Текст книги "The Singles"
Автор книги: Emily Snow
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The Singles
A Boxed Novel Set from
Emily Snow
Table of Contents
Title Page
Uncovered
Uncovered Copyright
Synopsis
Dedication
The Playlist
Prologue
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 2
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part 3
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Acknowledgments
Savor You
Savor You Copyright
Synopsis
The Playlist
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Acknowledgments
Wrecked
Wrecked Copyright
Synopsis
The Playlist
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Sneak Peak: Bad Advice
Chapter One
Chapter Two
About the Author
Uncovered
A novel by
Emily Snow
Uncovered Copyright
Copyright © August 2014 by Emily Snow Books
Cover designed by Letitia Hasser, RBA Designs
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing. For information message [email protected].
Synopsis
My name is Lizzie Connelly, and I have it all. The gorgeous apartment. The new job most women would rip out their own souls for—working for Margaret Emerson at Emerson & Taylor. I have one of those lives you’ve always dreamt about, the kind you only see on HBO. But, the thing is, that life is a lie. A façade.
It all started with one call. “Everything you know about your story—your father’s story—is a lie. It’s up to you to uncover everything.” One call, and I turned my world upside down to dig my way into Margaret’s life—the woman who I’d never laid eyes on until recently. My stepmother who took everything after my father died fourteen years ago.
The plan was simple—figure out what role she played in my father’s death and expose her to the world.
But here’s another thing: simplicity doesn’t exist, and my plans are flawed from the beginning because I never anticipated Oliver. Sexy, too smart for his own good, and infuriating, he’s the one person who could blow my plans to uncover Margaret. She’s his mother, and in another life, that would have made him my stepbrother.
I want to pretend that none of that matters, that I can simply finish what I came to do without sparing him a second glance and another thought.
Like I said, though, there’s no such thing as simplicity.
My real name is Gemma Emerson.
And this is my story.
Dedication
To you ...
You kick ass.
The Playlist
“Seven Devils” by Florence + the Machine
“Empire” by Shakira
“Words as Weapons” by Seether
“Three Wishes” by The Pierces
“Shush” by Rachele Royale
“The End Where I Begin” by The Script
“Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem & Rihanna
“Here In My Room” by Incubus
“Rev 22-20” by Puscifer
“Mz. Hyde” by Halestorm
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Lorde
“I Want You” by Halestorm
“Criminal” by Fiona Apple
“Desire” by Meg Myers
“Shatter Me” by Lindsey Stirling
“West Coast” by Lana Del Rey
“House of the Rising Sun” by Five Finger Death Punch
“Sail” by AWOLNATION
“Whatever You Like” by Anya Marina
“I’m a Mess” by Ed Sheeran
“Hello” by Evanescence
“Howl” by Florence + the Machine
“Money Power Glory” by Lana Del Rey
Prologue
Four Months Ago
"I might not be one of your sugar daddies, Gemma Emerson, but I’m someone you’ll want to listen to. You don’t want to end this call," the man said before I could murmur a hello. His stab at my job, the mention of my name, caused my fingers to freeze around my phone.
"Everything you’ve been told about your story, your father's story, is a lie. It's up to you to uncover the truth."
Hearing the stranger’s voice rasping in my ear, I sat up straight on my couch, strands of my blond hair flopping over my face. The lazy grin still spread across my face from my last call gave way as a tidal wave of uneasiness washed over me. "What did you just say?" I whispered, receiving a response of heavy breathing, which creeped me out even more. "A-are you there?"
It wasn’t like me to stutter. Before I began working at what my best friend jokingly called, “half-naked concierge”, my line of work was solely phone sex. It hadn’t taken long for me to discover that the girls who couldn’t find their words were the ones who were hung up on instantaneously. My caller on the other end, however, was a different story. Something told me that my speechlessness gratified him.
“Hello?”
“I’m here.” This time he didn’t completely catch me off guard, so I tried to pinpoint his voice. It was unquestionably male, which I’d already surmised, and intentionally low and gruff. Other than that, though, I was at a loss. “And you heard me the first time, Gemma.”
