”
"Lizzie Connelly."
"Lizzie…” His voice
trailed off as he tested the pseudonym on his tongue. Smirking like the cat
that ate the canary—or in his case, the petite blond lady—he started, “I'm
Oliver—"
I cut him off by tugging free
of his distracting grip. Taking the hint, he moved his other hand from my face,
and I released a breath of relief. "I already know exactly who you
are."
He didn’t look surprised. If
anything, his grin only grew bolder. Man-whore here probably thrived on being
infamous. "My reputation precedes me."
Of course it did—hell, a photo
of him at some red carpet gala with a Brazilian model had graced the lifestyle-and-entertainment
section of a local paper just last weekend—but I wasn’t about to jerk off his
ego by telling him that. "Not really." I absently trailed my fingers
over the wrist his fingers had been wrapped around. My heart rate sped up and
tingles rushed across my skin at the memory.
"Honestly, it was
impossible to ignore your name when it was attached to 'get the fuck out of my
office',” I told him.
“Dora likes to exaggerate.”
His mouth twisted in annoyance, dragging my attention back to his lips. Damn,
those lips. He backed up to his Viper. “There really wasn’t a need for theatrics.”
He slid behind the wheel of his sporty car. If I expected him to simply drive
off and forget I was standing there, I was sadly mistaken. The passenger window
slid down, and his gaze trailed slowly down my body. I couldn’t remember the
last time I let a man’s stare get beneath my skin, but Oliver’s did.
That fact alone made my jaw
tighten.
“Believe it or not,” I said,
tilting my head to the side, “Dora didn’t even mention you.”
The corner of his lip tugged
up. "I'll have your replacement phone on your desk by tomorrow
morning."
"That's really not
necessary," I argued, but he lifted his shoulders. The pretentious asshole
had just brushed me off. For a second, as I stared into his penetrating blue
eyes, I wondered if he was the man who’d called me four months ago. But then I
let the thought drift away as quickly as it came. Calling me like that wouldn’t
have benefited him, and besides, the voice didn’t fit. Neither did the secrecy.
Oliver Manning would have announced himself at the very beginning of that call
if it had been him.
“I’m serious, Oliver,” I said
through gritted teeth. Besides, I wouldn’t even be at the office until
Thursday—not that he needed to know that.
"I fix what I
break."
I stiffened, remembering his
words from fourteen years ago.
I’d give anything to fix this for you.
Drawing
in a few quick breaths, I pinched my mouth. “It’s a phone, Mr. Manning; I
promise it’s not the end of the world.”
He started to pull off, but
then he slammed on his brakes. I narrowed my eyes, but before I could ask him
if he actually planned on leaving sometime today, he said, "I'm not
sleeping with Dora."
“What?” I blurted.
“I’m. Not. Fucking. Dora.
We’ve never had that kind of interest in each other.”
Wow … really? I looked down
at a crack in the garage floor. "It's none of my business, and I really,
really don’t want to know. You don't have to explain anything to me.”
"No, I don't. I just
didn’t want you getting the wrong idea about me." His vivid blue eyes
examined me one final time, and then he put his car in gear. "Soon,
Lizzie.”
*
Once I was sure he was gone, I rushed to
my Mini Cooper. With my phone broken, I was even more anxious to get home. I
ignored the speed limit, shunning the radio in favor of silence. By the time I
closed my apartment door behind me, my body trembled.
Exhaling deeply, I dropped my
purse by my feet and closed my eyes. I opened them just in time to see Pen
coming out of the kitchen, holding a plate with a bagel slathered in strawberry
cream cheese. She paused the moment her slate blue eyes landed on me.
"Oh shit." Her dark
brows drew together in concern. "You didn't freak out and tell them
everything, did you?"
I shook my head. “I don’t go
back until Thursday. Margaret’s out of town, and she wants to be there when I
start.” Pen let out a sigh of relief that echoed through her body. Dropping her
plate a few inches from the red floral centerpiece on the dining room table,
she sat down and motioned for me to take the spot right across from her. As I
joined her, she studied me carefully.
"Alright, why are you
shaking?" she demanded. “Being in that building didn’t get to you, did
it?”
“I can handle the building,”
I promised. “I’m shaking because of Oliver Manning.”
She repeated his name and
then fanned herself, laughing at the dark look I shot at her. “That man gives
me the shivers. Is he gorgeous in person? Or is he one of those guys who just
photographs well?” Observing my silence, she leaned forward and whispered, “His
mom was married to your dad for all of two years. It’s not wrong to—”
“He’s arrogant.” I left it at
that because I absolutely could not look at her and tell her he wasn’t
attractive. Everything about Oliver—from his voice to his touch to his
knee-weakening looks—was overpowering and stunning. I recounted most of what
had happened this morning, from meeting Stella to bits-and-pieces of the
parking garage encounter, plunking my destroyed phone on the table between us
when I was finished. “He’s bow-down-to-me,
fall-into-my-Egyptian-cotton-sheets-right-effing-now arrogant.”
