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Executive Assistant to Mr. Parker Kane
Mr. Parker Kane. Arlie had nearly deleted the message when she’d seen that name. She remembered the Kane family patriarch in exceedingly alarming detail. His cold, steely gaze. His thin, perpetually unsmiling mouth. The intricate ways he’d found to keep her aware that, as the daughter of the Kane family’s personal chef, she had been inferior by association.
But Mr. Samuel Kane. That was a whole other matter. Eldest of the three Kane siblings by a mere hour, Samuel was a book nerd turned multimillionaire CEO. That name, along with the should you be interested had ultimately caught her interest. Arlie had read that phrase approximately seventy-eight times.
It wasn’t the opportunity she was interested in, per se, though the position aligned alarmingly well with her qualifications.
She was interested in not having to choose which bill she would pay late each month. She was interested in no longer working high-end service for tables of wealthy businessmen who somehow managed to ogle and insult her at the same time. She was interested in piecing back together the rubble of her life after the complete and total disaster that the last six months had been.
“It appears Mr. Kane is running just a few minutes late,” Evelyn informed her. “He asked me to convey his sincere apologies.”
As if any Kane was capable of sincerity.
Her brief encounters with Mason Kane, Samuel’s twin brother, had certainly taught her that. Pompous, popular, and persistent, Mason had dogged her heels from the second she’d crossed the threshold of the private school they had all attended. Achievement had been tantamount among Lennox Finch Academy’s coveted virtues. Some people broke records in high school track. Some students got their names on the honor roll.
Arlie’s lone distinction within those hallowed halls? She’d been the only female to resist Mason Kane’s self-professed ample charms. Four long years of his asking her out in increasingly dramatic and creative ways only to be rebuffed each and every time. All the while, Arlie’s attention had been fixed on shy, serious Samuel, on whom she’d had an ardent, desperate crush.
“No trouble at all,” Arlie assured her. Reaching into her bag, she drew out her leather portfolio. A small swell of pride loosened anxiety’s grip on her chest as she paged through the glossy photographs from cookbooks, magazines and digital ads. Glasses of iced tea with their thirst-inducing beads of condensation. Perfectly medium-rare steaks, pink juices anointing pristine white plates. Vibrantly green roasted broccolini, coarse sea salt scattered like honeymoon rose petals over the crisped crowns.
She had been good at this, once upon a time. A rare double threat who both styled the food and took the photographs. The thought was a soothing balm to the open, aching wound that losing her dream job had ripped open.
Made all the deeper by the fact that she’d brought it on herself.
“Mr. Kane is ready for you.” Evelyn marched around the front of her desk, a gentle incline of her head indicating Arlie was meant to follow her.
Together, they bustled down the hallway to yet another elevator. Evelyn flashed her badge at a small black panel before pressing the single button.
The only way was up.
“Here we are.” Evelyn held the elevator door when they arrived at their destination, allowing Arlie to exit first.
The fabled twenty-fifth floor didn’t look like an office so much as a penthouse apartment. Wood parquet floors. Intricately woven Persian rugs. Rooms with curio cabinets full of objets d’ art and ankle-deep carpeting.
Directly across from the elevator, a wall-sized mirror in gilded frame hovered behind a table displaying an army of pictures. Arlie floated over to them, overcome by a wave of nostalgia that almost toppled her off her carefully chosen shoes.
Kanes jumping horses. Kanes posing with purebred dogs. Kanes holding aloft the limp carcasses of sleek feathered ducks and geese.
All three Kane siblings lined up before the gigantic stone-lion-flanked fireplace of Fair Weather Hall. Only child that she was, Arlie had always been fascinated by the idea of siblings. Looking at the picture now, she felt a similar pang of longing. She had remembered the late Mrs. Kane explaining to her that she’d chosen their names based on her much-beloved detective novels—Marlowe, her only daughter, and the twins: Mason and Samuel.
And there he was. The Samuel Kane she had met for the first time when they were both thirteen years old. A green-eyed, dark-haired, sullen boy with wire-rimmed glasses, always standing a good foot away from his twin brother and his sister. Arlie would have bet her Nikon D6 that the hand mysteriously missing from Samuel’s left side hid a book behind his back.
“Miss Banks?” Evelyn had made it halfway down the hall before realizing she’d lost Arlie.
“So sorry,” Arlie said, trotting to catch up.
