“You rarely do before I save you.”
She tilts my chin and swipes gloss over my mouth before I can protest. It smells like vanilla and ambition. When she steps back, my reflection still looks like me, just louder. Not prettier, exactly. Not changed. More difficult to ignore. The sight makes a tight ache press behind my breastbone.
“My hair doesn’t matter,” I say. “My mouth doesn’t matter. He’s here for Todd. He doesn’t know I exist. Besides, he won’t even be that handsome in person.”
Loora freezes. “Excuse me?”
“We work with models constantly. They never translate the way a camera makes them. He probably has one good angle, aggressive lighting and a publicist who sold their soul to Photoshop.”
Her smile turns slow. “Careful.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m hearing a bet.”
I should not take that bait. I have taken worse bait from men with business cards and loafers, so this is at least on brand. “Fine. If he is as handsome in person as his pictures, I’ll buy you lunch.”
“Not lunch. Sushi.”
“Absolutely not.”
“And dessert.”
“You’re abusing a woman under corporate duress.”
“And coffee from thegoodplace.”
I narrow my eyes. “If he’s not as handsome in person, you buy me sushi, dessert, and coffee from the good place.”
“Done.” Loora sticks out her hand.
I shake it because, apparently, sleep deprivation has eaten away at the part of my brain in charge of decision-making. “Easy win.”
Loora puts both hands on my shoulders, and for once, her face goes still. “The King of Layn sent his Ak here to fix this magazine. If anyone in this building can tell him what Athena Magazine is supposed to be, it’s you.”
I look away. That lands too close to the soft place I keep covered.
Athena saved me before I ever worked here. Sixteen years old, presenting Omega in a high school bathroom stall with my thighs shaking, my skin too hot, and three girls outside the door laughing because my body had dared to become more body. More hips, more breasts, more scent, more everything they could point at. Later that afternoon, I found an old issue of Athena in the guidance counselor’s office. A cover model with thick thighs and a gap-toothed smile. An editor’s letter from Soleia Ak Layn about beauty not being obedience. A profile of a scientist who built prosthetics for girls who wanted to dance again. I read that magazine until the pages softened at the edges. For one afternoon, my body was not homework assigned by people who hated me.
That was before Todd turned Athena into celebrity divorces, detox rituals, and ten ways to make an alpha notice you without seeming desperate enough to want anything.
Loora squeezes my shoulders once. “Nobody else reads it like you do. Nobody else cares like you do. So get up there. Take your notes. Rock that room. Then come back and ask me what I want on my sushi platter.”
“He won’t be that handsome,” I mutter.
Her smile says she has already ordered the spicy tuna.
The elevator opens on thirty-two, and Todd steps in. Of course he does. The universe has never handed me a blank notebookwhen it could scribble in a man in a charcoal suit and too much hair product.
He looks at me the way he always looks at me, like I’m a smudge on his desk he hasn’t gotten around to wiping off yet. “I see you weaseled your way into this meeting.”
“Good morning, Todd.”
“I would say the same, but for you it probably won’t be.”
My jaw tightens. Forty-seven floors is a long way up. “I didn’t weasel anywhere. If the Ak Layn wants both editors present, I’m happy to be useful.”
“That’s rich.” He straightens his lapels. “Just remember when we get up there, you keep your mouth shut. He doesn’t need to hear from someone at your level.”
