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“That’s right. All those stupid advertisers I know you disdain–I hate them too, believe me–they are the ones paying your salary, and mine, too, and if someone like Noughton puts the squeeze on them after you throw a fit in the society pages, you think they’ll stick up for your principles, or do you think they’ll cave and pull their expensive, full-page advertisements and decide their money’s better spent on… on…influencers.”She cringed.“I’m getting the hell out. You should do the same, before it’s too late. Go get a job somewhere else, and burn your bridges there, unless you want to take down this whole magazine, and all your coworkers, with you.”
“I didn’t know,” I said, stupidly.
“Well,” the editor replied, irritation evident, “you’re not an accountant, you’re a junior reporter.”
An accountant.
I remembered Margaret’s question for Jack at the dinner party:how’s your accountant?Jack Prince had a small business. And the Princes, well…
“What if I could buy all the ads?”
“If you could do that,” the editor scoffed, shuffling her papers, staring at her desk, not at me. “You wouldn’t be here, working for pennies, would you?”
“But if I could? Promise you that all the ads would be bought?”
She looked up at me, skepticism written all over her plain face. “You want to shell out to get that story published? Then go right ahead. It’s a good story. Great, even. Unexpected, but, after all,” she grinned. “I’m leaving. If you think you can manage it… it’ll be nice to go out with a bang.”
Charlie
“I didn’t expectfor this to be aprofessionalmeeting.”
Her slight smirk was visible for a half a second before Ella wiped it away, replacing it with a determined scowl that made her look, if possible, even prettier. “There seems to be a lot of that right now. It seems to come as a surprise to certain members of your family that some of us have jobs, jobs which we need to support ourselves.”
“I’ll tell Asterid you said so.”
“I didn’t mean–”
“I’m kidding. I won’t.” When had this gotten so hard? When Ella had texted me, asking to meet at the coffee shop, my clumsy fingers couldn’t reply fast enough:yes, when?I’d arrived expecting to see the pretty, blushing omega I had grown to know, but instead, it was serious Elizabeth Booker, CityStyle Reporter who had greeted me, gesturing for me to sit across from her, telling me, right out, that Margaret had insisted she talk to me, that she needed my help. That she wouldn’t have contacted me at all if she had any other option.
Every word was like a teaspoon, carving out a little bit of my chest. This was the woman who had been in my bed just this past weekend. When she had left, late Sunday night, I had thought her “I can’t, I’m sorry,” was a… temporary thing.I can’t tonight, I’m sorry, not right now.But the Ella that was sitting with me in Margaret’s favorite coffee shop was determined, her face hard and serious, her eyes steely and determined, not sparkling with the lightness I had grown to love.
Love.
I had miscalculated. The Ella that sat across from me was not a woman who had gone a bit too far with her boyfriend, and wanted to talk it over. The Ella here today was hard and angry.
“So,” she was concluding. “What I need for you to do is to find some advertisers for me, sure things, and people that you are positive won’t be swayed by Noughton. I have a list of potential candidates, although I’ll need more. I also got the advertising rates from the department, if you don’t mind looking them over. They aren’t expensive, but if you’re willing, you might offer to subsidize the purchases for some of the smaller businesses on the list, or those that might need… persuasion given the potential opposition.” She passed over a manila folder with a few typed sheets of paper. I scanned the neat list on the first page: at the top, Prince Rare Books. But also, the publishing house where Margaret worked and Rose was under contract, and my old company. Richard’s consultancy, which would have made me laugh under any other circumstances.She had done her research, that Miss Booker.The Bistro, which I knew she could only have heard us mention in passing. The Botanical Gardens, where I had gotten us in the greenhouse after hours.I know a guy.Mrs. Sarkar’s. A sudden lump formed in my throat.
“Ella,” I said, laying my hand, palm side up, on the table. “I would do anything for you.”
Her eyes, instead of softening, turned flinty, her back straightened. “Don’t. Please.”
“It’s true–”
“Youknew.”Ella’s voice was quiet and controlled. I could hear the strain in it. “You sat and listened to me talk about reading the newspaper with my dad. And you didn’t tell me, when you knew the magazine was being bought right out from under me. You knew what kind of a man Michael Noughton is–you said so yourself, even besides what he did to Natalie. Andyou never said a thing.” I wanted to kill Jack. And Philip, and Richard, and Margaret. The woman I loved was hurt, hurting still, because she thought I had lied to her. “I almost–” her voice was pinched, and she cut herself off.
“You might not care, or believe me, or want to give me another chance, but I swear to you–I did not know. I only learned yesterday, from Natalie. If Philip knew–” and his bout of forgetfulness at dinner suddenly made sense. He couldn’t have told me, there in front of Ella, and I had practically shoved him out the door after dinner. “Philip didn’t tell me.” I said, trying to control my own shaking hands, my own voice, which threatened to come out as a growl. “I didn’t–Idon’tknow about Michael and Natalie, either, if you’re implying something beyond him buying her company, and her leaving.” Her eyes widened, and I knew I was right: something had happened between Noughton and Natalie, something sour, and Natalie hadn’t felt like she could come to me, had kept it to herself instead of letting me share her burden and support her through… whatever it was. My fists clenched. I wanted to punch Noughton, and then myself, but instead I uncurled my fingers one by one and took a deep breath before speaking again. “Natalie is my mentor, but when it comes tomesupportingher… I now know I didn’t do as well as I thought I had. I never asked her the right questions. Not like you did. I don’t know if she would have told me, even if I had asked, and I’m sorry for that. I won’t ask you to tell me. I’ll ask her. And I–I will work on being a better friend. A better…” I floundered, unsure how to express what I meant. “A betteralpha, to the omegas I know.”
Ella nodded once, still scowling.
“And…” I continued, flattening my hands, placing them both on the table between us. “I want to–I’m going to–start now. So if you want me, in any way, even if it is just to fill a whole damn magazine with stupid ads for cosmetic dentistry, or whatever the fuck,” she smiled for a split second and my heart skipped a beat before she managed to return her face to cool professionalism. “I’ll do whatever you need. For you, or for Natalie, or forCityStyle, or even for Margaret.”
“Thank you,” she said, but her face was still cold and distant.
She was sitting very upright in her chair, and I knew this wasn’t the right time, but it seemed like if I didn’t tell her, then this was the only time I might have with her. She needed to know. I took a deep breath. “I told you before that my parents were mated.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, then away, somewhere over my shoulder.
“They were.Fatedmates, actually. I know, I know it sounds silly, but… that’s what they believed. What I believe,” I rushed out, before I could convince myself not to. “My brothers…”
