Текст книги "The Singles"
Автор книги: Emily Snow
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 45 страниц)
Chapter 3
“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.”
As soon as I had the chance, I’d spruce this place up with color, but first—first I would take care of Oliver. And getting through the first day with his mother. Sitting down, I fired up my iMac, and logged into my employee profile with the information Dora had given me. Multiple mail alerts flashed across the upper left side of the screen, not really drawing me in until I saw a message from Stella that had been sent on Tuesday.
I clicked on it and read as I pulled Oliver’s envelope from my purse.
Still staying golden? –Stella Marchand
Once the letter was in front of me, the paperweight sitting on its right corner, I sent her a quick response.
Twenty-four carat. But ... this is my first day. I’ll let you know at the end.
Exiting my inbox, I took a deep breath and glanced over at the multiline phone a few inches from the left of my keyboard. Even though I still had twenty minutes to spare until work officially began, I needed to get Oliver out of the way.
When I lifted the receiver to my ear though, I hesitated. This was a mistake. Anything involving Oliver and myself was clearly a mistake, and yet here I was letting my pride lead me headfirst into a disaster. Instead of letting it go, I shook my head and started to dial his office number. “Screw it,” I muttered just seconds before the sound of an inviting male voice greeted me.
“Oliver Manning speaking.” A bolt of excitement quickened my pulse as I realized I’d reached him directly instead of a receptionist.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I demanded in lieu of a greeting.
“Lizzie?” He laughed. It was one of those deep, sexy chuckles, and I felt the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end. “This is Lizzie, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I snapped.
“Took longer than I thought.” When I snorted, he added in a low voice, “And what I was doing was being a gentleman. Why the hell are you giving me a hard time for it?”
Curling my toes, I slid down into my chair. “I thought you weren’t screwing HR.”
“I’m not,” he answered without missing a beat. “Is it just me or was there a little jealousy behind that question?”
“How’d you get my address?”
“So, is it?” he teased. “Jealousy, I mean. A simple yes or no will work.”
I’d been in Oliver’s presence only once in my adult life, and I could already say that, without a doubt, there was no such thing as simple when it came to that man. Squeezing my eyes shut, I gave him a few more seconds to respond before I repeated, “How did you get my address, Oliver?”
When he addressed me, his voice had lowered to a seductive whisper. “We’ve already gone over this, Lizzie. I’m not fucking Dora. She’s not my only connection.”
“Then who is?”
“I didn’t intend to piss you off.”
Frowning, I rested my elbows on my desk. His words would be so much more believable if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain he was grinning at the moment.
“Avoiding my question isn’t exactly helping that.” I massaged tiny circles into my right temple. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” When he responded with another chuckle, I questioned, “And what will happen if I go down to Dora’s office and ask her if she gave you my address?”
“Then I’d likely receive a very angry call from her. She’d ask me the same questions you’re asking, she’d threaten to tell my mother to which I’d tell her to go—”
“Since you’re obviously not going to enlighten me,” I enunciated each syllable for emphasis, “should I return the gift card to the address on the Manning Hotel Group envelope or do you want me to leave it at the security desk here?”
He was speechless for a few seconds, and then he said in the most serious tone I’d heard him use yet, “I’m not taking it back, Lizzie.”
“You will if I refuse to accept it.”
“You’re refusing a thousand-dollar gift card?”
I nearly dropped the receiver. “A thousand—” I took a deep breath. God, was he that far out of touch with reality? “Why the hell would you send me that much? It’s an iPhone, not a—”
“I know what it is, and I looked up the price. Since I didn’t know the model, I added some padding. You’re not going to return it to me.”
Padding my ass. “I don’t want it.”
“Then give it to someone else. Because if you do return it to me, I’ll personally show up with it next time.”
“You wouldn’t make it past the doorman,” I said, which was a lie because though the presence of a doorman was one of the aspects that had helped me decide on my Marina del Rey apartment, I’d yet to see one on duty. Still, Oliver didn’t know that. I moved the checkerboard paperweight off his letter. Fuming, I jerked the first desk drawer open and swept it all—envelope and gift card included—inside. “Did you treat your mom’s last assistant like this?”
“Honestly, I don’t even recall the woman’s name. We maybe said a couple words to each other. I never asked her to dinner. And I never thought about what she’d look like with my sheets tangled beneath her after a five minute conversation.”
As I let his words tumble around my brain, my throat went dry. “I see.”
“Then you’re saying yes,” he said confidently, and when I closed my eyes, I could easily picture him, sitting in his office, leaned back with a satisfied smirk playing on his full lips. He thought he’d won, but he was wrong.
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t go to dinner—or anywhere involving sheets—with Oliver.
He wasn’t a part of any of my plans.
I couldn’t want anything to do with him.
Suddenly desperate to put a close to the conversation, I sighed. “Look, Oliver,” I started, but my eyes jerked open in surprise when the line went dead. Confused, I twisted toward the keypad. My gaze landed on a manicured finger pressed on the hook and my heart dropped.
Oh God.
