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Okay, I’m being a little wacky, but I’m trying to make a stressful situation at least a little bit fun. I think I’ve covered every possible angle, both logical and illogical.
My phone dings with a text from Mason. Oh, heck, we’re not supposed to be speaking to each other this week—so it must be a problem. His mother? An arrest? A drunken bender?
I pull my phone from my purse and glance at it, and my mouth curves up in a grin.
It’s a picture of an amoeba with a circle and a slash through it—our little inside joke, since he can’t stop calling Amanda “amoeba” and he’s got me accidentally calling her that all the time.
I send him a quick text back.Stop it.
He replies,Never gonna stop.
Then another text.Here’s the solution to the amoeba situation, with a link. I click the link ... and it takes me to the song “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
I reply with a furiousDid you just Rickroll me? Did you just forget who’s in charge of the costumes? I have gone easy on you so far.
“If that’s easy, I’d hate to see you go hard.”
Of course, that text has me flushing with heat and pulsing in all of the wrong places.
That’s it. I am turning the phone off for the rest of the day, I text back.In the event of a public relations emergency, please hang up and dial 9-1-1. I mean the front desk.
I immediately turn the phone off and go back to work. I’ve listed the various ways Amanda might try to sabotage me. Now I need to come up with a plan of action to block each possible attempt. Jeez, is this a waste of my freaking time. To make it more entertaining, I pretend that she’s a supervillain bent on wreaking havoc in our city, and I’m the superhero who is the city’s only hope.
A couple of hours have passed when I hear Cecelia’s confident, rapid footsteps tapping down the hallway. I quickly shut off my laptop, shove it in my shoulder bag that’s resting on the floor, and start typing on my work computer, where I have a spreadsheet open and waiting in case of interruption.
Cecelia walks in. “Have you heard?” she asks without preamble.
“Have I heard you’re slaying it in the business wardrobe department? Yes, I have.” She’s wearing a Giorgio Armani black-and-white color block dress with glossy black heels and a rope of pearls.
“Well, obviously,” she says, with a small smile. “That’s hardly news, dear.”
I hold a pen out to her like a microphone. “Cecelia Queensby, women everywhere are asking, how do you always look so fabulous?”
She settles into the chair facing me. “I will take the secret to the grave, but it involves siphoning the souls of my enemies into a jar. I’ll say no more. But seriously, have you heard?”
She does actually look serious. Could this be about Mason? How much trouble could he possibly have gotten himself into in the last couple of hours?
Well, this is Mason, so ...
But no. He would hardly have been on a drinking binge in the very short time since he texted me. And I should give him more credit than that.
“I have not, sorry.”
“Is your phone on?”
I grab it from my purse and quickly switch it back on. “I turned it off so I could focus on work. I am so sorry,” I say. My phone starts beeping with multiple alerts. I look at it with alarm. “I figured if there was any kind of emergency, the front desk would notify me. What’s happening?”
Cecelia gives me a reproving look, and my heart sinks. I don’t have the luxury of screwing up in even the tiniest way, not with the promotion on the line. “Well, nothing huge yet, but we need to stay on top of this.”
Cecelia pulls a small iPad from her quilted Chanel purse and puts it down in front of me. There’s a picture of Mason and Lexi Caton on the front page—and they’re standing in front of his apartment building.
“Second time’s a charm?” the headline blares. I feel faintly ill. Lexi’s got a huge grin on her face and Mason’s smiling at her.
This happened today. Before he sent me those cute, flirty texts.
“You see the potential problem here?”
Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation for this ...
