Dating You / Hating You by Christina Lauren

chapter twenty-five

evie

“You can’t put up with this anymore,” Amelia says, well on her way to wearing a path in Daryl’s new carpet. “I’ve sat by and let a lot of shit go because he’s your boss and sometimes we all have to turn the other cheek, but this is it! You have to do something.”

I close my eyes and lean my head against the back of one of Daryl’s plush chairs. I read the script, took my meeting with Trent, met Sarah Hill for a lunch meeting, returned approximately seventy thousand phone calls, decided it would be best to avoid Brad entirely until I’d figured out what to do, and left the office at five for the first time in years, heading straight here.

Thankfully I have friends who will listen to me complain, rant on my behalf, and pour me lots of wine. It’s only six o’clock and I’m on glass number three.

“What would you have me do?” I ask her. “I have fewer than forty-five days left on my contract. Brad is an asshole, but he’s never done anything I could officially complain about. Reporting him now—after I’m about to be blamed for this enormous agency faux pas—would make me look like a crybaby who can’t hang with the big boys. No way will I give him that kind of satisfaction.”

Daryl groans into her glass. “I hate to say it, but she’s right. Brad isn’t an idiot, and he’s been very careful not to do anything she could specifically call him out on.”

I nod, quickly swallowing a gulp of wine to add, “It’s a hostile work environment, sure. But name me a place in Hollywood that isn’t.”

Amelia drops onto Daryl’s fluffy white couch and gives one of the throw pillows a good shove. “We’re three brilliant, successful women. There has to be something we can do.”

“I have a grandpa who knows people,” Daryl says without hesitation.

I cock an eyebrow at her. “Meaning?”

Daryl smiles innocently. “Murder?”

“Once again,” Amelia says, motioning to Daryl, “too far.”

There’s a knock on the door, and realizing I haven’t moved in a while, I offer to get it.

“I mean, at least I’d have three meals in prison and a little self-satisfaction?” I say, crossing the room. “A roof over my head?”

“You can barely watch Orange Is the New Black without getting queasy,” Amelia reminds me. “Let’s not go picking out your prison name just yet.”

Opening the door, I’m surprised to find Eric on the other side with two steaming pizza boxes in his hands.

“Hey,” I say, taking a step back so he can come in. “So do you just carry pizza around, or . . .”

“I ran into the pizza delivery guy in the stairway,” he says, nodding hello to Amelia and making his way to the kitchen. “Thought I’d bring them up for you.”

“That was sweet,” Daryl says, taking down a stack of plates, motioning for us to help ourselves. “This is how my favorite porn films start.”

I watch the two of them move back into the kitchen with renewed interest. They’re bent together, whispering. Amelia catches my eyes, mirroring my Are they fucking? expression. I look back and forth between Daryl and Eric when they emerge.

“Are you two, um, working tonight?” I ask, picking up a slice before taking a bite.

Daryl nods while she chews, but Eric answers, “Actually, I’m glad you’re here, Evie. I need your help.”

I point a tipsy finger to my chest. “Mine?”

He nods, and Daryl explains, “Remember how Jess off-the-cuff asked him to come up with a program that reconciles expenses with invoices?”

Squinting, I admit, “Sort of?”

She waves this off. “I liked the idea—and this audit was a drag. So, Eric came up with the most ingenious program. It finds and cross-references all my charges, and then reconciles them with the right client, the relevant invoice, and the correct in-house expense account.”

I think about how much time this audit has taken and what a miracle something like that would be. “Oh my God, that’s amazing.”

“So I ran yours, too, to help Jess,” Eric admits. “That’s . . . um, why I came over.” He scratches his jaw. “See, something isn’t working right, because we found some charges on your expense card that don’t line up with any orders or invoices. I didn’t want to go through it at the office.”

“What do you mean by ‘don’t line up’?” I sit up straighter. My wine buzz is keeping my heart from taking off like a flock of hysterical birds. “On mine? I haven’t had time to sit at my desk and go through it yet this week, but Jess also said something about weird charges.”

Eric pulls his laptop from his duffel and takes a seat at the bar. “Let’s see,” he says, opening the program. “Okay, here’s one from September. There’s a charge from a catering company—we actually saw it enough times that we tracked each one. The charge says you spent a hundred and twenty-three dollars for Debbie’s Events—”

“But according to Jess’s notes in your calendar,” Daryl interrupts, “that day you were with a client for only an hour or two for voice-overs. There wasn’t any catering on set because it wasn’t on set. You met in the studio. What was that other one, Eric? The laundry?”