I followed the finger to a delicately boned hand, an Omega watch, and up to a muscular yet feminine arm. My eyes wandered over the blue, white, and gray colorblock sheath dress that Margaret—at fifty-six years old—pulled off better than women half her age and the beige and champagne blond highlights hanging in shoulder length waves around her thin face.
Bracing myself, I forced my gaze up until she and I were staring at one another. Like Oliver, her eyes were a brilliant shade of blue, but they were currently narrowed into tight, disapproving slits.
“You must be Lizzie.”
“Yes,” I said hoarsely, “I’m so excited to—”
“Of course you are,” she cut me off sharply. Her thin lips parted to say something else, but my ringing office phone distracted her. Before I could stop her, she jerked the receiver from my hand and removed her finger from the hook. She held the handset to her ear, ready to answer—or perhaps humiliate me—but to my horror, Oliver spoke first. I could hear him from where I was sitting.
“I take it I can send a car to pick you up for dinner tomorrow night, Lizzie.”
She tapped her rounded fingernail on my desk and cast a frosty smile down on me. “This is your mother, Oliver. Ms. Connelly will be working late tomorrow evening, but you’re more than welcome to contact her when she’s not on my time.” Hanging up on him, she told me, “Now that you’re finished with my son, go to The Grindhouse. Have a small, skinny, double shot cinnamon latte on my desk in ten minutes.”
Then, without another word, she stomped from my office, slamming the door behind her.
Chapter 4
My father had married Margaret in a quiet civil ceremony just two months after his divorce from my mother was finalized. I hadn’t been present at the ceremony, but I could still remember hearing my mom’s harsh sobs coming from her bedroom in our small, Soho apartment. She had been broken, and at the time, that had meant I was broken too.
Over the last four months, I’d done more research on my former stepmother than ever before. The daughter of a an attorney and a businessman, she’d started at Emerson & Taylor as a lead designer in 1986—three years after her only child, Oliver, was born. By my parents’ divorce, she was on the seventh floor working alongside my dad as the vice president of creative design and before the new millennium rolled around, she was the CEO of the company.
As I grabbed my purse and left my office, the plaque on the door across the hall was a stinging reminder of her current role.
Margaret Manning-Emerson, CEO
Powerwalking through the lobby, I tried to remember if she’d been so intimidating the first, and only, time I met her—at my dad’s funeral. But then I shook my head. Other than giving me a stiff touch—I wasn’t sure I could call it a hug—and telling me she was sorry for my loss, she’d mostly stared blankly ahead.
Of course, grief could steal the words and thoughts from even the most unapproachable person, twisting them into a shell.
Pulling up The Grindhouse on my phone, I found it was a highly rated coffee shop two blocks away from the office. “Ten minutes, my ass,” I muttered as I swept out the revolving door and onto the sidewalk. Despite it being October, I was a sweaty mess by the time I reached the eatery and took my place at the back of the line. Blatantly, I tried to ignore the fact that my perspiration was a combination of getting worked up by Oliver and then getting called out by his mother, all in the course of an hour, and blamed it on my unexpected exercise instead.
When I reached the waifish barista, I checked my phone and realized there was no way in hell I’d make it back to the office within Margaret’s time limit. My first real day on the job, and I was failing horribly at my task.
“Can I get a small, skinny, extra-hot cinnamon latte?” I requested, and the barista grabbed a twelve-ounce cup and a metallic marker. She stared at me expectantly. “Oh, um, the last name is Connelly.”
She started to scribble on the cup, but then she paused and looked me up and down, taking in my outfit and flustered appearance before cocking an eyebrow. “Would this be for Mrs. Emerson?”
Fan-freaking-tastic. It’s never a good thing when even the coffee shop clerk knows your boss simply from the order and your look of sheer trepidation, I thought.
“It is.” I nodded, and she tossed the cup in a wastebasket under the counter, grabbed another, and began rewriting the order.
“I swear, I’m not bossing you around, but she’ll send you back in a heartbeat if it’s not a double shot.”
Heat prickled the back of my neck. Dammit. I was so flustered that I was a coffee order away from fucking up even more with Margaret. “Thanks,” I breathed, and the barista smiled sympathetically.
“Mrs. E is a longtime customer. We like to see her happy. I’ll have this ready for you ASAP.”
With three minutes to spare, I raced back to work, walking as fast as I could in my unforgiving dress and coming dangerously close several times to drenching myself with Margaret’s molten-hot drink order. It wouldn’t be the first time coffee had burned me, and I shivered at the memory of accidentally pulling my father’s coffee on me when I was a little girl.
“You’re late,” Margaret told me flatly the second I stepped into her black and white office. She flicked her hand at the chair positioned in front of her half-moon shaped desk. An image of the giant mahogany desk that was there many years ago flashed in my mind, and I swallowed hard at yet another recollection of my father. Noticing my hesitation to move, Margaret leaned forward, her voice impatient as she snapped me out of the memory. “Sit, Ms. Connelly.”
