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.”