She had a whole new life and things were going well.
“We need to hurry. We can’t be late.” Eva interrupted Paige’s thoughts.
“She cannot give us the ‘part-time’ speech when we were all working until the early hours last night.”
Paige didn’t need to ask who she was. She was Cynthia, Director of Events, and the only thing Paige didn’t love about her job. Cynthia had joined Star Events a year after Paige, and the atmosphere in the company had immediately changed. It was as if someone had emptied toxic waste into a clear mountain stream and poisoned everyone who drank from it.
“I still can’t believe she fired poor Matilda. Have either of you heard from her?”
“I’ve been calling and calling,” Eva said. “She isn’t answering. I’m worried. She needed the job badly. I don’t have her address or I’d visit in person.”
“Keep calling. And I’m going to try and persuade Cynthia to change her mind.”
“What is her problem? She’s so angry all the time. If she hates the job so much, why doesn’t she leave? Every time I see her I want to apologize even though I haven’t done anything wrong. I feel as if she’s the Great White Shark at the top of the food chain and I’m a little seal she’s going to eat in one mouthful.”
Paige shook her head. “She is never going to leave. Which is another reason I want this promotion. I’ll have less contact with her, more responsibility and my own accounts.” She’d gain more experience and one day, hopefully not too far away, she was going to start her own business and be her own boss. She’d be the one in control.
It was her dream, but she wasn’t prepared to stop at dreaming.
She had a plan.
“You’ll be a brilliant boss,” Eva said generously. “From the day you organized my eighth birthday party, I knew you were going places. Of course it wouldn’t be hard to be a better boss than Cynthia. I heard someone say the other day that she isn’t happy until she’s made everyone cry at least once.” Eva did an emergency stop beside another store window, seals and sharks forgotten in the face of retail nirvana. “Do you think that top would fit me?”
“Maybe, but there’s no way it’s fitting in your closet.” Paige dragged her away. “You need to throw something out before you buy anything new.”
“Is it my fault that I get emotionally attached to things?”
Frankie walked to the other side of Eva to stop her window gazing. “How can anyone be emotionally attached to clothes?”
“Easy. If something good happens to me while I’m wearing something, I wear it again when I need to feel positive. For example today I’m wearing my lucky shirt to make extra sure that Paige’s promotion comes with a massive pay raise.”
“How can a shirt be lucky?”
“Good things have happened to me while I’ve been wearing this shirt.”
Frankie shook her head. “I don’t want to know.”
“Good, because I’m not telling you. You don’t know everything about me. I have a mystical side.” Eva craned her neck to try and look in windows. “Could I—”
“No.” Paige gave her a tug. “You’re not mystical, Ev. You’re an open book.”
“Better that than cruel and inhuman. And we all have our own, individual addictions. Frankie’s is flowers, yours is red lipstick—” Eva glanced at her. “That’s a nice shade. New?”
“Yes. It’s called Summer Success.”
“Very apt. We should celebrate tonight. Or do you think Cynthia will want to take you out?”
“Cynthia doesn’t socialize.” Paige had spent countless hours trying to understand her boss but still had no insight. “I’ve never heard her talk about anyone or anything except work.”
“Do you think she has a sex life?”
“None of us has a sex life. This is Manhattan. Everyone is too busy to have sex.”
“Apart from my mother,” Frankie muttered.
“And Jake,” Eva intervened quickly. “He was at the Adams event the other night. Sexiest guy in the room. Smart, too. He gets laid regularly, but I guess being scorching hot and having that killer body helps. I can see why you had a crazy teenage crush on him, Paige.”
Paige felt as if someone had thrust a fist into her stomach. “That was a long time ago.”
The thought of Jake having sex shouldn’t bother her; it really shouldn’t.
“First love is very powerful,” Eva said. “The feeling never quite goes away.”
“So is first disappointment. That feeling never goes away, either. My crush on Jake ended a long time ago, so you can stop looking at me like that.”
But the relationship wasn’t easy.
There were days when she wished Jake wasn’t her brother’s closest friend.
If he’d been some random guy from her teenage years she could have moved on, laughed and forgotten about it, instead of which she was destined to carry the embarrassing memory around like a ball and chain. It was always there, clanking behind her.
Even now, so many years later, she cringed when she thought about the things she’d said to him. Worse, the things she’d done.
She’d been naked—
The memory made her want to slide through a hole in the floor.
Did he ever think about it? Because she thought about it a lot.
Eva was still talking. “I’m willing to bet he’s on a million women’s bucket lists.”
Frankie shook her head in disbelief. “When people are compiling a bucket list they usually choose skydiving or a trip to Machu Picchu, all amazing life experiences, Ev.”
“I’m pretty sure being kissed by Jake Romano would be an amazing life experience. Much better than skydiving, but then I’m scared of heights.”
Paige kept walking.
She was never going to find out.
Even when she’d thrown herself at him, Jake had never come close to kissing her.
She’d dreamed of him being overcome by lust. Instead he’d gently disentangled himself from her clinging limbs, as if he’d suddenly found himself covered in laundry blown by the wind.
His patient kindness had been the most humiliating blow of all. He hadn’t been fighting lust; he had been fighting her, fending her off.
It was the first and only time she’d ever said “I love you” to a man. She’d been so sure he had feelings for her and the fact that she’d got it so wrong had governed all her interactions with men since. She no longer trusted her instincts.
These days she was very, very careful with her heart. She exercised, she ate her five portions of fruit and vegetables and she focused on her work, which always proved more exciting than any of the few relationships she’d had.
Paige paused outside the offices of Star Events and breathed deeply. She didn’t need to be thinking about Jake right before the most important meeting of her life. He had a tendency to turn her brain and her knees to jelly. She needed to focus. “This is it. No more laughing. Fun is not allowed inside these walls.”
Cynthia was waiting for them by the reception desk.
Paige felt a flash of irritation.