I’d heard him—loud and confusingly clear. The mystery behind his words, on the other hand, had me desperate for him to say it one more time. Everything you’ve been told about your story is a lie. I couldn’t think of a single person who wouldn’t demand a repeat after someone dropped a bomb like that. Grabbing the remote to mute the E! News exclusive I’d turned on after my previous call, I pushed off my leather couch.
"Who is this? Ja—" But I swallowed hard. Saying the name of the client I’d spoken to a few minutes before this guy’s call came through was a big no-no. If anything, I was professional, even if the hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end. “Who is this?”
Tiptoeing quickly through my apartment, I checked the locks on the front door and wiggled the knob. Everything was secure, thank God. "Alright, have it your way. This has been fun, but—"
The man spoke up, his satisfied smirk evident in his gravelly voice. "You don't know anything about your father or his death. Up until now, you haven't given a shit, but that needs to change. Tonight. Unless you want to be stuck in the loop you’re in for the rest of your life. Your body will only get you so far.”
Whoa.
His words were a powerful fist right to the center of my chest. I slumped against the white-painted steel door behind me, trying to gather my bearings.
If this guy hadn’t crossed the line before, he had just officially slithered across.
“You must have me confused with someone else,” I spat out. Infuriated, I crossed an arm under my breasts to stop the waves of red anger crashing through me. "Obviously, you don’t know a damn thing about me.”
If he knew me, truly knew me, he’d realize I thought of my father each time I passed the last photo I had of us together—the picture Dad’s driver had taken of us at the Empire State Building when I was eight. He’d know that I purposely avoided going to Los Angeles with my best friend every time she suggested it because it brought back memories and regrets that shattered me.
No, he didn’t know me, and for this man to accuse me of feeling any different pissed me off.
“Then why haven’t you ever looked into your father’s passing?” he challenged.
I scowled. "Are you a reporter?” My question earned an indignant snort from my caller, but I continued, “Is that what this is? Because if you are, here's a story for you: Of course, I gave a shit about my father’s death.” My eyes flashed to the muted celebrity interview on the flat screen TV. “You just won't ever see me in the news battling over an inheritance he didn't want me to have. So, now that I’ve gotten that out there for you ... I think I deserve to know who you are before I hang up on your ass," I sneered.
"I'm not a reporter, but I’m also not giving you a name.”
“Look, asshole—”
“But, since you mentioned the money, do you really think your dad left you with nothing? Or is that something you convinced yourself of, because you became too comfortable with putting your past behind you, and you’re just too lazy to go digging around for answers?"
I flinched. Deflated, I slid my back down the door until my butt hit the plush Berber carpet, the overwhelming aroma of linen-scented carpet powder rushing up my nostrils. "My father died of a heart attack, and he left everything to his wife," I whispered, nodding, attempting to assure myself all over again. When I was younger, I was bitter about my dad’s decision to name his wife his sole heir. At one time, my mother had been his wife too. I was his only child. Still, none of that had mattered.
When I stopped worrying about the hand I was dealt, I’d found equanimity —at least somewhat. I was comfortable.
But now, I was experiencing all those old emotions—doubts I hadn’t let plague me since I was a teenager were brought to the surface. It stung, and I knew I should hang up. Disconnect the call and immediately contact the phone company to change my number. For some reason, though, I couldn’t.
I pressed the heel of my palm to my forehead. "He did leave everything to Margaret, right?"
"Figure out the truth, Gemma. Figure out what happened before and after he died." At the sound of me opening my mouth to ask more questions, my ominous caller shut me down. "Good luck."
"If this isn't a joke, why don't you just tell me what the truth is?” I questioned brokenly, squeezing my eyes shut, quelling the tears of frustration threatening to spill out. "Why don't you stop insulting me for five seconds about what I didn't do and—"
The phone buzzed against the side of my face, and I forced in a breath that crushed my ribcage. He had hung up on me. He had called me to rile me up only to cut the call short on his terms. An animalistic growl tore from the back of my throat.
"What the—" Anxiety bubbled up from my stomach to settle in the back of my throat, choking my words. Dropping the phone on the carpet beside me, I pressed my fist against my mouth and bit down on one of my knuckles. It was the only thing I could do to hold back the inevitable scream. And the vomit.
What the hell just happened?