“Hollywood Linen,” he answers, and I pause, that name poking at something in the back of my head.

“That’s the one,” Daryl says. “And with that one, it’s not that the charges are for crazy amounts. Most of them are pretty small, like fifty dollars here, or a couple hundred at most, but they’re recurring and add up. You probably would have never noticed if you didn’t have to pull the reports for the audit.”

“What was the name of that company again?” I ask, pushing away from the counter to search inside my laptop bag. Jess’s retreat invoices are still in there.

The ones Brad told me to ignore and send directly to Kylie.

“Hollywood Linen?” he says.

“Yeah . . . right here.” I find the line item and point to it on the most recent expense card statement. “That’s here, too. There’s a billing for linen service for the dining room, but we didn’t use any at the retreat. The hotel included all of that in our block rate.”

I sit on the couch, opening the folder and spreading the invoices on the coffee table in front of me. “Can you give me a few of the other names?”

“Sure,” Eric says, clicking through his spreadsheet. “There’s Ever Beauty . . .”

I search down my list, finding it and putting a red check mark out to the side. It’s dated two days before the retreat. “Okay.”

“Celebaby.”

“That’s a nanny service?” I ask, finger moving down the page.

“Yeah,” Amelia says.

There it is. Another check, over the retreat weekend itself. Needless to say, no one brought their child to the department retreat.

“Roar PR.”

“Okay,” I say. Another red check.

What the hell?

“Glamband.”

Amelia moves to stand over me, watching as I find the name and scratch out another checkmark. “Holy shit,” she says, meeting my eyes. “That’s a whole lot of coincidence.”

“I bet if I started looking back through all my expenses, I’d find more,” I say, looking to Eric for confirmation.

He’s already nodding. “That would be my guess.”

I stand up, chewing on my nail as I walk to the window. My head feels like a game of Tetris, small pieces everywhere and a clock ticking away while I scramble to make them all fit. I turn to face the group.

“So, these companies are billing P&D for a lot of services that aren’t really happening?” I propose.

Eric shrugs, then nods. “I mean . . . yeah.”

“You know I’m not doing this, right?” I ask, horrified.

Eric startles, like it would never have occurred to him that it was me, and Daryl and Amelia are vehemently shaking their heads.

My pulse seems to be thundering inside my skull. “Is this even a thing that a single person could do?”

“It would take a lot of work, but it’s definitely possible,” Eric says. “I do think it would have to be someone within the company, though. Someone who has access to the various expense accounts, and with enough power to keep people from looking too closely.”

Carter’s voice echoes in my thoughts.

Why does he have it in for you, specifically?

Do you have something on him?

It doesn’t add up.

I let out a little gasp, and three sets of eyes meet mine.

I’m almost positive we’re all thinking the exact same thing.

•  •  •

“Are we absolutely sure we don’t want to call my grandpa?” Daryl says, lying next to me beneath a dirty old blanket in the bed of Eric Kingman’s truck.

Amelia reaches across me and smacks her. “I swear to God, if you get us caught and I have to call my ex-husband to bail me out for breaking and entering, I will find your old nose and staple it back on.”

Daryl lets out a horrified little squeak. “You monster!”

I bite back a laugh, and Daryl takes a deep, calming breath beside me. “Besides,” she says, “we’re with Eric, so I don’t technically think what we’re doing is considered breaking and entering, bu—”

“Shhhhh,” Eric says through the open cab window as we reach the security gate.

“Evening, Mr. Kingman,” the guard says.

The three of us stay completely still beneath the blanket, trying to make ourselves as small and invisible as humanly possible.

“Don’t think your uncle is home tonight. But your aunt is up there.”

“Thank you, Jerry. I’ll have Aunt Maxine send down some of those cookies you love. You have a good night.”

The truck starts moving again, slowly making its way up Brad Kingman’s impossibly long drive.

We haven’t lost our minds. It’s just that we all know Brad well enough to know that if he’s behind this, he wouldn’t keep any of these fictional company files at work. I’m on the verge of losing my job, and in just a half hour at Daryl’s apartment we totaled over fifty thousand dollars in money charged to my expense accounts alone. No wonder we’re being audited! How many places has Brad skimmed from?

