My thumb hovered over the screen. Did I really want to see my old high school buddies right now?
In the past three days, I’d lost more business associates and employees than I cared to count, as people climbed over each other to jump ship before I took them down with me. My family had basically run me out of town while they probably gave serious thought to disowning me. And my fiancée? She was out the door before I’d barely uttered the words “leaked sex tape.”
Maybe I should’ve been a little more eager to hang out with anyone who’d put up with me right now.
Me:ONE beer. You’re buying.
I tossed my phone on the seat.
Seeing the faces of a few people who—I assumed—still liked me? Couldn’t hurt. Even if they busted my balls about the video. Maybe I’d just have to let them get it all out of their systems, and then we could move the fuck on.
And yeah, I’d take the bullshit meetings. I’d shake all the hands. I’d bring my A-game to the gala on the weekend.
Beyond reproach.
I’d do whatever I could to make my mother happy—or at least as content as Christiana Davenport ever got—and then the real work would begin, back home. I needed to earn my goddamn life back, not play “gentleman billionaire” for photo ops on the west coast.
And my life was in Toronto.
I watched the city slosh by, a watery gray world through the window. I just needed to get this over withand get the fuck out of here.
I hated Vancouver.
Nothing good every happened to me in this place.
Last time I came out here, at fifteen, by choice, it was the worst mistake I ever made.
Worse than hell, this place was fucking purgatory, and I wasn’t getting stuck here again.
Chapter Two
Devi
You will not slap your boss.
You will not slap your boss.
I made this promise to myself out of a keen desire for self-preservation, as I approached my office building and felt the resentment creeping up like phantom vomit in my throat. Because after last night, I was really, really ready to slap the woman.
I took a long, gut deep inhale, blew it back out, and reached to open the door to the modeling agency where I’d worked for my entire adult life. My whole career.
Eleven years now.
I’d given this place everything I had, and I would not let her ruin it for me.
I yanked the door open, folded my umbrella and shook off the rain. Then I set my shoulders and breezed into the lobby for what felt like the millionth time in my life… and I could practically feel it all slipping out of reach. Everything I’d worked for, crumbling out from under my feet, piece by piece.
One backstabbing jab from my boss at a time.
Will. Not. Slap.
I walked slowly into the center of the reception area as the familiar sights, sounds andfeelsof the agency washed over me.
God, I loved this place.
The office itself was nothing special. Just a gray rental office. But it wasn’t the place that made this agency special. It was what happened in this place, the people who came in and out, and the people who worked within these walls on a daily basis.
At least, it was until Janelle Gorman took over.