I prefer that to attacking my best friend. Or so I tell myself, even though my stomach is twisted into a knot that’s growing more painful with each passing moment.
Finally, I step inside my home. Matthias looks up from wiping down the kitchen counter, then frowns. “Are you all right?”
“What?” I shake my head, realizing I can’t tell him anything. “Yeah, sure. I’m fine.”
“You’re pale,” he says, peering at my face.
“It’s just the heat.”
He raises a skeptical eyebrow. I was in an air-conditioned office, then in an air-conditioned car—and now I’m in an air-conditioned mansion.
“Heat as in pressure from the new Korean venture. Business heat.” I force a smile. “Don’t worry.”
I go straight to my home office on the upper level, dump my purse on the desk and start pacing. Bianca’s always done everything I asked her to. There’s no way she’s been deliberately obstructing me.
Miscommunications happen when you’re working through email. I should talk with Sebastian and see if we can fly to Korea and do a face-to-face meeting to resolve all the remaining issues so we can move forward.
My phone pings. I fish it out of my purse.
–Bianca: All rescheduled. I sent you an email with updates. Review it in case you need to change something. Hope you’re feeling better XOXO.
See? She did what I asked.If I call Karen right now, she’ll tell me she’ll see me tomorrow at eleven. And HR and legal are still looking for a way to fire Darren without giving him a golden parachute, and the audit team she hired on my behalf to look into my trust fund is busy at work.
Nothing’s wrong. Not. A. Thing.
But I can’t settle down. Anxiety burns through me, and I continue to pace. Bianca and I are best friends. My childhood would’ve been bleak without her. When Grandfather belittled me, it was Bianca who hugged me. When Karl and Vonnie made their asshole moves, it was Bianca who sat with me and came up with a billion ways to get them back, to cheer me up. She almost got suspended from high school once for trying to punch Vonnie in the face…
Knocks on the door startle me out of my endless pacing. “Yes?”
Sebastian walks in. He must’ve come up right after he arrived. He’s still in his suit.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Don’t you have meetings to attend?”
“Meetings? It’s six.”
Six?I’ve totally lost track of time, stressing about the situation with Bianca.
He takes my wrists gently and peers at me. “What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?”
“Matthias said you holed yourself away in your office as soon as you came home and wouldn’t answer his questions about dinner or snacks.”
I don’t remember any of that. But then, I was distracted. Maybe…just maybe that’s what happened with Bianca and Mr. Park. She’s overworked and needs another assistant in addition to Julio. You can only juggle so many balls before you start dropping some.
Then why didn’t she ask?
Maybe she overestimated her bandwidth…
And Gabriella Ricci?
It’s an unanswerable question. And there’s nobody I can talk to about this. I really don’t want to discuss the situation with Sebastian, especially because it feels disloyal to Bianca.
But he has a right to know what’s going on with the collaboration.
I sigh. “I got a call from Yuna.”
“Okay.” He leans against my desk.
