Champagne bubbles fizzed as featherlight laughter drifted to the ballroom’s ceiling. A jazz band filled any lulls in conversation, crooning nostalgic melodies. No one at the Cartwright Media Annual Gala for Impact had maimed themselves with an hors d’ouevre skewer, bored out of their skulls. Yet.
By all accounts, Fletcher should have been smiling.
She wasn’t smiling.
As she wove through the crowd, there were approximately 120 seconds before she lost the battle against her tear ducts. Her boss, a media mogul named Dyer Cartwright, was deep in conversation with the editor in chief ofTravel + Leisure. Or was itCondé Nast Traveler? She couldn’t keep anyone straight. Every ultrawhite grin blurred together until Fletcher’s stomach churned and her head throbbed. Regardless, the conversation would buy her at least a three-minute weep.
Either her vision was tunneling, or the guests were purposefully closing in on her, trying to incite a panic attack. Planning this eventwas the first big chance Dyer had offered her to prove herself. She’d extinguished approximately thirty-six hundred fires today, and the night had only just begun.
First, the hotel accidentally double-booked, so their ballroom had been mistakenly decorated for a bat mitzvah. Her fairy godmother was a Taskrabbit named Pietro who swapped the centerpieces in record time.
Then, the caterers accidentally served shellfish on the allergen-safe table. (The last thing Fletcher needed was someone dying at her event. Imagine the headlines:Shrimp Cocktail Blunder Makes Executive Assistant Accessory to Murder.)
To make matters worse, her speaker canceled. The bestselling author slash motivational speaker slash philanthropist she’d pulled every string to secure for tonight—gone. According to the email from her assistant, the author had “a last-minute conflict” but was “honored to be considered for the event” and “wishes Fletcher the best.” Pretty words, but Fletcher knew the signs of a too-stressed assistant when she saw it. She was one.
But this, the email notification waiting to be opened on her phone…
Make that sixty seconds until Sobfest.
The music shifted into something slower. A swan song if Fletcher had ever heard one. She made it to the coat check closet before allowing herself to read the full email. At least there her hopes and dreams would shatter while surrounded by cashmere and microsuede.
The email was from a reporter. Here. Hoping to get a comment from someone at Cartwright Media about Dyer’s party boy son—or, more specifically, Waylon Cartwright’s recent whirlwind engagement to a supermodel. Dyer had been plenty forward about his intentions for tonight’s press coverage and absolutely none of it wasto revolve around his son’s messy personal life out of fear of how it might tank the company’s reputation.
Fletcher hadn’t even met Waylon yet. He’d ghosted her every email, and he failed to RSVP to tonight’s gala, but if reporters were snooping around, hoping to catch wind of something unsavory to print in Page Six, Dyer wouldn’t be pleased.
The first tear seemed reluctant to fall despite Fletcher having the foresight to wear waterproof mascara tonight. Once it dribbled over her chin and onto her event binder, there was no stopping the downpour. Every exhausted, overworked cell in her body shuddered with the world’s quietest cryfest.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong!” she chirped before even fully registering where the voice had come from. The lie was a sticky knob of peanut butter in her throat. Where would she even start?
The tag on her dress had been digging into her skin for the better part of an hour, and she couldn’t rip it out because then she wouldn’t be able to return it tomorrow. Shehadto be able to return it tomorrow in order to afford rent. (The dress was a stunning emerald jacquard, but not stunning enough to lose the only studio apartment in her budget where she didn’t have to room with rats.)
Her boyfriend had bailed. So not only was she completely underwater, she was also dateless. Kent was supposed to fly in from Nebraska this morning, their first time seeing each other since Fletcher moved to New York City after college graduation. They’d been together for seven years, ever since being paired for a lab in eleventh-grade chemistry class, and had gone to the same local university. Things were…fine. Long distance was always going to be an adjustment. She was going to visit him. He was going to visit her. But getting hired at Cartwright Media had thrown a wrench in her plans to fly out for the fall harvest, and now, it was two weeks beforeChristmas and the biggest night of her career. She already knew he didn’t approve of her job, but she thought at the very least he supportedher. Deep down, she knew Kent thought New York City was only temporary. An inconvenient, expensive detour on the inevitable road trip to housewifedom.
And now…this!At any moment, she was certain Dyer would ask for her resignation letter. She’d been his executive assistant for three months—three months of dry cleaning and scheduling and event planning, all culminating in tonight. A night Fletcher could barely hold together.
A better question would be, Whatwasn’twrong?
More important, Who was asking it?
Fletcher blinked away the darkness of the coat closet and the surprise of someone else infringing uponherhiding spot. The someone in question came into focus. Nursing a splash of bourbon, a man in the night’s black-tie attire stretched out across a velvet ottoman. Wool tux, calf-leather oxfords, but the collar of his shirt had been unbuttoned and the ribbons of his bow tie spilled down his neck. He sported a mess of blond curls, so carelessly tangled Fletcher wondered if he’d styled it that way on purpose.
Or, she thought, blushing,perhaps someone had left him like that. As if she couldn’t get any more pitiful tonight, had her sad, wet sniffles interrupted a coat closet tryst?
Eyes narrowed, the man asked, “Nothing? Really?”
Fletcher knew he could smell her bullshit—it reeked of major disappointment and Eau de Unemployed. She exhaled. “Just grabbing my coat.”
On her way out, forever. Dyer could find her resignation letter on his desk first thing Monday morning. See? Even an overachiever when she was utterly failing. That had to count for something.
The man stood, and despite her heels, he loomed over her. His lips pressed into an amused tilt. “Let me help.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Fletcher said in a rush. Where was his date? Hiding between the racks of Burberry jackets and Max Mara coats? “You’re here to have a good time.”
When he stepped closer, Fletcher caught a whiff of whiskey and cologne. He reached toward her, and, paralyzed, Fletcher mapped the arc of his hand as his fingertips brushed over her neck. His touch traveled upward, tracing the path of an errant tear that had carved down her cheek, until he tucked a loose strand of curled copper hair behind Fletcher’s ear.
Breathing, it seemed, was completely out of the question. She swore she didn’t recognize him, but there was something familiar about the gleam in his blue gaze. Dangerous, almost. For a moment, all she could do was stare.
