All that’s left is Wesley Chambers.
My phone rings in my hand with a call from Emily, my new assistant at Beck Media.
“So you’ve got all your materials right?” she asks by way of greeting.
“Yes, Emily.”
She sounds more nervous than I feel. “Did I pack enough swag?”
“You shouldn’t have packed any. What am I going to do? Throw hats at people at the end of my speech?”
Her sigh is long suffering, which says a lot since she’s only been my assistant for a month. But she also forgave me for never telling her about Wesley so I’ll let her sigh a little longer.
“Just take care of Sarah, please. I think she’s going to pull up the carpet in my office while I’m away.”
After Sarah Beck, my former boss, offered me a job at the boutique agency she was opening in Boston, the first thing I did after accepting—and promising her that I would be reporting any interoffice relationships to HR—was install new, high-pile white carpet.
Sarah hates it.
“She’ll probably just put something dead in it so that it rots and stinks and you’ll have to pull the carpet up. A real power move.”
“Okay, well, don’t let her do that either.”
“Where are you?” Emily asks. “It’s loud.”
“I’m just taking a walk. I can’t be alone with my thoughts anymore.”
“Are you nervous?”
I stop on the trade show floor, spinning in a slow circle. I’m an island in a churning sea. “Am I nervous about my speech entitled ‘Disbanding the Boys Club in Corporate America’? Ummm. A little bit.”
“Corrine. You’re going to be great.”
My cold Grinch heart grows a little bigger. Not only did Emily forgive me for never telling her about my relationship with Wesley. She left Hill City to come work with me. She said it was an easy decision after Mark Gutterberg was fired and Richard took a “leave of absence.” But it means a lot nonetheless.
I walk down a quieter side aisle. “Thanks, Em.”
“Go get ’em, tiger.”
As I end the call, I’m bumped from behind, and stumble headlong into the nearest table. My phone and my bag go flying and I pull down half their display as a gray-suited man rushes past. “Careful there, honey,” he mutters.
I suppress a snarl as I right myself and kneel to collect all of the swag Emily had stuffed into my bag. Mixed with my things are flyers from the table, marketing copy for a new data tracking and analysis system that integrates with CRMs and uses AI to help users learn how to improve their strategies.
“I’m so sorry,” I say, rising slowly, still scanning the copy because it’s actually quite good. “I—”
I stop with my arm halfway across the table, flyers and magnets and coasters in my hand.
Wesley stands on the other side of the table. His mouth agape, his glasses skewed, his hair shorter than it was but still long enough to run my hands through. A blue T-shirt with a company logo on the front stretches across his chest. He’s fuller, taller somehow. Maybe just taller than I remembered. He’s exactly the same and yet completely different. He doesn’t look like he’s mine anymore.
A little shard of shame lodges in my chest at the thought; what right did I ever have to call him mine?
“Hi,” he says.
“Hi.”
My arm is sore, hanging here in space. I place the stack of flyers on his table.
He blinks at me, like he maybe isn’t quite sure he sees me either. “How are you?”