“He’s rich,” Pen pointed out.
“You should be used to his type.”
In the last three years, I’d
met my fair share of men with money, men who had gladly tossed out a few
thousand a night to have me on their arm with absolutely no promise of anything
more. But as I sat there trying to compare Oliver to them, I quickly found that
my brain refused to make the connection.
He was in a class of his own,
and I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“Hmm … I’m used to them.
Doesn’t make it any better.” Thinking about the way his hands had felt flared
over my skin doused me with a bucket full of emotions, and I shoved away from
the table. “When are you leaving for Vegas?” I called out, walking into the
narrow kitchen. As bad as it sounded, I was determined to get Oliver the hell
out of my head, even if that meant powering through my fully stocked fridge.
“About that,” Pen said. I
heard her make a noise that I associated with indecision. I knew what was
coming even before I returned to the adjoining dining room with blueberry
yogurt and a can of Diet Dr. Pepper. The thought made me ridiculously giddy
inside. When I slid into my seat and tucked my foot beneath my butt, she folded
her hands together and gave me one of those looks that made me feel like we
were negotiating a business deal.
She should have known by now
that none of this was necessary.
“So I called my boss, who was
totally cool with me doing some work remotely, and I was thinking…” she said
with a timid look that was so unlike her I bit my lip to suppress my own smile.
For the last couple years, she’d been with the same software company, working
in what she called a “white hat” position where she tested cracks in the
software. She was such an asset to the company that her boss had reached the
point where he let her do her own thing. “Well, hell, I was thinking—”
“Of course you can stay with
me.” I pulled the foil off my yogurt and licked it clean. “I’d honestly love
for you to be here.” Something about having Pen—my best friend and the
mastermind who helped launch this complex plan—nearby took pounds of pressure
off my chest.
Looking surprised at how
easily I agreed, she twisted her head to the side, causing her mane of brown
hair to cascade over one shoulder. “Really?”
“Really.” I shoveled another
bite of yogurt in my mouth, already feeling thoughts of Oliver evaporate from
my brain. “When are you going to go get your stuff?”
Pen’s eyes crinkled when she
grinned, and once again, I knew what she was going to say next. She was
impossibly easy to read, which I loved about her. The only thing I’d ever
regretted about our relationship was that it had taken so long for her to come
into my life.
“I’ve got a couple bags
already in my trunk,” she announced, with a sheepish shrug. “Surprise, Gemma,
I’m all yours until you see this through and get your answers.”
“Gem?
Were you expecting a package from E & T?” Pen shouted, nearly causing me to
poke myself in the eye with the mascara wand. Her footsteps drew closer, and a
second later, the bathroom door flew open. She poked her head inside, holding
up a manila envelope, and heard its contents shift. “This was downstairs in
your mailbox. It’s from
them
, so I figured it might be important,” she said,
raising her voice slightly to be heard over the Anya Marina cover playing on my
phone.
Moving my head to either side, I brushed
the pad of my thumb across the smooth screen to pause the song. “I doubt it. If
it were, they would’ve called already.”
I’d replaced my phone the same day that
Oliver caused me to break it, but I’d splurged on an updated, shinier model in
deference to my new job in the land of all things fake. I was a habitual
message checker—both this phone and the one associated with my real life that I
kept in my nightstand drawer were looked at multiple times a day. There
definitely hadn’t been anything new from Emerson & Taylor.
Dropping my mascara in the makeup bag
sitting between the double sinks, I faced Pen and took the envelope. Not even
glancing inside, I tossed it behind me on the counter beside my new iPhone.
“You’re not still worried about going to work, are you?” she asked
sympathetically.
Returning my attention to the mirror, I
swallowed hard and then forced myself to take a few deep breaths. “I swear, I
wish I could’ve gotten this over with on Monday,” I admitted, rummaging around
in my cluttered makeup bag for my favorite lipstick—Hourglass’ Icon. “Nothing
blows more than having a few extra days to marinate in nervousness.”
“Stop talking about marinating stuff,
you’re making me hungry,” she groaned and rubbed her stomach. “Besides, you’re
perpetually nervous. You’ll do fine with the stepmonster. Just don’t push her
down an elevator shaft or throw water on her.” She nodded down at the envelope.
“Make sure you open that thing. I’ve got to call my brother—he’s been bugging
my mother about me. Can you tell how excited I am about this call? I’m
practically throwing myself at my phone.”
