It was time to banish her from my head. I had a company to save.
CHAPTER 3
FAITH
After Thursday’s disaster, I took Friday off job hunting—one more day of no money would make no difference to me sleeping in the gutter in the future or a tent in Mom’s backyard—same/same.
It was late in the afternoon. The sound of the front door opening and closing reached me from my position lying on my back on the living room floor. Amy’s high-heels clacked along the hallway floor, going silent when she reached the door to the room where I was indulging my mental breakdown.
“Faith, why are you on the floor? Are you having a fainting spell after meeting Curtis Knight yesterday?” She dropped her keys on a side table near the doorway.
The memory of his intense stare flipped my stomach, and I ignored it, as I’d done several other times since yesterday. I wasnotgoing to be attracted to some rich asshole, even if nothing could ever come of it. I’d save my crushes for average-earning non-assholes. If it wasn’t for my bad man choices, I wouldn’t be in this position in the first place. Rich guys and I fit together about as well as caviar and ketchup. “Ha ha, very funny. I’ve got an emotional hangover—not from him, by the way. I watchedUnder the Tuscan SunandBridesmaidsfor the two-hundredth time.” They were totally my comfort movies. “I was going to stretch out the aches after yesterday’s exercise and degradation, but when I made it to the floor, I decided a nap would be better. Your Persian rug is just so comfy.”
She chuckled. “I had no idea. Thanks for the heads-up.” She sat on the white-and-blue-striped armchair closest to my head. “Are you okay?” My friend usually didn’t get home from work until seven—being a lawyer wasn’t for slackers—but she was worried about me after yesterday.
“Not really.” I stared at the rattan light fitting above us. “Why won’t anyone hire me? Do I smell? Do I look stupid? Am I stupid? Do I look like I embezzled from my last job, or maybe I’m giving off dumpster-diving-racoon energy?” I sat up, eyes wide. “Am I too old? Is that what’s wrong?” I’d heard of older women being passed over for jobs, but older was forties and fifties, not late twenties, for crying out loud. “Am I past it already?”
“No, of course not! Oh, I got this from work.” She pulled a phone out of her bag, reached over, and handed it to me. “It was in the trade-in pile. It’s a year older than your other one, but it works. It’s been wiped and is ready to go.”
“I can pay you for it.”
She shook her head and gave me a “look.” “Don’t be ridiculous. I okayed it with my boss first. It’s not worth much, and we don’t need it, so…. Besides, you’d do the same for me if you could and I needed it. If I can’t help my best friend, what’s the point?”
I knelt, knee-shuffled to her, and hugged her legs. She laughed and patted my head. “Thank you. I’ll pay you back one day. I promise.” I released her legs and sat cross-legged on the floor.
“No need. There is one other thing.” She eyed me tentatively.
Hmm, that look was never followed by something good. “What?” Was she going to ask me to leave? We’d both agreed this was a short-term living arrangement, and I knew she deserved her privacy. I took a fortifying breath.
“Whatever you’re thinking, that’s not it. You look like you just found out someone shoved dog poo in your Docs and set them on fire.”
I laughed. “Don’t disrespect the Docs.”
She placed a hand on her heart and gave me a mock-shocked look. “I would never. Anyway, as I was saying, I could have a job for you.”
My interest was piqued but not my excitement… yet. There was still the matter of the look she’d given me. I waved my hand in the air. “Continue.”
“One of our PAs is moving to our London office. I think you’d be a good fit.” She even managed to keep a straight face while she said it.
I didn’t want to be ungrateful, but…. “Wow, you know things are desperate when you’re willing to give me a job like that. You know how disorganized I am, which is generally bad for a PA, but in a law firm? I’m like the anti-PA. I’m the PA you give someone when you want them to fail. Also, what if I don’t like the boss? You know my poker face is nonexistent. If you put me forward for an interview and they agree to give me the job, I won’t be able to say no. I wouldn’t do that to you. It could all end in disaster. They’ll never trust your judgment again.”
“You’re notthatbad. Okay, you could be more organized, but your typing speed is over a hundred words a minute, and you know how to use spreadsheets and type emails.”
I raised one eyebrow. “But what about the time I had to book that trip to London for Mark, and I didn’t realize I was meant to get him to Heathrow, not some small airport sixty miles south ofthere? He missed his first meeting. And then I got the time zones mixed up on his return trip, and he had to get up at four in the morning to catch the plane home.” Let’s not go all the way back to college and high school where most of my assignments were done in a flush of adrenaline and panic the night before. Also, I owned a planner—I just never used it, which didn’t stop me buying a new one every year in the hope that it would work some spell and magic organization and achievement into me. Would I buy one next year? Yep. Would I become the queen of organization? It was best not to answer that. Hopeful denial was a comfortable space to live in.
She pressed her lips together. “That guy was a huge log of excrement. And you weren’t even his assistant. He just wanted to be boss in the relationship, too, remind you who was in charge. Are you sure your subconscious didn’t do it on purpose?”
“Hmm, maybe.” I kind of wished I’d done it on purpose, but I wasn’t like that. Besides, I hadn’t realized he was treating me so badly until I was out of the relationship. At least I knew the signs to look out for now. I’d never let myself be used that way again. Rich men in positions of power were the worst. From what Mom had told me, my father had been the son of someone like that. As soon as he’d found out about the pregnancy, he’d ghosted Mom. He’d never tried to contact me. I was dead to him, and he was dead to me. Mom tried to warn me about Mark, but I hadn’t listened, so the fallout was on me… again. “Anyway, as much as I appreciate your help, don’t offer me the job. You’ll end up regretting it. I’ll find something, even if I have to move cities. There’s a job out there for me somewhere.”
She sighed. “But you just got here. I don’t mind you staying.”
“Thanks, but I can’t mooch off you forever. I still have a tiny piece of pride left here somewhere.” I turned and ran my hands along the rug, pretending to look for it.
Amy laughed. “Okay, but talk to me before you go anywhere.Don’t up and leave in the middle of day while I’m not here. I’d likesomenotice.”
“So you can talk me out of it?”
“Hmm, maybe.” She stood. “Why don’t you put your SIM into the phone, and I’ll grab two glasses and a bottle of vino. I have this California pinot gris I’ve been dying to try.”