I scrubbed my hands back and forth over my face before pushing my hair away from my flushed cheeks, tucking the straight locks behind my ears. Staring across the room and letting the tears flood my vision and fall unchecked, I started the messy process of trying to decipher the cryptic words from the stranger’s phone call.
He’d claimed there was more behind my father's death. And then he’d insinuated that I shouldn’t be so sure that my dad, with all his money and power, had left me with nothing. Whether the call was a joke or not, I felt like the scabs had been ripped right off old wounds, exposing all my vulnerabilities to the world.
Releasing a tremulous breath that seemed to take some of the pressure off my chest, I focused on the watercolor painting depicting one of my favorite movie kisses. Thanks to my tears, Buttercup and Westley had morphed into something unrecognizable. I ran the back of my hand over my eyes. Hobbling to my feet, I fisted my hands and counted to ten. I was never much of a crier—emotional, yes, but never one to sob—yet here I was giving a man I didn’t know the power to render me speechless.
"Pull yourself together," I admonished myself as I crept down the narrow hall to the bathroom. I splashed a handful of cold water onto my face and laid my palms to my cheeks. My skin was still on fire. "It had to be a joke.”
I returned to my living room, powering off the TV as soon as I saw the headline about Margaret Emerson hobnobbing with an infamous editor at a fashion show in New York. Normally, I wouldn’t let it bother me too much. Tonight, however, I couldn’t handle looking at my former stepmother’s smug expression after having my brain thoroughly bent over and screwed.
“Oh, déjà vu, you nasty bitch,” I muttered as I threw the remote toward my couch. It landed right side up on the sable brown knit throw blanket I’d bought at Pottery Barn a couple months ago. Crossing the room, I swooped up my phone from where I had left it by the front door, and then, just for good measure, I checked the locks once more.
As I padded toward the bathroom to take a hot bath to calm my nerves, I couldn't resist taking a peek at my call history. I shook my head in disbelief. The idiot hadn't blocked his number. There it was, nine-digits right in front of me, practically begging to be called.
Tapping the green icon in the center of my screen, I temporarily gave up on the bath and slammed down on the couch. "I'll figure out the truth," I gloated, "I'll figure out the—"
"Thank you for calling Emerson & Taylor, this is Claire. How may I direct your call?" a saccharine-sweet, female voice chirped.
I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn't quite figure out what to say over my sudden shortness of breath and the icy cold fingers of shock stroking my spine. Finally, perhaps perturbed by my silence, the receptionist introduced herself again.
“Emerson & Taylor, Claire speaking. Can I help you?”
"I-I'm so sorry.” There was the stuttering again. “Wrong number,” I managed, disconnecting the call before she could get another word in.
I folded my arms over my stomach, leaning forward. It did nothing to help the harsh churning, but thankfully, there were no tears this time. Maybe I was too numb for that, though.
Whoever had called me wanted me to have the number.
He’d wanted me to call him back, so I would know whom the number belonged to.
And, most importantly, he wanted me to know that it was from Emerson & Taylor—the fashion company. The company that, before his death fourteen years ago, had belonged to my father.
Part 1
Uncover
verb ən‘kəvər
Discover (something previously secret or unknown).
“I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.”
–Michel de Montaigne
Chapter 1
"Are you sure you want to go through with this, Gemma?" my closest friend implored for the second time since she stomped into my new apartment a couple minutes ago. Seated right in front of me on the ottoman, Pen sifted her fingers through her mess of wavy brown hair before releasing it to fall around the brilliant peacock tattoos gracing her shoulders. "It's not too late to back down."
"This is something I need to do for myself."
Besides, she was wrong—it was too late. It had been ever since I received the call four months ago. "Everything you’ve been told about your story, your father's story, is a lie. It's up to you to uncover the truth."
Although I hadn't contacted Emerson & Taylor to search for him—because really, who would have believed me—my caller had gotten his wish. His words ignited something within me, a frenzied need for closure that I'd somehow shoved to the far corners of my mind. For days, weeks even, the memory of his gruff voice was a constant distraction, a weight on my body and mind. And though I'd promised myself long ago that I had put all things concerning my father behind me, I soon found that nothing could stop me from searching around in my history ... his history.
