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Prologue
Lauren
I’m sorry, Lauren. Please don’t hate me.
I read the two sentence text message for the hundredth time today. My eyes well up as I feel my heart splitting apart inside my chest. I shut my eyes so I don’t have to keep reading the soul crushing words, but still, I can hear them in my ear. I can feel them in my heart.
The distance is just too much.
I’m sorry.
I met someone else.
I’ll always care about you.
I’ve been dating Drew Montgomery for the past year, despite leaving Atlanta and moving to Chicago. The plan was for me to get acclimated here and for Drew to join me once I was settled. We’d made plans for a future. One that included a ring that I had been staring at for the past four months on my Pinterest board. One that included a house I’d already found on quite possibly the cutest street in Chicago with an iron gate and gray shutters and a red door reminiscent of one I’d seen inHouse & Gardenmagazine.
It certainly did not include him falling for another woman.
I was planning our future, while unbeknownst to me, Drew had already written us as his past.
I tuck a dark brown hair behind my ear, my nervous tick I do when I’m uncomfortable and shift in my seat as my leg begins to bounce.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
This is precisely why I did not want to get involved with Drew Montgomery. I knew he’d break my heart, but tale as old as time, I ignored my intuition and let myself get swept away by his sweet words and mind-numbing orgasms and promises for the future that he never intended to keep.
God, I am such a fucking cliché.
The familiar ping of my email sends my gaze away from my phone and towards my laptop only to see that it’s an email from my boss with his edits attached to my latest piece. I don’t have to open it to know that he’d bled all over it, but I’m feeling masochistic and this seems better for my mental health than stalking Drew’s new girlfriend on social media, so why the fuck not?
I can barely see the red through my tears, the words blurring together so that it’s just a mass of crimson on my screen.
“Holy shit, is Lauren Michaels,crying? And here I thought you had thicker skin than that.”
A shiver snakes down my spine at the familiar voice. A deep voice that always tows the line between playfulness and condescension. I let out a breath, not prepared to deal with this person of all people.
Vincent Maddox is my arch nemesis.
The bane of my existence.
A know it all with an axe to grind because I flew in from Atlanta and created some competition amongst the “Boys Club” that is this sector of the NBC Network.
When I first got here, he’d just assumed I was an intern and spent the entire first week calling meLauraand barking his coffee order at me anytime we crossed paths. The look on his face when he realized we had the same job—probably not the same pay, but that’s another story—was fucking priceless, especially since I was promoted from another location to essentially help withhisjob. He’s spent every day since trying to undermine me or make me look incompetent in front of our bosses. Unlucky for him, he’s never succeeded, and I enjoy making that known every time he fails.
He moves inside my cubicle, his overbearing yet sinfully smelling cologne wafting around me. It smells like bergamot and cedarwood and…what is that?I inhale deeply and try to ignore the spark igniting between my legs that comes from smelling a man who knows what kind of cologne will make a woman weak. He must peer over my shoulder because he speaks again and he leans on my desk revealing tanned muscular arms. “And over edits, no less?”
I glare at him, wondering how I appear to be in the mood for our usual battle of wits. “If you do not get the fuck out of my face in the next two and a half seconds, we will be spending the rest of the day in HR,” I growl.
His lips curl into a playful smirk, and I’m instantly annoyed that my eyes move to his mouth and more importantly his perfect cupid’s bow hidden beneath a layer of hair.
Vincent has one of those beards that is groomed but thick and full. Coupled with his muscular arms and broad chest, and the five inches he has on pretty much every man in the office, he looks like this sexual lumberjack masquerading as a writer.
“For me being in your cubicle?” He snorts and cocks an eyebrow before running a hand through his dirty blonde hair. “You don’t have a leg to stand on.”
“No, because I’m going to take that vase of flowers right there and bash your head in,” I snap. I’d gotten dumped no less than five minutes ago; I’m crossing out of shock and into anger and Vincent Maddox is just the man that could send me into a blind rage. His piercing blue eyes narrow into slits as he leans off my desk. “If you’re crying over edits, you’re not fit for this job.”
“It’s not over edits, you pretentious fuck. And don’t act like I’m not better than you atourjob even on my worst day.” I stand and even in my four-inch heels, I only come to his chest, so I crane my neck to glare at him. “Move the fuck out of my way, Maddox,” I say, crushing my cell phone hard in my hand, hoping it’ll temper the sting that Drew Montgomery’s words inflicted on my heart. I push him to the side, caring less that I’m leaving him alone in my cubicle with all of my stuff and only about putting one foot in front of the other so I can succumb to the tears of having my heart broken in the peaceful haven of the ladies’ room.
