Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98345 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
“What was that?” Gwen asked, curious.
The people standing on either side of me scrammed, saving themselves.
I cleared my throat and tried to be brave. “I said, ‘the man behind the mast.’”
Gwen’s lip quirked. “Cute. Yes.”
Just that the slight upturn of her lip was enough to send me to cloud nine. When had I ever once received her approval?
She gave me a succinct once-over. “Cassie?”
“Casey,” I clarified before adding with a little chuckle, “Or Cassie, whatever works.”
I hated myself a little in that moment. Not “or Cassie”! Cassie was not my name!
She looked to her assistant, and I could sense she was about to move on to the next agenda item. I felt my window of opportunity closing. My phone would start vibrating again; my insurmountable problems would continue to pile up. I’d return to my small cubicle in the darkest corner of the third floor, check my email, and find all sorts of busywork that had shit-all to do with writing. After I left the office for the day, I’d go back to my late grandmother’s house and continue packing up her things, stuffing the remnants of her life into tattered cardboard boxes.
“I know him,” I blurted.
WHAT?
Instead of backtracking, I doubled down. “I know Phillip Woodmont.”
Gwen’s pencil-thin eyebrow quirked with interest. “How?”
“We were . . . classmates, sort of. It’s an interesting story.”
I’d never had her focus like I had in that moment. My knees almost buckled under the weight of her expectations and piercing gaze. “Meet me in my office after the meeting. We’ll chat.”
Now, I take a step away from the bar and crane my neck to see over the crowd. There are at least fifty to sixty invited guests in the observation lounge, all sporting press badges, all vying for each other’s attention. I’d like to mix and mingle, eventually. Right now, though, I’m on a mission.
“Where are you off to?” Sienna asks when I step away from her with a purpose.
“I need to hunt down Phillip Woodmont. I have to get an interview with him for work, and I’d like to make a good impression early.”
“Well, you’re heading in the wrong direction.” She reroutes me, turning my shoulders so I’m facing the right way.
“He’s just there, the bloke in the blue suit.”
She aims me toward a cluster of men talking in a semicircle. Only one of them is wearing a blue suit, and he cannot be Phillip. A laugh spills out of me. Not because the sight of him is funny. Oh no. It’s the opposite of funny. It’s toe curling. Fever inducing. Trouble.
I’m struck by the sight of the boy I used to know.
Intimidating, strong, tall, handsome—unfortunately, he’s all these things and more.
He has dark-brown hair that’s been styled in that perfect way: tousled a bit up top and neat on the sides. There’s a little wave to it, which has the effect of making him that much more tantalizing. There are two deep-set dimples bookending his lips and another on his chin. A hint of a five-o’clock shadow.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.
Despite the few photos I saw of him online during my research, I was holding out hope he’d somehow remained the pip-squeak with braces, a man who wouldn’t throw me off. This assignment was going to be hard enough before, when I assumed Phillip would be spindly and awkward.
The man in front of me—the one I still can’t quite believe exists—gives off the air of someone absolutely assured that everyone in the room would willingly bow at his feet.
He’s an all-American prince in a cobalt blue suit.
“Jesus, he’s good looking. Do you reckon he’s single?” Sienna asks, staring at him from by my side.
“No idea.”
Why would his relationship status matter to me? That’s not what I’m concerned with, well, unless it pertains to my interview. I’d love to know about his personal life . . . for the story. That’s it.
Sienna glances over to me. “Well, go on, then.”
All of a sudden, I find it hard to move my feet. It’s like I’ve accidentally stepped in a patch of superglue. “I don’t think I can do it.”
“You can! Be brave. He wants to chat. Why else would he have invited press on board?”
She makes a good point.
Giving in to these nerves is silly. Beyond the fact that he’s invited us on board, there’s absolutely no way he will recognize me. I’m worrying over nothing. We knew each other briefly, years ago. I look like any other journalist. In fact, compared to the glitzy glam of some of the influencers in the room, I could be a veritable wallflower, easily forgettable. I’ll use that to my advantage.
“Okay, I’m going.”
“Yes, go!”
She pats me on the shoulder, and I adjust my clutch beneath my arm.
I start to walk on unsteady legs across the parquet floor in the center of the room, not because it’s the fastest route to get to him but because it’s the path of least resistance. Everyone’s hanging around the periphery of the room or mingling at the tables. The center of the room, for some reason, has turned into no-man’s-land.