My legs felt shaky as I moved forward, and I was almost thankful for the seat as I slid the coffee in front of her. “I’m sorry I was late. I’ve never been to The Grind—”
“I’ll forgive it this time.” She took a sip of the latte before setting it on a silver coaster a few inches from her laptop. “What I absolutely cannot forgive is personal calls at work. When you come through that door downstairs, you are at work. Do you understand that, Ms. Connelly?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“I typically handpick my assistants; however, my recent schedule made that impossible. I trusted Isadora to find me a qualified applicant, and she assured me you were highly recommended.”
My teeth sunk down on the inside of my cheek. I hated being talked to like this, and the few times I had a client who’d treated me like a child, I’d promptly collected my belongings and left. But this ... this was different. There was no gathering my things and leaving because then I’d never get my answers. The only way to get what I wanted—what I’d been desperate enough to break the law for—was to sit here and let the woman who had her lawyer turn me away years ago verbally pummel me.
I dragged in a painful breath. “Yes, I was highly—”
“I don’t want to hear your virtues, Ms. Connelly. I’ve already looked at your resume. What I want is for you to do your job. That starts with—not only leaving your personal life at home—but also not intermingling with mine.” Linking her fingers together and setting her hands on her desk, she speared me with a flash of her porcelain veneers. “My son is off-limits.”
Instantly, the need to defend myself kicked in, and I cleared my throat. “I was thanking him. We...bumped into each other the other day, and I broke my phone. Oliver insisted on replacing it.
“How kind of him,” Margaret said, and the deliberate sarcasm in her voice made me curl my fingernails into my palms. Inside, I was seething, but I beamed at her agreeably. Sweetly. As if the word bitch wasn’t rolling through my mind like movie credits.
“And now that you’ve expressed your gratitude, you can get to work. I’m usually here by nine-thirty, so I’ll expect you in here with my coffee no later than then.”
“Same order as today?”
With a brisk nod, she pushed a sheet of paper across the desk to me. Turning it around, I saw that it was a handwritten To-Do list. “I’ve taken the time to write down what I expect from you before the end of the week, but in the future, it will be your responsibility to take notes. Has Isadora sent in your information for a company credit card?”
“Not that I’m aware of, she never mentioned it to me.” Which I supposed was a good thing. No matter how talented she was, I wasn’t sure Pen could pull off getting my fake identity approved for a company card.
Margaret blew a lock of wavy, highlighted hair from her face. “Christ, that airheaded—” Exhaling through her turned-up nose, she unlocked her top desk drawer and reached inside. “You’ll need to speak to Isadora about getting a card. It should only take a week or so.”
Hopefully, I wouldn’t be here long enough to need it, but I nodded. “Yes, I’ll talk to her today.”
Margaret pulled her hand from her desk drawer, producing a credit card. Instead of handing it to me right away, she held it close to her chest—like a lecturing parent would when giving a child her first debit card. “This. Is. Mine,” she told me, her voice spoken in slow motion as she emphasized each word. “You will not use it for your personal expenses, is that understood?”
I managed a look that was a combination of outrage and surprise. “Of course. I would never do that.”
She simpered. Keeping her gaze locked on mine, she handed me the card. “You’re obligated to say that, Ms. Connelly.” Standing, she smoothed her elegant hands down the front of her colorblock dress. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a brunch meeting to attend. I’m personally a big fan of punctuality.”
From her hard look—a look I had trouble imagining in her son’s similar blue eyes—I took her words for what they clearly were. A stark warning.
“I’ll do my best to be on time in the future,” I said, feeling my chest hurt a little more with every word that fell from my lips. Gathering her credit card and the To-Do list, I headed to the French doors. Before l left the room, I turned slightly. “Is there anything else you need me to do?”
She grabbed her white Hermes bag from the corner of her desk and lowered her chin to the paper in my hand. “Your job,” she stated, and before I could offer some chipper promise about doing it to the best of my ability, she icily added, “And not my son.”
*
With my head down, I returned to my office and dropped into my seat. Did that really just happen? Releasing a rasping groan, I buried my face in my hands. Yes, it had happened. The first meeting with the woman whose life I was trying to infiltrate had gone to crap because she thought I wanted to screw her son.
“Of course, Mrs. Emerson, I wouldn’t dream of it,” I muttered, mimicking what I’d said to her after she told me to keep away from Oliver. To her, the reaction had probably seemed contrite, but fury raged within me. “Damn you, Oliver.”
My computer dinged, and I pushed my loose curls back from my flaming face to check my email. Two messages waited—the first from Stella, telling me she was still holding me to that promise for drinks.
Monday is a holiday, but how does Tuesday sound? I responded before returning to my inbox. The second message was from Oliver.
The worst emotion possible—anticipation—settled in my stomach.
For what felt like a small eternity, I stared at the unopened message. And I loathed myself for the tendrils of curiosity winding around me, making the desire to know what he had to say all the more tempting.
You dumbass fool, I told myself as I clicked on his message.
Lizzie,
I was serious about dinner. Let me know what your schedule looks like. You’re welcome to return the gift card to me then.
-Oliver
Tapping my foot, I glanced down at the long list his mother had given me before my fingers flew across the keyboard in response.
Oliver,
Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t allow for dinner dates with my boss’ son, but thank you for the offer.
Best wishes,
Lizzie
Hitting send, I picked up Margaret’s list and began studying it in earnest.
