At least he had the sense to look remorseful.
I knew what I was going to say next before I fully committed to saying it. I had never bared my feelings so honestly to anyone before. But I had to. It was crucial that Neil know how important he was to me, especially now that I had totally fucked him over. And especially now that I knew I’d done it on purpose to push him away.
“I want you to live my life with me,” I finished, and I felt like my heart was going to leap from my throat, I was so scared. This completely contradicted the “safe relationship path” chart I had drawn up in my head, but I didn’t care.
He took a breath. I couldn’t read the emotions that crossed his face. Finally, he simply smiled and said, “I want the same thing, Sophie.”
“Good.” That helped ease some of the sick feeling. “I’m really sorry for not telling you.”
“I know you didn’t do it to deliberately hurt me.” He released me and stepped back. “You did it because you were protecting yourself. It might not seem so to you, but there is a world of difference between the two. I’m angry and hurt, and I’m not entirely forgiving you at this moment, but knowing why you did it helps.”
“And I can appreciate why you fired me.” Ow, it stung a bit to say it now. The shock was wearing off.
We sat together on the couch in silence for a while, both of us clearly unhappy with how the day had gone, both of us desperately wanting to make it all different, without really knowing how.
“I have to call Rudy,” Neil said suddenly, forcing some cheerfulness into his voice. “This may take a while. But why don’t we go out tonight? Emma is going to be busy with horrible Michael. You and I could go see a movie or have dinner out. Anything from sitting around and stewing about this.”
In a strange way, it was a relief that he wasn’t my boss anymore. Now he could just be my boyfriend, and I could just be his girlfriend.
Even if things were strained between us at the moment.
Of course, this meant my lunch with Gabriella tomorrow would be life-or-death. Okay, life-or-unemployment. Same difference.
Chapter Twenty-One
"Look at you," Neil said with a low whistle as I leaned close to the mirror, applying eyeliner. "You never get this dressed up on the weekend for me."
"Because I don't have to." I blinked a few times. The cold sensation of the liquid at the edge of my eyelid faded as it dried. "You like me with or without."
"That I do." He'd been leaning against the sink, watching me, seemingly fascinated by the whole process as I put on my makeup. I suspected he just liked watching me. "If Gabriella Winters had any intelligence at all, she would appreciate you the same way."
"Well, hopefully she'll appreciate me sans earrings, because I didn't bring any." I frowned, and hoped I could keep my hair from moving for the entire lunch, so she wouldn't notice.
“I might be able to help with that.” Neil straightened and went out of the bathroom. By the time he returned, I'd applied my mascara. I noticed the distinctive light-blue box in his hand. He turned it around in his palm and cautiously met my gaze in the mirror. "This was supposed to be a Christmas gift, but... I think it might make a better good luck charm."
Nothing on this planet would ever riddle me with such anxiety as the sight of Neil holding a small jewelry box with an earnest expression on his face. He lifted the lid and took out a blue velvet drawstring bag, which he up-ended into his palm. When two gleaming stud earrings shook out, I had to forcibly stop my sigh of relief.
"Oh my god." I stared down at the truly beautiful gems in their gleaming round settings. "Is that white gold?"
"Platinum, and pink sapphires." He held them out to me. "Do you like them?"
"They're absolutely beautiful." I took them, feeling oddly choked up. "Neil, this is too much."
"You don't want me to tell you how to live your life, don't tell me how to spend my money," he scolded gently, leaning forward to kiss my cheek. "I know that you will do beautifully today. Gabriella is a fool if she doesn't hire you."
I admired the earrings a moment before putting them on, and Neil continued, "Of course, I think you might be a bit of a fool to consider working for her when I've offered to help you find another job..."
"That's enough," I warned sweetly. After our near nuclear fight the day before, we'd come to a truce. He wouldn't give me unsolicited career advice, and if I got into dire financial straits, I would remember to ask him for help before doing anything drastic like a high interest credit card.