Finally spotting my lipstick, I plucked
it out of the bag. As I opened it, I caught Pen’s tart expression in the mirror
and held back a smile. “You’ll be fine.” After I carefully swiped the deep
cherry red color over my lips, I turned sideways to look at my best friend
head-on. “Make sure you tell Linc I said hello. No, wait—” I arched a light
brown eyebrow questioningly. “He knows you’re out here with me, right?”
“Yep, told him you were out here
apartment sitting for one of your friends.”
Shaking my head, I started to pull the
giant curlers from my pale blond hair. “Wow. That has to be the lamest excuse
I’ve ever heard.”
“Whatever.” She shrugged her tattooed
shoulders. “He bought it, so it obviously wasn’t that bad.” Sucking in her
cheeks, she pulled her phone from the shallow pocket of her sweatpants. She
held it up for me to inspect, and I realized it was vibrating. “Look, he’s done
me a solid and called me instead.”
“He loves you. Of course he’s going to
call you.”
As she disappeared from the bathroom, I
heard her mutter, “I swear, I’m tempted to get into his phone and—” She cleared
her throat and then said in an annoyed voice, “Hello to you too, Linc.”
As straight-laced as Linc Connelly was—he
was in law enforcement, which didn’t mesh with some of Pen’s previous
extracurricular activities—it was obvious how much she adored him.
Hell,
I
loved him.
I’d met Linc a few weeks before I turned
eighteen, when he responded to a complaint from my landlord. He must have felt
sorry for me—a skinny, terrified girl living alone in Vegas and a blink away
from getting evicted—because two days later an
anonymous
donor had brought
my rent current. A day after that, he and his sister had shown up to my
apartment with groceries.
No matter how uptight Linc could be, he
never expected
anything
from me in return and had brought Pen into my
life. That alone made him a bit of a superhero in my book. He and Pen were the
closest to siblings I’d ever had.
As if on cue, she called out to me, “I
hope you’re opening that envelope!” Then, I heard her snap, “Are you kidding,
Linc?”
Closing the door with my foot to drown
out the noise, I swiped the Emerson & Taylor envelope from the counter and
sat on the vanity stool a few feet away. “Let’s see what they want now,” I
whispered, tearing open the envelope and shaking out its contents. A crisp
white business envelope fell into my hand.
Rubbing my fingers over both sides of the
second packet, I realized I definitely wasn’t holding a copy of the paperwork
I’d given to HR. It was too thin. Frowning, I flipped it over and started to
open it, but then I froze. The first thing I noticed was that it was a Manning
Hotel Group envelope. Then, I took in the familiar, chest-tightening words
written across it in bold black strokes.
I fix what I break
Those were Oliver’s words.
My fingers trembled as I ripped into the
white envelope, a plastic card falling to the ground and landing by my bare
foot. Inside, I found a neatly folded note. It took real effort not to tear it
into tiny shreds and deposit it into the toilet, but I opened it carefully to
find that it was written on letterhead from Oliver’s personal stash. Dropping
it on the granite, I scanned the note quickly, feeling my temperature spike
with every word.
Lizzie,
You didn’t mention you wouldn’t be in the
office for three days, so I had no other choice but to reach out to you like
this. Please accept the enclosed gift card as compensation for your phone. I’m
sure you can find use for it, as I won’t take it back.
By the way, you also didn’t mention you
worked directly for my mother. Not that it’ll matter.
Best,
Oliver J. Manning
Executive Vice President, Manning Hotel
Group
Oliver.
Fucking Oliver.
Looking down at the tan ceramic tile
floor, I saw a gold American Express logo staring back at me. I’d purposely
replaced my phone on my own so I wouldn’t feel indebted to that man, but he
couldn’t leave well enough alone. “A rich boy with a misunderstanding of the
word
no
? Lovely.”
I quickly reread the note again, pausing
on the last line.
“Not that it’ll matter?” I gritted my teeth.
“What the hell is
that
supposed to mean?” Instead of pondering it, I
focused on a more pressing question. What had Oliver done to weasel his way
back into Dora’s good HR graces so quickly for her just to hand over my
personal information to him? The thought of him having access to anything about
me—even if my life here was all a façade—made my stomach pitch.
Grabbing my phone, I blocked my number
and dialed the office number listed beneath his personal letterhead. A few
seconds later, I released a sharp curse when an automated voice informed me, “
We're
sorry; the party you have reached is not accepting private calls. If you want
your call to go through, please hang up—”
An angry noise leapt from the back of my
throat, and I mashed the end call button. Hopping off the stool, I refolded
Oliver’s infuriating note and stuffed it back into the envelope along with the
gift card. Since he’d been sneaky enough to send a message written on his
company’s letterhead postmarked from Emerson & Taylor, I knew he was
banking on me calling him out on it, and I had every intention of doing that.