I am grateful to the wine because it’s keeping at least half of my chill in place. Realizations keep falling onto each other like perfectly stacked dominoes. Primarily this: I was Brad’s fall guy. No wonder he kept me on, assuming that if I ever found out about his little retirement plan, he’s ensured that accusations against him are less credible if they come from a disgruntled has-been. Pinning me for screwing things up with Dave and Carter is one thing; there is no way in hell I’m going down for this level of outright fraud.

“We’re clear,” Eric says through the window, his voice tight and a little breathless. “You guys okay back there?”

We finally breathe. “This blanket smells like sewage, and my boss is stealing money under my expense accounts while he carefully frames me for a myriad of fuckups. But other than that, I think we’re good. What about you? You okay?”

“Are you kidding me?” he sings into the cool night air. “This is awesome!”

“But are you sure you want to do this? I mean, you could just pull up, kick us out, and get the hell out of here,” I say.

“Hell no. I hate the way Brad treats Maxine, and this shit is crazy! Can you feel that adrenaline?” He howls a little into the cab of the truck. “Let’s take him down!”

“So Eric’s definitely in,” I whisper.

Amelia laughs at my side. “What tipped you off?”

The truck slows to a stop, and Eric unrolls the front windows before turning off the engine.

“All right. I’ll go inside. None of the staff should be here, so I’ll leave the front door open. His office is upstairs, fourth door on the right. You all remember the game plan?”

“Got it,” Amelia says.

“Remember: give me two minutes and I’ll get Maxine to take me into the kitchen for something to eat. I’m hoping I can get you guys at least fifteen minutes. That long enough?”

“It’ll have to be,” Amelia says.

The door opens and the truck shifts as Eric climbs out. “Okay,” he says, taking a step before stopping again. “Should we like . . . synchronize our watches or something?”

“If we sang ‘Swinging on a Star’ to time ourselves we’d be just like Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello in Hudson Hawk.”

Amelia glares at me in the dark. “Evie, usually I entertain these little movie tangents, but I’m going to need you to shut the fuck up.”

“Just go, Eric!” Daryl whisper-yells.

“Right, right. Going.”

The sound of Eric’s feet on a gravel path carries through the dark, and he knocks on the door.

While we wait, Amelia taps my shoulder. “Does Carter know where you are?”

“Ha . . . no. I haven’t talked to him since this morning. Right now we’re dressed like cat burglars and hiding in the bed of our boss’s nephew’s truck. Probably best to leave this part out when I tell him about my day.”

Voices carry from outside and we all straighten, straining to hear. The front door opens, and immediately we hear a woman exclaim, “Eric, honey! What a surprise!”

My heart is pounding in my head as I listen to their conversation dissipate and finally disappear.

“Okay,” I whisper.

Pulling the blanket off of us and sitting up slowly, I look around, making sure we really are alone out here. I’m the first to climb out, keeping low to the ground and watching around us. Maxine’s Mercedes is parked at the opposite end of the drive, but—thankfully—there’s no sign of Brad’s obnoxious yellow Ferrari anywhere.

Amelia is next, and she kneels on the ground by my side. As we both look around, Daryl falls out of the truck, rolling in the gravel.

“Smooth,” Amelia whispers.

“Sorry,” Daryl says. “I was kicked out of yoga.”

It’s strange being here without the Christmas lights and the valets, the holiday music and voices filtering out from inside the giant house. Instead there’s just silence, the chirp of crickets in the bushes beyond. Then, as we get closer, the faint tinkling of laughter coming from the direction of the house, the door left conveniently ajar.

Thank you, Eric.

A tiny sliver of yellow light cuts a line across the porch, and we creep forward, peering through the crack and into the grand entryway. All clear.

Glancing at Amelia, I press a hand on the cool wood, wincing when the old hinge emits a tiny whine as it swings open. I wonder if Eric heard it, because his voice grows louder and more enthusiastic from the back of the house.

A wide staircase unscrolls in front of us. I motion for Amelia and Daryl to go on ahead, staying behind just long enough to close the door with a soft click. Our tennis shoes are almost silent on the steps as we climb, carefully peeking around the corner before turning right at the top of the stairs.