Not even Penelope Connelly—the woman who’d been my closest confidant for the last six years.
When I finally broke down and told her about the call from Emerson & Taylor, I hadn't planned to ask for help. My intentions were to go to Los Angeles to confront my stepmother on my own because I’d reached the point where I couldn’t even sleep without my caller’s words affecting me. But then Pen had reminded me of what happened the last time I attempted to contact my dad's third, and final, wife. I was sixteen at the time, my father had been dead for seven years, and I'd just lost my mom six months before. Maybe I'd hoped to find some semblance of normality with my stepmother—I was fragile and young and woefully ignorant—but I didn't get the chance to meet Margaret in person. Instead, she’d sent a lawyer to deal with me.
I could barely remember the attorney’s face, or his name, but what he’d said to me had stuck to me like glue.
"Your name is nowhere in your father's will, and Margaret has informed me that you and your mother have been aware of that since he passed away. You are more than welcome to contest the will, Ms. Emerson, but I'm going to warn you—you'll feel the crushing reality of all the legal fees before you can bat your pretty brown eyes. Now, Margaret is prepared to settle with you ... as long as you don't come back with your hand stretched out. You understand what I'm saying, don't you, sweetheart?"
Whenever I read an article about my stepmother, or saw her son on TV, that lawyer’s words oozed into my thoughts, and the night I told Pen about the call was no different. Like always, my best friend had immediately pulled me from that dark place.
"I think I have an idea." She had run her tongue over the tiny gap between her front teeth and leaned into me so nobody else in the crowded bar would hear. “But we’ll need to be ... creative.”
Her definition of creative turned out to be straightforward—she would step out of her “ethical zone” and get me directly into Emerson & Taylor. She would bypass their security system and add me as a new hire, taking care of everything from the background check to a squeaky-clean work history that didn't include phone sex and escorting under the pseudonym Alice. I’d be given a temporary identity with a single purpose.
Uncover, expose, and then get the hell out of there.
The moment I got the call from the company’s corporate headquarters offering me a job, I turned in my notice at the agency I’d been working at and set up my life in L.A. so quickly, my head was still reeling from the whirlwind apartment search and ensuing move.
I thought I was ready.
Except now, I got the impression Pen was having second thoughts. Why else would she have surprised me by showing up at my door first thing this morning? Las Vegas wasn’t exactly a hop and a skip away.
"Pen,” I spoke up, my voice barely audible, “I understand if you can't help me." She had already done so much for me I couldn't imagine asking for more. Scooting forward on the couch, I covered her fingers with mine and gave them a firm squeeze. "I know how angry Linc will be if he finds out you're hacking again."
At the mention of her older brother, she jerked out of my grip and narrowed her slate blue eyes. "Don't even go there, Gem. The only way he'll find out anything is if you tell him. And if you do, I'll hurt you." But she bit the corner of her lip teasingly. "Besides, I'm like Lisbeth Salander and Neal Caffrey mixed up in one big-boobed package. I'm not worried at all—at least not about myself."
My eyebrow jerked up in confusion. "Neal Caffrey and Lisbeth Salander?" I purposely ignored her concern for me. Combined with my own doubts, they were probably enough to do me in.
"They're—" Tilting her head to the side, she changed her direction and said, "You know what? They don't matter right now." She hooked her hand around my slim upper arm and drew us both to our full height, mine just a couple inches shy of her five-foot-six. It was a lame running joke between us that she was always two ahead of me—two months older, two cup sizes bigger, and two inches taller.
"What matters is that you need to get through E & T's security, then march your ass to HR and pick up your badge—"
Every muscle in my body tensed as she essentially gave me a rundown of the message I’d received from the human resources director. "You hacked my email," I groaned, palming the bridge of my nose for a few seconds. "Dammit, Pen, really?"
She stepped backwards, her thin silver bangles clanging together as she threw up her hands defensively. "Calm your tits, woman! I just logged into the Lizzie email. I mean, I set it up, remember?" At the shallow jerk of my head, she said, "Look, I'm just staying in the loop ... if you still want to go through with it, of course."