"I'm sorry we fought." He said quietly. "Those... might be a bit of an apology as well."
I smiled as I fastened the back of one stud. "I'm not sorry, actually. It was nice to have a fight with my boyfriend, not my boss. I didn't have to hold back."
He gave me that half-smile and watched as I put on the other earring.
Then, softer, I said, "These are beautiful. Thank you so much."
He came to stand behind me, his arms encircling my waist. "I love you, Sophie. No matter how we might fight, I love you. We're having some growing pains, but I'd much rather argue than not talk about our problems. That didn't work out so well for me the last time."
My heart did a ridiculous little flutter. He wanted us to work out. To what end, I didn't know, and I didn't want to speculate. Things were moving pretty fast already.
"Is this the part where I mention the super awesome make-up sex?" I giggled. "I want to make sure I've got my clichés right."
"I think this is the part where you're going to be late for your lunch, and I'm going to be late for my meeting, if we don't behave ourselves." He gave me one last peck on the cheek and went to his closet to dress.
The meeting he was having at Porteras this afternoon was an emergency one he'd arranged last night. He was going to meet with the rest of management and discuss the information I'd given him - and my firing. They were also planning to uncover just who was stealing the subscriber list. A lot of the staff had worked up from the mailroom, or assistant positions that’d had access to the list. Ferreting out the culprit was going to be difficult.
I put the meeting out of my mind, to focus on my own. Neil would be out most of the afternoon, but we’d made dinner plans. I hoped everything would be sewn up by then, so we could get back to normal.
My phone buzzed, and I picked it up. It was a text from Holli: Some raccoons have moved into your room, is it cool if they stay there?
I snorted and shot back: I'll be home today. BTW I got fired.
Almost immediately, she responded: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
It would be easier to explain in person.
* * * *
Gabriella wanted to meet at a brunch place in the Meat Packing district. It was part French bistro, part daylight-hours nightclub. There was a line outside the door, but when I gave my name to the runway model-looking hostess, I was ushered right inside.
Gabriella, Jake, and Penelope sat at a corner table in the busy dining room. Gabriella and Penelope had taken the tall-backed booth seat against the wall, while Jake was installed in one of the chairs on the other side. They were all well-dressed, impeccably groomed, luxuriating in an air of their own self-importance that was bolstered by the timid glances and whispers at the tables around them.
They looked like fucking vampires.
"Sophie, it's so nice to see you again." Gabriella rose from her chair and leaned over the table when I approached, kissing the air on either side of my face. She'd never greeted me quite so effusively. I wasn't sure she'd ever actually greeted me, come to think of it. Her chin-length, ruby red bob swayed like the pendulum in Poe's story as she sat back down.
"Sophie, you look good," Jake said, standing to pull me into a hug. I went along with it, because to him, we were still old friends. He didn't know I thought he'd become an insufferable dick. "You look great, have you lost weight?"
"Um. No?" I smoothed the front of my jacket. "Did you think I needed to lose weight?"
Wow, moody much? I couldn
't figure out why, but for some reason, everything anybody said lately poked the badger. Probably because I was so tired and stressed out.
"No, no. Just noticing," Jake said with a frozen sort of "oh, shit," smile.
As I took my seat at the table, I realized what my problem was. I'd been working with real people, spending time with real people. Gabriella and Jake were just broadly drawn caricatures of their own making. It was so sad that they couldn't see how ridiculous it all was. It made me even sadder to think that I'd bought into their "we're so important" clique mentality for my entire career so far. Had I really wanted to be just like them? Did I still?
The thought made me queasy. But then, I was always queasy lately. I was pretty sure I was getting a stress ulcer.
Caricatures or not, they were willing to give me a job. So I needed to nod, smile and play along. I had spent two years swallowing my opinion of Gabriella Winters; I could go another ten if I had to.