At my side, Amelia holds up four fingers and points to a door at the end of the hall. Nodding, I watch as she wraps her gloved hand around the knob and slowly turns.

It swings open.

Even here, Brad Kingman’s office looks exactly the way you’d expect. His desk is huge and covered with books and piles of paper. In the light from the window we can see a bunch of golf memorabilia, and what has to be every award and accolade he’s ever received—right down to newspaper clippings—proudly displayed. Framed photos line his bookcases, all sharing a single common characteristic: he’s the star of each of them.

“Even his office is a pretentious dick,” Daryl says, closing the door behind us. Turning on her small flashlight, she shines it around the walls. “Is that a safe?”

I follow her gaze and then run my own light along the desk, stopping when I come to a bank of filing cabinets. “Do you guys want to look for the file cabinet key and I’ll start with his computer? I can try to work out his password.”

Amelia agrees and begins to search. Together she and Daryl look under books and papers, in drawers, and behind every photo frame, while I wake up the computer, the password prompt lighting up the screen.

I start with Brad’s name—first and last—then his wife’s, and every combination in between. I try his birthday, the number of Oscars his clients have won, even combinations of his name with his golf handicap. (Yes, we’ve all had to hear stories of his country-club valor over the years.) No luck.

“I think I found something!” Daryl says, stretching to feel along the bottom of a drawer. Having struck out so far, I turn to watch, practically jumping with joy when she comes away with a small brass key in her hand.

“What kind of person tapes a key to the underside of a drawer in their own house?” she whispers, moving to the filing cabinet and sliding the key into the lock.

“Someone who’s got a lot to hide,” Amelia says.

We hold our breath as Daryl turns the key, and the lock clicks in the silence. “And doesn’t think anyone has the balls to come looking,” she adds.

“Thank fuck,” Amelia says, flashlight in hand as she starts searching with renewed effort through files. “Anything that has to do with the names we found, tax ID numbers, web hosting companies, bank accounts, anything. If it looks shady, take a picture of it.”

I turn back to the computer, determined to get in. I try a few more random words and phrases I associate with Brad, and when nothing comes up, I think back. Brad is too big of an egomaniac to ever pick a password at random, so it would have to mean something . . .

A thought flashes like a thunderstorm through my brain, and I type the words together:

B R A D U P R I S I N G

It’s the film he worked on while I was an assistant—featuring the first client he flat-out stole.

Password accepted.

God, what a dick.

I search his hard drive for any of the companies that showed up in Eric’s program. I open his Google drive and search there, too. It takes a few tries but then bingo.

A spreadsheet with names of companies and tax ID numbers, next to column after column of billed amounts. And he had the nerve to lecture me about being a team player. Jesus Christ.

“Oh my God!”

I turn toward the sound of Daryl’s voice. She’s looking out the window with wide, horrified eyes. A set of headlights are working their way up from the bottom of the winding drive.

“Sh-shit!” I say, jamming my thumb drive into the USB port with shaking hands. “Hurry! Did you get anything?”

“I have some invoices,” Amelia answers, taking pictures of the invoices under her shirt to mute the flash. “This is a hot mess.”

Amelia and Daryl rush around the room, straightening photos and smoothing the rug, righting papers, and rubbing their sleeves to clear fingerprints from anything they might have touched.

I glance out the window again and then quickly back to the screen. How many times have I had to watch this in a goddamn movie and thought, Files transfer really fast, this is so unrealistic?

My file transfer is only seventy-three percent complete. But my panic is total.

Headlights move across the room and Brad’s yellow car pulls up alongside Eric’s truck. Come on come on come on.

“Are you done? Evie.” Daryl comes up and pulls on my arm, in the middle of a full-body freak-out behind me.

“Yeah, just . . . one sec.”

“Evie, we have to go!” Amelia says, looking out the window and to the driveway below.

“It’s at ninety-five . . . hurry upsss!” I hiss.

A car door closes outside. Voices carry from downstairs.

“Evie, come on!” Daryl says.

“It’s almost there—dammit! How does a rich person have such a slow computer? What’s he doing with all that money?”

“Eric!” We all freeze at the sound of Brad’s voice in the entryway below.

I look up to Daryl and Amelia, their faces illuminated in the light from the monitor, and for a horrifying second I realize that if I can see them, there’s a chance that Brad could have seen them from outside, too.

