1
CLAUDIA
“You have gotto be fucking kidding me,” I sighed when I noticed the blue and red lights in my rearview mirror and the shrillwhoopingsound in tandem with the sirens.
Gravel crunched under my tires as I maneuvered my car onto the side of the highway. Other than my car and the police cruiser pulling over behind me, I saw nothing for miles but asphalt and woods on either side of the road. So much for using the drive to calm myself down before I arrived at my best friend Peyton’s house. I shut my eyes at the footfalls coming from behind my now-open car window.
I’d always loved the drive from Brooklyn to Kelly Lakes. Once I made it out of the New York City boroughs, the traffic would ease for the most part, and it would be only me on the open, quiet road. I’d enjoy the long miles of nothing but my own company before I spent a few days with my best friend and her adorable family.
As I’d white-knuckled the steering wheel for the past almost-three hours, the low hum of the engine and my own exasperated sighs the only things filling the silence inside my car, this drive had been anything but relaxing. In fact, with every mile that had ticked by, the more time I’d had to think about what had just happened and to let it all sink in. A flurry of emotions had barreled over me after the initial shock had faded, coming out in the nail marks on my steering wheel and my lead foot on the gas pedal.
Thirteen years. Thirteen fucking years. My friends had all job-hopped after we graduated from college—except for Peyton, until her own professional life had imploded and she’d escaped to what I called the country, Kelly Lakes. Every time I’d come to visit, I got a kick out of the small Upstate New York town that always reminded me of a Hallmark movie set.
Sure, moving around would have meant bigger salary increases, but I had been happy where I was and never wanted to leave. Maybe I’d gotten too comfortable, but why would I leave a job I liked and that I was good at? Maintaining sales quotas and new business pitches was stressful, but I loved the challenge and the people I worked with.
When the company had changed hands last year, we’d all been a little nervous, but I’d never had any fears or doubts about keeping my job. I had the highest revenue in our office, my clients loved me and would often refer new prospects to us, who would ask for me specifically. The new group of executives had been every bit a boys’ club, but I’d endured the mansplaining during our weekly staff meetings and grinned while setting them straight that I knew what the hell I was talking about.
I had always been outspoken, even as a kid. My father said that smart women had to be louder than mediocre men in order to be heard, and while he’d get exasperated each time I’d gotten into trouble for talking in class, I was never punished for it.
I’d learned early on to be polite but unyielding. And in the past year, that attitude had pissed off upper management enough to endure an undercurrent of tension whenever I came into the office. My friends had left the company one by one, and I was all that was left of the original staff. I knew deep down I’d have to leave eventually, but I’d thought it would be on my terms.
Once I’d spotted the meeting invitation from HR—with no explanation—when I’d opened my inbox this morning, I’d known. I’d had fifteen minutes to let it sink in before I was called into the conference room with my boss and a terrified HR manager.
“You’ve been a great asset to the company, Claudia. This isn’t performance-based. We just want to go a different direction,” my boss had said. That different direction being a fresh out of graduate school sales rep—whom I’d caught calling my boss “Uncle Greg” on his first day. They’d asked me to bring him to client meetings and lunches for him toshadow me and learn, but after I’d had to shut him down a few times for promising things that he didn’t fully understand yet and couldn’t deliver on, he began shadowing his uncle in executive meetings instead.
He was young and arrogant without experience, but I supposed he’d thought that since he had a penis, he would automatically know better than me. I’d always laughed it off when I met guys like him, but I’d never thought I’d lose my job to one.
My foot had come down even harder as I’d thought of all the late nights and weekends, all the anxious Sunday nights I’d spent worrying if the week would go well. My love life had always been a mess, but I’d nurtured my professional one and made it my priority. All those years of hard work seemed like time squandered as I looked back from where I was now.
My parents had reiterated from the time I’d had a summer cashier’s job to save twenty percent of each paycheck because “you never know,” and to shut them up, I’d let my father set up a savings account for me. My plan had been to go on a bucket-list vacation or buy the house of my dreams someday with all I’d accumulated over the years, never thinking it would become an emergency fund.
I had severance and unemployment to fall back on for the next few weeks, and I had enough contacts to get feelers out, but the very thought of meeting with recruiters or going on interviews exhausted me, and I wasn’t ready to even think about any of that yet.
Not now, and maybe not period.
The thought of starting over pissed me off, and what for? Just to be back here again someday? I had been loyal to my company and had given my all every single day, and one morning, they’d discarded me like yesterday’s garbage. The anger and disappointment were raw, but deep enough to shift the mind-set I’d always had.
After that one fifteen-minute meeting, all my years of hard work had equated to nothing.
My stomach had turned in disgust at the realization, until it’d dropped when I’d realized I was being pulled over.
“Do you know how fast you were going?” the police officer growled in my ear.
“What difference does it make? I’m the only one on this road.”
That was the wrong answer and wouldn’t help at all, but frustrated petulance had taken over for my common sense.
“Almost thirty over the speed limit. License and registration, please.”
“Look,” I said, plastering on a wide smile as I sucked in a slow breath. When I turned, I found an at least six-foot-tall Adonis with narrowed blue eyes, a chiseled jaw covered in just enough stubble to stay on this side of clean-cut, holding out his toned forearm.
“I know the chief,” I stammered, clearing my throat when my voice came out scratchy. “His niece is my best friend, in fact.”
“Chief McGrath wouldn’t like the idea of you speeding on his roads, no matter who you are and what time it is. License and registration,” he requested slowly, as if I were a child and he’d just run out of patience.
And it was hot as hell.
Something I shouldn’t have noticed in the cop I was in trouble with—and definitely not after the day I’d just had. I’d jumped in my car and torn out of my spot in front of my Brooklyn apartment building to escape to a friendly place where corporate assholes didn’t exist and there were little parlors dedicated to ice cream.