"I'm not backing down." Darting past her, I strode around the couch and across my open living room to the front door; my nude Michael Kors pumps a heavy drum on the laminate planks. Time was not on my side this morning, and arguing wouldn't help.
Pausing at the table in the foyer, I glanced up at the framed mirror hanging directly in front of me. I caught Pen's reflection—her arms crossed stubbornly over her chest and her Jolie-esque lips worked together in a frown—and I plastered on a self-assured smile.
"Whenever you ask me if I'm still going through with working at E & T to get closer to Margaret, you know I'm going to counter with this: I have to get into that company. I haven't gotten anything done since I received that call, and I won't accomplish much else until I get this out of my system."
Her mouth parted in response, but I powered on. "I know the risk I'm taking. But I just need to know if there's any truth to—" I gripped the table in support, the blunt angles digging into my palms. "My dad left me nothing. It hurt like hell then, but I brushed it off because I was a child. Now, I want to know why. It's not about the money. I just need to know if something changed."
"Just wanted to make sure." Resigned, she snatched the remote from the ottoman and threw herself on the couch, her mid-back length hair hanging over the armrest. "You can do this."
"I can. It’ll be simple," I repeated while I examined my appearance one final time. I looked nothing like the little girl Margaret had last seen at my father’s funeral, and not all that much like the young woman her lawyer turned away seven years ago, but I was still terrified she would know. That she'd immediately spot the word IMPOSTOR branded all over me—from the straight blond hair that I'd worked into a sleek ponytail, to my heart-shaped face with its small nose and full cheeks, and finally my eyes. Brown with amber flecks—eyes that looked ... terrified.
For a damn good reason.
If this ended badly, if I was found out, so much ugly would be unleashed I couldn't even stand to think about it without strings weaving tightly through my ribcage and suffocating me.
I could go to prison for this.
Smoothing back a nonexistent stray wisp of platinum hair, I spun away from the mirror. I faced Pen with my hands fisted by my side. She glanced up from the DVR’d episode of Sleepy Hollow and smiled encouragingly. "You have this. Get in there—"
"And take that bitch down," I finished breathlessly, and she pumped her fist.
"That's my girl. I'll stick around for the day, just in case you need me. As long as you don't mind, that is?"
Picking up my purse and keys, I shook my head. "Make yourself at home."
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” She returned her attention to the TV, but before I left the apartment, she cleared her throat tentatively. Lowering my hand from the doorknob, I looked back at her.
"You're not Gemma there. Don't forget that,” she gently reminded. “You're Lizzie."
It was something I couldn't forget. I’d crammed that reminder into my brain ever since she and I came up with this crazy, messy plan. My name was Lizzie Connelly, not Gemma Emerson. Gemma Emerson didn’t exist—at least, not where Lizzie was concerned.
Clearing the lump of hysteria from the back of my throat, I bobbed my head briskly, and Pen’s shoulders relaxed. "I remembered to be Lizzie a couple weeks ago when I met with HR, so you don’t need to worry. Besides, this’ll be simple."
As I drove from the seaside Marina del Rey apartment in my leased Mini Cooper, I continued to tell myself that.
*
Up until a week and a half ago, I hadn't stepped foot in Los Angeles since I was sixteen—when I hopped a Greyhound bus from Vegas with the intent of meeting with my stepmother. My parents had divorced when I was seven, and the moment everything was finalized my tall, dark-eyed mother had promptly departed the city with me in tow. She was a model, which was how she met my father, and at first, we moved wherever her work took her—New York, Miami, Chicago, but never back to Los Angeles. By the time I was thirteen, I'd lived in more places than most people visited in their lifetime, but I welcomed it.
Mom and I had been a team, and it hadn't mattered where we lived.
Sin City was our final move. It had come a couple months before my fifteenth birthday, but we would have ended up in a new city if my mom hadn’t died a year later. It was one of those wrong place at the wrong time tragedies I always read about but didn’t think would happen to us—she’d forgotten her credit cards at home and when she went into the convenience store to pay for gas, she walked into a robbery that had already turned deadly.
She was killed. And so was that team of ours that was my world.