My attention snaps to a little ding that says the files have transferred, and I close the drive, clicking out of all the windows as fast as I can.

Daryl moves to the door, opening it just enough to hear what’s happening downstairs. “I think he’s in the kitchen,” she whispers, and we wait, just to be sure. When there’s nothing else, I hold open the door and tiptoe into the hall.

There’s a landing that looks down into the entryway, and when I peek over the rails, I see nothing but gleaming marble floors. No sign of Brad. The door is just at the bottom of the stairs and if we can get there, we’re home free. I don’t care if I have to walk back to my apartment.

Can we do this?I mouth, and while Amelia nods, Daryl is frantically shaking her head.

I’ve just taken my first step off the top landing when Eric’s voice echoes through the house. “Wait, Uncle Brad, I wanted to show you my scar!” he essentially yells.

I almost fall in an attempt to scramble back, arms and legs everywhere as we dart in different directions, each of us disappearing into a different room.

“Eric, what the hell is wrong with you?” Brad asks. “Are you taking drugs?”

“I’m . . . no . . . not drugs,” Eric babbles, his eyes widening when, behind Brad and on the landing, he sees my head peeking out from one of the doorways. He pulls Brad to him in a tight embrace, and motions for me to run. “I’ve just missed you!”

I slip across the hall to the guest room over the garage, slamming into the window when Daryl and Amelia sprint in behind and slide across the wood floor, right into me. I let out a grunted Oof.

Voices fall quiet downstairs.

“Who’s up there?” Brad asks.

“No one,” Maxine says. “It’s just us tonight.”

My heart is a hammer, my chest feels like glass.

“I know I heard something,” Brad says. “I’ll run up—”

“But we were just going to have something to eat!” Eric says. “You have to be hungry. Have you lost weight?”

“Brad, we never get a chance to visit. Come have dinner with us.”

There’s a moment of silence before footsteps retreat along the marble hallway and I squeeze my eyes closed in prayer as I slide open the window.

“What are you doing?” Daryl hisses.

“We’re going to have to climb out and shimmy down the trellis.”

“I’m so confused by the term shimmy down the trellis. How is that even po—”

Amelia ignores her. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?” she whispers in my direction.

I look out the window. It’s far, but I mean . . . it’s not like death far. And we need to get the hell out of here, now.

“Come on,” I say, throwing one leg over the windowsill. “Just do what I do.”

Crawling out, I step on the roof of the garage—gingerly at first, making sure my footing is secure—and then shuffle over to the vine-lined trellis. My greatest fear is allayed when I tug at the flimsy structure and it holds securely to the wall.

“Come on,” I urge again, returning to my downward climb when I see Daryl’s leg come over the side of the window, her body emerging onto the roof. Amelia follows right after.

Back in the bed of the truck, we lie flat, staring at the sky and silent but for our jagged, heaving breaths. I’m calmed by the warmth of Amelia on my left and Daryl on my right. Their hands come down, twining with mine.

“Thanks, you guys,” I whisper.

They squeeze my hands in unison as we struggle to catch our breath. Eventually, waiting for Eric to finish up his impromptu meal with his aunt and uncle, we manage to contain our maniacal laughter.

•  •  •

Carter shows up at my front door a little jittery, like he thought it might be a good idea to toss back an espresso at ten p.m.

Pushing past me, he heads straight for the kitchen and opens the cabinet with the plates. “Where do you keep the booze?”

“Erm,” I say, following him, “above the stove, but don’t get your hopes up. I think your options are Bacardi, Captain Morgan, triple sec, and . . .” I trail off as he pulls down a bottle of vodka I didn’t know I had, grabs a glass, tosses some ice cubes in it, and pours himself a hefty shot.

His throat bobs distractingly as he swallows. I’ve only been home for about thirty minutes myself and want to tell him about our badass 9 to 5 adventure (Dolly Parton would be so proud!) and what we found, but he seems a little preoccupied.

“What’s going on?” I ask, walking over and stretching to kiss his boozy mouth.

“I quit.”

I pull back, shocked. “Pardon?”

“You heard me. I quit. I have no idea what comes tomorrow, but I told Brad that I was out.”

“I . . . I. Wow.”

“I love you, but I didn’t do it for you,” he says, eyes wild. “I did it because I can’t work there one more fucking second. Brad is scum.”

