Page 629 of Manhattan Bossholes

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It was too late. And that was fine. All I needed was Veritique.

And Boris, the “meeting” I needed to get to.

I headed home, hoping a walk with my best friend would lift my sagging spirits.

24

FELICITY

The weather was just starting to break, which meant all of New York was taking to the great outdoors to drink in the first rays of sunshine after a dreary winter. I couldn’t resist it myself, but there was no way I was going back to the emotional crime scene that was Central Park. I wound up walking along the water’s edge at Riverside Park, trying not to focus on anything but the warmth on my face.

I’d been running away from reality for the past few days, but I had to deal with it—my life was a mess. I’d called in sick to work every day. Sandrine and Lucy had been reaching out to me to make sure I was holding up okay, Sandrine making sure to tell me there was no pressure for me to return to the office, but I knew I needed to make some hard choices about my next steps.

Just not right now.

I paused to take in the view of the skyline across the water. They say there’s no such thing as bad press, and after the livestream debacle, I shockingly had a million other possibilities open to me. That was good news, since the one thing I was sure about was that I didn’t have to stay at Veritique, in the shadow of the man who’d broken my heart. I mean, how could I go back and pretend everything was normal? I closed my eyes and tipped my head back, trying to remain in the moment instead of spinning out about what I had to do to get my life back on track.

The punch against my back jolted me into fight or flight mode. It was broad daylight, and I was surrounded by people—who the hell was assaulting me? I spun around to find a panting, waggy-tailed assailant who must’ve recognized me from a distance.

“Boris!” I said, reaching down to grab his leash. “What did you do? Did you run away from Tyler?”

I scanned the crowd looking for him and felt my stomach bottom out when a group of people parted to reveal Cameron jogging toward me.

The absolute last person I wanted to see.

“Hey,” he said when he reached me, slightly out of breath. “Sorry about that.”

I handed the leash back to Cameron. He couldn’t look me in the eyes.

“I guess he recognized you from a distance. He does that with people he likes,” Cameron said. “All of a sudden he took off running, and I wasn’t holding onto the leash tightly enough, so…” he gestured to me. “Anyway, thanks for grabbing him.”

“I guess he didn’t hear about us not being real,” I snipped. “You should probably let your dog know there’s no reason for him to pretend to like me any longer.”

His brow creased. “Boris isn’t pretending, he genuinely…” he drifted off.

I glanced around to see if anyone was watching us, but my sunglasses and baseball cap had rendered me unrecognizable. Cameron was wearing sunglasses as well, along with a hoodie and jeans. His billionaire persona was folded up and hidden away, but the aura surrounding him? As intense as ever. He managed to fit in and look like everyone else and simultaneously better than he had any right to.

I needed to get away from him.

“I have to get back home. Good to see you, Boris,” I gave him a quick scratch between the ears.

“We’re walking home too.”

Cameron didn’t have to say it, but unless we were going to awkwardly ignore one another on the walk to the building, we were sort of stuck together. I considered making up an errand to give me an excuse to go somewhere else, but I decided I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

I sighed. “Let’s go.”

We walked side by side in silence, dodging joggers and cyclists, until I couldn’t stand it any longer.

“I’m fine, by the way,” I blurted out. “Thanks for asking.”

“I could tell,” Cameron replied calmly. “As you should be. There’s nothing to be upset about.”

I flip-flopped between seething and wanting to cry at the statement. “Oh no? You mean it’s totally cool to act the way you did that day in Central Park?”

He sighed. “Fine, okay, I might have overreacted about the proposal thing.”