“Hey, show some respect,” she warned, managing a grin. “She’s saved me more than once.”
Jim’s hand landed on her shoulder, paternal and reassuring, as he ushered out his crew. “You know where to find us if you need us.”
Cora stumbled into the hallway behind them, almost colliding with her elderly neighbor.
Mrs. Davenport’s eyes sparkled with barely concealed excitement. “You okay, dear?”
Cora stifled a groan. Mrs. Davenport was a retired librarian and a hardcore romance-novel junkie, and—judging by her breathless tone—she was far too pleased that her favorite eye candy had shown up again.
Her gaze bounced between Cora and the firefighters heading down the hall. “Had to call them,” she said, patting her cotton-ball cloud of hair with a wrinkled hand. “I heard that smoke alarm and knew you needed rescuing.”
At eighty-five, with a first-responder fetish, living next to Cora must have felt like hitting the geriatric jackpot.
Back in her apartment, Cora placed her usual post-disaster pizza order to be delivered to the fire station. Extra everything this time. Those guys deserved it for hauling up four flights in full gear just because she couldn’t toast bread.
She resisted the urge to pull out her color-coded crisis spreadsheet. The one she always turned to when a disaster, like a visit from the fire department before breakfast, threatened to upend her normal routine. Just last week, she’d added a line item about how to prevent a rice cooker from exploding and spraying basmati all over the kitchen floor.
Instead, she glanced at her phone and yelped. If she didn’t get moving, she’d be pitching food trends in her pajamas. After a lightning-fast wardrobe change, she dashed out the door. If she could face the FDNY before her morning coffee, convincing her boss she deserved that promotion would be a breeze, even if she had to do it with store-bought pastries and the smell of burnt toast in her hair.
Cora burstintoMorsel Magazine’s lobby, lugging a box of muffins from the bakery. “Morning, Vanessa. I brought carbs.”
The receptionist looked up from her desk, her manicured fingers shooing Cora toward the conference room. “You’d better grab one quick. They’re already waiting for you. And you’ll want to hurry. Something big is going down.”
Cora’s stomach fluttered with nerves.What was so urgent?Her meeting wasn’t scheduled for two more hours. As she power-walked down the hall, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a glass wall. Her hair looked like a bird’s nest, and her face had the kind of wild-eyed panic that screamed,Yes, I did just crawl out of a coal mine.Just what she wanted for the most important meeting of her career.
Slipping into the conference room, she was met with the harsh glare of fluorescent lights reflecting off the glossy mahogany table. Several ofMorsel’s head honchos sat at the far end, their expressions colder than week-old oatmeal. She dropped the bakery box on the credenza and slid into a leather chair, pulling her laptop out of her bag so she could present the data from her spreadsheets if they needed more information.
She leaned over to Roger, the eager marketing intern sitting next to her. “I brought muffins.”
His eyes widened in alarm.
“Relax, they’re from the bakery,” she added, trying not to sound offended.
Roger let out a relieved sigh and stretched to fish out a banana nut muffin. “Oh, thank goodness. Remember when you gave the whole art department food poisoning with those ‘special’ brownies?”
She straightened. “That’s what the recipe on Pinterest called them. And the magic ingredient was?—”
“Salmonella,” Roger finished with a chuckle.
She didn’t have time to defend herself, because Sylvia Masters,Morsel’s editor and Cora’s boss, cleared her throat at the head of the table. “All right people,let’s get started.”
Cora’s heart pounded so hard she was convinced everyone could hear it over the hum of the AC. This was it. The moment she’d been waiting for. Months of late nights, poring over endless stacks of spreadsheets, tweaking every prediction until it was razor sharp. She’d even forced Brad, her ex, to sit through a forecast marathon at her place one night instead of actually leaving the apartment for their date. But he’d seemed interested, so she’d kept talking. Maybe that’s why he’d ghosted her after dating for two months.
Still, it had been worth it. Sylvia had praised her work all along. “We wouldn’t be able to do it without you,” she’d said more than once. Cora only hoped the promotion would come with a raise, because living on takeout was starting to put a serious dent in her bank account. Her personal financial spreadsheet was coming dangerously close to setting off warning flares.
As she smoothed her black pencil skirt and sat a little straighter, the tension in the room thickened. No surprise there, considering how high-stakes this was. The annual food trend forecast wasMorsel’s most important issue of the year. Restaurants and brands across the country depended on it. Menus changed, new locations opened or closed. When Sylvia had handpicked Cora to lead the research team, it was a dream come true. A real chance to prove herself since leaving Sunrise, North Carolina, fifteen years ago.
Sylvia tapped her pen against the table, her lips twisting into a scowl. “Today was supposed to be a celebration,” she began, her voice tight. “Industry insiders rely onMorselfor our forecasting expertise. They trust us to give them the data they need to make informed decisions that wow their customers.” The pen stilled on the table. “But late last night, mere hours before our editorial meeting,Food Trends Monthlydropped their annual trend issue...and it reads exactly like the forecast we were going to send to press tonight!”
A ripple of unease passed through the room.
After a long, tense pause, a woman from accounting leaned forward, her hands flat on the table. “So, what do we do now?”
Sylvia’s sharp gaze swept across the room. “Legal has called an emergency meeting in thirty minutes. We need to assess the damage and figure out our response.” She paused again, and this time her eyes locked on Cora for a moment too long. “Prepare yourselves. We can’t afford to be second in this industry. Advertisers are already threatening to pull out. As of right now, we’re in crisis mode. Don’t plan on seeing your families anytime soon.”
A chill ran down Cora’s spine. Could her forecast have been leaked? As the team shuffled out, murmuring in hushed tones, Sylvia’s voice sliced through the noise.
“Cora,” she said. “I need to see you in my office. Now.”
