I was so damn selfish. But I guess I knew that already.
“I don’t know how you made it this far without googling her, frankly,” I said. “But I’m nosy too. Report back.”
“It was Evans-Pierre, right?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Oh, you remember it well now, huh?” she said, elbowing me.
“Stop it,” I laughed.
“I’m just saying! She has a massive crush on you and I know you know it. And with how much you’ve been hanging out with her, it’s…” She frowned, scrunching up her face at the screen, scrolling around. “Uh… huh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Say, she’s not a shapeshifter, is she?”
“Did you find her?”
“I foundsomeonecalled Cassandra Evans-Pierre. Married, works in New York.”
“How many can there be?”
“Well, at least two, apparently.” She turned the phone around, and I stopped, an uncomfortable feeling clamping tight in my chest.
Cassandra Evans-Pierre, public speaker in the tech sector. Married to Jacob Evans-Pierre. Forty-nine years old, tall, blonde, and very, very not my Houdini.
What kind of magic trick did she call this one?
“That’s… strange,” I said coolly. She flicked her gaze between me and the screen.
“Your little magician isn’t committing identity theft, is she?”
“No. I… I mean, I didn’t think so.” I felt a chill building in my stomach. She’d always insisted he was so far away, that he wasn’t going to come looking for her, that he had a different woman he was happy with.
Had she been lying this whole time?
I didn’t even want to think the thought, but the face looking back at me from the screen felt like it bored into my thoughts in a cold, oppressive weight.
“Do you want me to ask her?” Estelle said, her voice small and soft now. Comforting.Shit,that meant this was something to comfort me over. It was that bad, wasn’t it?
“No, it’s… I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for this.”
“Yes, babe, that’s actually what I’d ask her for. To hear what the perfectly reasonable explanation is.”
“No, I… no. No, I’ll… I’ll ask her.” Once this event had passed. It was coming up soon, and I… I didn’t want to interrupt it if things went… if this broke something. “Next time I see her, I’ll ask,” I lied.
Estelle looked down at the picture one more time, her brows furrowed, and I did too, a knot in my chest tying tighter at the sight.
Chapter 18
Julie
I was flying until I hit the wall.
I probably should have realized good things didn’t happen just like that, at least not to terrible people like me. I got to kiss Helena Warrick, we had the best sex anyone had ever had, and she’d keptlookingat me with that look that was enough to drive a woman out of her mind, like she was as fascinated with me as I was with her.
Linyue was as terrifying as I expected, but she warmed up quickly when I kept talking business with her, and she took a minute to look over my plans for event outreach and tore them to shreds, helping me build a stronger, more cohesive strategy with plenty of her own contacts involved to help it along. When Helena and I met with the bigwig production lead Marion again with Linyue’s proposals in hand, I got to watch as she cracked slowly, nodding as she dashed things off on her tablet and, finally, agreed that she’d send her team.