It would just be on
my
terms.
I shoved my feet into the red, open-toed
pumps waiting by the door. Before I left the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of
myself in the mirror. Skimming my fingers through my loose curls, I thinned my
red lips at the sight of my flushed skin. I touched my cheek and shivered.
Something told me that Oliver, with his cocky grin and laughing eyes, would be
pleased that his
compensation
had ignited so much fury within me.
That fact was all the more reason to give
it back to him along with a piece of my mind.
Toting my phone and the envelope, I left
the bathroom, my steps shallow thanks to the black seamed pencil dress I wore.
I’d considered changing clothes because of that, but with my sudden desire to
get ahold of Oliver without giving up my number, arriving at work a few minutes
earlier seemed so much more essential. I grabbed my purse and keys from their
spot on the foyer table and checked my reflection one last time, fixing a
mascara smudge at the inside corner of one brown eye.
When I heard Pen walking out the kitchen,
I quickly turned my body away from her so she wouldn’t see my face. “See you
this afternoon,” I said, failing miserably at keeping the frustration from my
voice.
“Wait!” She rushed over to me and I
winced when I felt her hand in the back of my hair. Holding up a bright pink
roller, she started, “You left a curler in your—
Whoa
, you’re red as the
devil right now.” She stepped back and cocked her head to one side. “Please
don’t tell me it was something bad.”
“It was Oliver,” I breathed. When she
blinked, I gripped the handle of my purse a little tighter and shook my head.
“No time to explain right now. Trust me, I’ll tell you everything when I get in
tonight. Be good today.”
“Don’t worry, I planned on putting
viruses on every computer in the building.” When I shot her a dark look over my
shoulder, she lifted her gaze toward the ceiling and blew a strand of hair that
had fallen free of her ponytail from her face. “Jesus, between you and Linc…ugh!
Have a wonderful day, and don’t
you
get into any trouble,
Lizzie
.”
*
By
the time I reached Emerson & Taylor forty minutes later and left my Mini
Cooper in a prime parking spot, I had a little less than half hour to spare
before Margaret was scheduled to arrive.
Plenty of time to put her D-bag son
in his place
, I thought as I made my way to the lobby as fast as my
constricting dress would allow.
“So excited you’re running to work,” Carl
pondered aloud when I reached the security desk. There wasn’t a line in front
of me today, and he was already drinking his coffee from a stainless steel
travel mug. “You’re early.”
“It’s my first day, so I thought I’d
start off on the right foot.”
Leaning his balding head close to mine,
Carl dropped his voice to a whisper and said, “Mrs. Emerson’s never here on
time, so you’re safe, sweetheart.”
Although I’d always hated being called
sweetheart—maybe because it usually came from the lips of men who saw me as
nothing but a pretty face and a potential piece of ass—I could tell he was
being genuine. I offered him a poised smile that belied how irritated I was at
Oliver uncovering my home address.
“Thanks for the heads up.” I took my
employee badge from his outstretched hand and started around the corner. “Have
a good day.”
“You too, Ms. Connelly.”
I’d been to the seventh floor numerous
times when I was a child—when I was
Gemma
—but I’d stared at it with
brand new eyes the day Dora took me on the grand tour a couple weeks ago. “This
floor is pretty exclusive,” she’d informed me, a note of jealousy in her voice
as she led me around.
“You’ve got Margaret and everyone on the
executive committee, including Cate Morton, our CFO, and Philip Sanderson, the
vice-president. This is also where all meetings for the board of directors are
held, but you won’t really need to worry about those.” Dora had tossed her red
hair over her shoulder and touched my forearm, wearing a little smile. “
You’re
here for Margaret.”
I’d hated those words and the dismissive
way she said them, but I beamed like an enthusiastic fool as I took in the
atmosphere I’d be working in. When my father was alive, I vaguely remembered
the whole floor having a warm, embracing vibe—rich earth tones and big,
comfortable furniture my dad would let me jump all over—but that had all been
replaced. Now, there was a moody mix of black and white—plush, pale leather
seating, onyx floors, and abstract plywood sculptures gracing my stepmother’s
massive office.
I loathed the changes.
Sadly, even my little corner of the
executive floor reminded me of
Beetlejuice
. My office was located right
across the hall from Margaret’s, and it was a ten by ten ode to light and dark,
from the black leather chair to the iMac and even the checkerboard-patterned
paperweight.
“You can replace any of the artwork and
knickknacks,” Dora had flippantly told me two weeks ago, nodding at the
paperweight. It looked like it was there more for décor than practicality. “It
belonged to Margaret’s former PA.”
“What happened to her?” I’d asked.
“Fashion wasn’t right for her.”