"How have you been finding Porteras, Sophie? Be honest." Gabriella's huge blue eyes narrowed as she waited to scrutinize my answer. There wasn't a single line on her face, but I got the impression she was frowning.
I could be honest. I didn't work there anymore. "Well... I was promoted to assistant beauty editor - "
"I know all this." Gabriella waved her hand. "What I want to hear is how the magazine is doing internally."
"Oh. Well, there are some growing pains." I knew that wasn't what she wanted to hear. She wanted me to openly condemn the new company and give her secrets she could weaponize. Whether I still worked for Porteras or not, I wasn't about to sabotage Neil for their sakes. "I think they're going to lose some subscribers as they continue to tinker with the format, but they'll attract new ones, as well. There is a market for cruelty-free fashion, and I’m proud that Porteras is going to be on the cutting edge of that movement."
"How... diplomatic of you." Gabriella looked amused at my answer.
"And is Elwood giving you any more problems?" Jake asked. To his credit he sounded actually concerned. I had to give him a bit of a break there; he didn't know Neil and I were dating. From his point of view, he'd seen me come out of the boss's locked office all shaken up and flushed and freaked out. Then I'd gotten a promotion the next week.
Better to clear that up right away. "I never had a problem with Mr. Elwood. I barely worked for him at all before I was promoted, and that was on Gabriella's recommendation. And thank you so much for that, Gabriella. It really meant a lot to me that you thought me capable of the job."
She gave me a benevolent smile. "I knew you'd do well there, Sophie. It wasn't a favor to promote you."
A waiter came over with menus, and I tucked my hair behind my ear as I scanned it. Almost immediately, I noticed Penelope's eyes light up.
Penelope and I had gotten along okay when she'd been second assistant in Gabriella's office. Tall and willowy with ginger hair and cat-like green eyes, she had often been mistaken for a model in her early days at Porteras. But she had a photographer's eye for detail, and she zeroed in now on the pink sapphire winking in my ear. "What lovely earrings. Tiffany, right?"
"Oh my, Neil Elwood must pay his assistant editors much better than I did," Gabriella murmured, raising one eyebrow and pursing her lips as her gaze flickered over the menu. I honestly don't know why she ever bothered to look at the damn things; any restaurant in New York would make her whatever she asked for, and she knew it.
I ordered a cheddar and kale salad with baked eggs. Gabriella had her customary salmon. Jake, having the totally unfair metabolism of a dude, got eggs benedict with the muffins swapped out for portobello caps, and Penelope stuck to water, since she was doing a detoxifying cleanse. As we ate, we chatted amiably about what Gabriella had been up to since leaving Porteras.
As much as working for her had stressed me out, I did like Gabriella. I respected the hell out of her for getting what she wanted out of life, and not allowing the usual roadblocks of gender and stereotype to hold her back. And I had to admire how quickly she'd gotten a new magazine organized and staffed, even if their first issue wasn't due until February.
"It will be completely digital," she said with languid pride. "I must admit, I've never liked the idea of a totally paperless publication. I thought it cheapened the brand when Porteras began offering a digital edition, but we just weren't thinking outside of the box then. Jake has shown me that a magazine can be beautifully presented, with quality content, and transcend the limitations of print."
"Wow, Jake. I had no idea you were so talented with the computer stuff," I said, truly impressed.
He smirked and lifted his water glass to his lips, pausing before he drank to say, "Well, in my new role at Mode, I'm able to take some pretty big risks."
"You're welcome," Gabriella said easily. She dropped her napkin on her plate. "Sophie, you could be taking those risks, as well. How would you feel about... assistant creative director?"
I was so grateful I didn't have a mouthful of anything, because I would have sprayed it all over the table.
"Excuse me?" I looked from Gabriella to Jake. Across the table, Penelope was smiling the benign smile of someone content to wait for her day to come. "You're not serious."
