Page 34 of Book Club Confidential

“I’m not helping him,” Tessa said. “Xavier pushed, but I held my ground.”

Millie’s eyes narrowed. “You defied him, and he let it go?”

Technically, he’d told her he wanted her to help Peyton and to send him the information she had on Grant, but she hadn’t agreed. Surely Xavier wouldn’t take Grant’s account away. He’d asked for her by name.

“How did it end?” Josephine asked.

Tessa thought for a moment. “His phone rang, and we adjourned.” Nothing had really been settled, and adjourned sounded better than admitting he took the call and immediately pretended she didn’t exist.

Nina leaned against the wall, looking utterly exhausted in her cream linen pantsuit. Five grown children, eight grandchildren, and two golden retrievers kept her perpetually tired, wrinkled, and ready to drop. “When did the dynamic change so dramatically around here?” she asked. “Am I getting more sensitive as I age, or is this place becoming some kind of neon tribute to Mad Men?”

Josephine shifted. Her gaze swept to the closed door and back. “We were a close team once,” she said quietly. She looked to Millie and Nina, then to Tessa. “When Xavier opened this place, we helped him grow the clientele and find enough financial stability to hire his first agent.”

Millie sighed softly. “I even stayed during the divorce. Hell, I’m still here how many years later?”

“You wouldn’t leave us,” Nina said.

“Never,” Millie agreed.

Tessa tossed her half-empty coffee into the trash. She hated to break up the shared sense of unity, but she was just beginning an important personal journey, and hiding in the bathroom didn’t seem like heroine behavior. “For what it’s worth,” she said. “I won’t help Peyton. I know this company could do an incredible job for Leah and Amara, but I won’t bail Xavier out again. He wants Peyton to handle it, then he needs to let him handle it. If Peyton needs help, then Xavier should help him. Maybe working closely with Peyton on something this big will help Xavier see Peyton wasn’t ready for the promotion. Or maybe working with Xavier on something this big will help Peyton get the experience he needs to handle his new role. I don’t know. I just hate how it feels to do the work without being seen or acknowledged for my time and effort. The pattern isn’t going to end on its own, so I’m drawing a line for self-preservation.” Even if refusing to help felt like letting everyone down.

“We understand,” Millie assured.

Josephine forced a sad smile. “I think your suggestion they work together could do them both a lot of good, or at least open Xavier’s eyes.”

“We can’t unpromote Peyton,” Nina said, “but we can support you while you stop propping him up long enough for Xavier to see the problem.”

Josephine’s smile softened and reached her eyes. “I think that’s the plan we needed.”

“I like it,” Millie said. “And I love this dress,” she told Tessa. “Where’d you get it?”

Tessa wore a long navy dress embroidered with a thin white swirl that began at her core and spiraled outward. The material was soft and flowy, hitting her near the ankle and nipping at the waist. “Couture DuJour, the shop on Main by the French restaurant.”

“Chez Margot,” Millie said. “That place is amazing, and the pastry chef’s work is touched by angels. Hand to God. We should go after work sometime and strategize how we can help Tessa take a stand.” She raised her brows. “Trust me, if I could divorce him twice, I would.”

Tessa snorted. “You could join my book club. We’re reimagining our lives as novels and ourselves as the main characters.” The women leaned closer, and she gave them a more thorough rundown, including Kate’s recent mention of the project online.

“I love her,” Nina said. “It cracks me up every time I remember that MC Kate is your chicken-loving best friend.”

Millie checked her phone. “We’ve been in here too long. We’d better get back out there before someone notices we’re all missing.”

“Xavier will think we’re planning a coup,” Josephine said.

“We are,” Nina said. “But I guess it’s not worthy of the name if he knows.”

The older women snickered as Tessa rolled her shoulders back and made her exit first.

Despite the injustice she’d felt leaving her boss’s office this morning, she was filled with a completely different emotion now. She wasn’t being difficult, moody, or too sensitive, as Xavier had implied. And she wasn’t alone. Nina, Millie, and Josephine saw what was happening at Hello, Marketing, too, and it wasn’t pretty.

The male leadership was on a path to destruction, and if she wasn’t careful, when the ship finally sank, those same men would point their fingers at her. Or worse, take her down with them.

Chapter Ten

A chorus of crickets and bullfrogs along the riverfront eased some of the tension in Tessa’s shoulders. The rhythmic pounding of her feet against the rubberized path slowly loosened the rest of her as well. Cool night air on her cheeks and the distant familiar scents of local bistros and cafés pushed her into the euphoria she chased with every evening run. A perfect somatic release she planned to get more regularly, now that she’d given up her eighty-hour work weeks.

There was something about jogging along the river, in the fall, when the sun set before dinner and neighbors emerged from their homes to share these moments together, that touched her, body and soul. She’d recently learned the resulting overwhelm of her senses had a name: collective effervescence. The urge to cry in crowds, at parades or concerts—anywhere strangers gathered to share something beautiful. And she loved knowing others experienced it too.

She paused to stretch and watch the bobbing bistro lights high above downtown. Pulling in long breaths through her nose and blowing them away with her mouth, she found peace.