With my mother's entire family in Ukraine, and relatively unknown to me, I’d stuck around the apartment we'd shared in North Vegas and prayed the state wouldn't catch wind of me living alone. The idea of being tossed into the foster care system for two years scared the shit out of me, but I successfully avoided it. Since my mother’s death, the only time I had left Sin City, I'd returned almost immediately—nearly too broke to put food in my refrigerator and still reeling from my meeting with Margaret's attorney.
But here I was. In Los Angeles, of all places.
And even though I’d lived in Vegas far longer than anywhere else, as the early October heat beat down on the open sunroof, I realized that L.A. still felt like home.
Which wasn't a good thing.
There was too much attachment associated with that word. Home.
"Stupid, stupid girl," I scolded myself over the Black Stone Cherry song pulsing quietly through my tiny car.
Curling my fingers firmly around the black steering wheel, I turned the candy apple red Mini Cooper into the ground floor of the five-story parking garage attached to Emerson & Taylor, stopping for the attendant on duty. After gaining entrance with the temporary pass I received from human resources last week, I drove to the first free space I could find—a spot on the bottom floor, squeezed between a dented Nissan Juke and a glossy yellow Corvette. As I exited the car, my body trembled like a leaf inside the high-waist beige pencil skirt and tucked-in white blouse I'd confidently donned earlier this morning.
God, I was in over my head.
It was one thing to let Pen hack Emerson & Taylor's security system and get me far enough into the hiring process that they absolutely had to call me in for the job, but it was an entirely different matter to present false identification to the human resources department that would corroborate my new identity.
And yet, I was seconds away from prancing my ass into that building to do just that. No wonder Pen had driven here from Vegas. She probably wanted to make sure I wouldn't have a nervous breakdown that would implicate us both.
I pressed the lock button on the circular key fob with so much force I was surprised it didn't jam. "When this is all over, I'm so getting her that new laptop she won't shut up about." Squaring my shoulders, I dropped my keys into my secondhand black Prada bag and followed the white arrows on the concrete floor.
This is going to be simple, I promised myself as I stepped inside the elevator and punched the starred button. I just have to be smart.
"Hey, do you mind?" a slightly accented, feminine voice yelled out, and I reached my hand out to keep the elevator doors from shutting. Several seconds later, a woman no taller than my five-foot-four rushed inside, her caramel skin flushed. She was balancing two drink carriers and a neon pink box emanating a delicious aroma that did a number on my empty stomach.
Tilting her head back, she shook her bouncy, jet-black curls out and rested in the corner of the elevator to catch her breath. "You're a lifesaver," she thanked me as the doors silently closed and we started to move up to the lobby. "I didn't remember it was my turn to bring coffee until twenty minutes ago when I was already at my desk."
“So you rushed out to get them?”
“Like an idiot,” she laughed, tapping one of her feet, which were clad in strappy, red patent leather wedged sandals. “Nearly twisted my ankle running around in these things.”
I frowned. "Need some help?"
Lowering her head, she stared me down with dark, almost black, eyes. She blinked a couple times before moving her head to either side and releasing a throaty laugh that oozed sensuality. "You must be new." I lifted both eyebrows, and she added, "Helpfulness is dead around here."
"It's my first day," I admitted. "I'm on my way up to HR now."
She snorted. "Figures." As she held the box out to me, I stepped closer to take it. "Stay golden, okay? This place will suck the life out of you," she advised.
Smiling at the reference to one of the books my mother and I had shared a mutual love for, I followed behind her as she departed the elevator car and stepped into the open lobby.
I had vague memories of coming to this place as a child, but I remembered being just as stunned by it then, too. With its gleaming black granite flooring, tinted floor-to-ceiling windows, and three-tier chandeliers hanging strategically overhead, the main floor of Emerson & Taylor was a carefully orchestrated medley of modern sophistication.
On the lobby walls, there were photos of Emerson & Taylor models from throughout the years, and I knew that if I turned to my left, I’d come face-to-face with a massive picture of my mother.
In spite of the severe black and white camera setting, her personality had shined through, thanks to her smooched lips and the flirtatious wink of her brown eyes. She was younger than me in the photo, with her dark hair in waves around her strikingly symmetrical face as she displayed a slinky white sundress. I’d first noticed the picture when I came in here a week and a half ago, and it had taken everything out of me not to walk right up to it and stare.