"Totally serious, Sophie," Jake assured me, looping one arm over my shoulders in a buddy-buddy gesture. "I told Gabriella about the work you've been doing in the beauty department, and how hard it's been for you guys to find worthwhile products to feature. She picked up the January issue - "
"Ghastly," Gabriella said under her breath. "Not your section, of course."
"And we agreed that with the parameters you've been given, you exceeded beyond expectation," Jake continued.
"Right, but there are two other people working with me in the beauty department. It's not just my work you're looking at. India does a great job - "
"India does a great job drinking during the work day," Gabriella said, her gaze sliding slyly to Penelope, who smirked and shook her head. "And we already have Jessica Nguyen working for us in another capacity. Sophie, I'm not going to beg you. You either trust me when I say that I know you can do the job and accept the position, or you toddle out of here and go back to Porteras."
"She can't go back to Porteras," Penelope said, sipping her coffee. "You're getting fired, aren't you?"
My stomach dropped. "How the hell could you possibly know that? It just happened."
"Twenty minutes ago." She held up her phone, displaying a text message. It said, Scaife's out.
"Who - " I shook my head. Who wasn't important. Well, it was. But that would be important later. “I had an idea I was getting canned."
"Because of your involvement with Neil Elwood?" Gabriella asked quietly.
"What? No. I'm not involved with him." I looked to Jake, because I couldn't handle the pointed stares from the other side of the table.
He shifted uncomfortably and couldn't meet my eyes.
"Jake tells me you had a locked-door interlude with Elwood," Gabriella said, fixing me with her x-ray vision that I swore would see right into my soul. "Your work attendance changed drastically once he was installed. You took a long lunch with him on the second day he was there, and you took two half-days and a sick day..."
"I was a little shaken by the fact that the boss I liked working for suddenly wasn't my boss anymore, and I didn’t know how secure my job was," I said, as politely as possible. "How do you know all of this?"
"Half the remaining staff at Porteras is still loyal to Gabriella, Soph," Jake said, looking utterly baffled that I didn't realize this myself. "It's not like they're unwilling to share this information."
How the fuck had this gone from a job interview, no, a job offer, to a goddamned interrogation by the Mean Girls clique?
"And those are very expensive earrings," Penelope observed.
"No one is condemning you, Sophie. We're simply concerned that your loyalties might not lie in the right place." Gabriella studied me as though she were going to paint me from memory
later. "You understand, of course, that future involvement with Mr. Elwood, or any employee of an Elwood and Stern company, will be... discouraged, should you accept my offer?"
"There's nothing to discourage," I insisted. Shit. Would she hire a private investigator to follow me? Or would she just have one of her simpering sycophants do it?
That made me feel bad. Not too long ago, I'd been one of those sycophants. How often had I done things for her that had hurt my co-workers? Probably plenty, and without question, because I’d wanted to be good at my job. My mind raced over all the times she'd asked me to keep an eye on the elevators, to see what time this editor or that assistant arrived to work. The times she'd sent me on errands to fashion houses and asked me who'd been waiting in the lobby with me. Probably all those times had been about espionage more than errands.
Holy fuck, I'd been living in a freaking soap opera and I'd never noticed. Because I had wanted the glamor and the drama, or maybe I had thought I was supposed to want it.
I felt super dizzy. I gulped down some water and hoped my face didn't look as red as it felt.
"It isn't that I don't want the job," I began cautiously. "Obviously I need a job, since I'm unemployed. But I really have to think about this. It's such a huge responsibility, and I don't want to take it lightly. Can I let you know tomorrow?"
"That's reasonable, right, Gabriella?" Jake asked nervously.
She sighed. "I really had hoped for more enthusiasm. But then, your cautious nature was one of the reasons I hired you as my assistant."
We chatted a bit more, but it was clear that as the point had been reached, the "interview" was over. Jake offered to walk me out, and while I didn't want to be anywhere near him, I couldn't refuse.
"Listen... is there anything going on with you and Neil Elwood?" Jake asked. "You seem... off. And you didn't exactly laugh at those accusations."