“Well, yes,” I say, stepping back and watching curiously as he reaches for the bottle again.

“I went to Brad to talk about how things went down with you and him.”

I groan. “Carter, you don’t have to fight my battles for me.”

“I know this. If there’s one thing I definitely know, it’s that Evil Abbey can take care of herself. But . . . I had to say something. I couldn’t not. The way he acted was completely unacceptable.”

Well. He gets a kiss for this. It seems to calm him a little, too. I can’t blame him for the vodka now; his adrenaline must be up to eleven.

“Anyway, he wasn’t very receptive to the conversation—”

“I don’t imagine.”

“And it hit me,” he says, shaking his head, “I hate it there. I love what I do—I love you—but I hate P&D. It’s like trying to work in the middle of a dodgeball game.”

This makes me laugh, and I pull him out of the kitchen and into the living room. He sits on the couch, and I follow him, straddling his lap.

“So we’ve made a fucking mess of things,” he says, leaning to kiss my neck. “But I did hear from Dan today.”

He pulls out his phone, showing me a string of texts from Dan Printz.

Hey man.

Sorry I haven’t been around today.

I talked to Ted at Variety, he said the announcement came from some PR firm called Roar?

Who fucking knows. Bottom line: I don’t care what the agency is, I just want to work with you.

I have a press party I have to go to tonight so give me a call in the morning.

Let’s get some papers signed and make some movies.

Roar PR. I freeze. “Brad was the one who spilled?”

Carter’s eyes narrow. “What?”

I stretch across the couch, reaching for my laptop bag.

“Well . . . I had a bit of an adventure tonight.” I slide the computer onto the coffee table, boot it up, open Jess’s spreadsheet, and then turn the screen to face him.

“Okay?” he says, glancing from it to me again. “What’s all this?”

“Have I got a story for you.”

•  •  •

Former Price & Dickle talent agency executive Brad Kingman was arrested Tuesday in Los Angeles on charges of wire fraud, embezzlement, and identity theft.

According to prosecutors, Kingman set up a network of bogus companies, which he then used to submit fraudulent invoices to his agency for work that was never done. These bogus companies ranged from hair and makeup services to dog walkers and nanny agencies.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Emery Ridge said, “The FBI obtained emails and vendor contracts showing that Kingman used these stolen identities and tax ID numbers to submit fraudulent invoices and conceal his crimes. This isn’t a matter of an employee taking a few extra dollars from petty cash. So far Kingman is accused of skimming upwards of two million dollars.”

The print copy of the Hollywood Vine is laid out flat in front of us, and Daryl, Amelia, and Steph fall silent around the bar table. We’re all here for the Super Bowl, and television sets overhead broadcast commercials that make the assembled mass fall into a reverent hush, but none of us are able to look anywhere but at the article in front of us.

“Two million dollars,” Steph says quietly. “Guess it wasn’t just expenses under your name.”

“Just mine most recently—everyone else he used is gone.”

“And now bye-bye, Brad,” Daryl says.

The morning after our trip to Brad’s home, Eric walked casually into Brad’s empty office, drafted a new email to the FBI, and attached all the files I transferred to the thumb drive. The FBI would never know I had anything to do with this, but Brad would.

I’ve had dozens of pretty amazing orgasms with Carter, but I won’t deny that one of the most euphoric feelings I’ve ever had was watching the FBI emerge onto our floor amid a deathly hush and move like a mob of righteous justice toward Brad’s office.

They knocked on his door, ignoring Kylie’s anxious yipping that he was busy. In fact, two agents quickly identified Kylie, pulled her aside, and took her into the conference room for questioning.

Brad opened the door, face stark, and looked right at me. I lifted my chin and smiled.

“Mr. Kingman, we have some questions.” The voice of the lead agent carried easily down the hall. “If you don’t mind coming with us, we can ask them in a more private setting.”

I wanted Brad to refuse. I wanted them to question him right there, right in front of me. But it was also nice to watch him leave under the wide-eyed rubbernecking of everyone in the office. He moved, surrounded by the law, down the hall.

The elevator doors sealed around him, and then he was gone.

Bye, Brad.

I left P&D by choice that same day.

“So now I need to figure out what I’m going to do,” I tell my friends, folding up the newspaper and tucking it back in my purse.

“You could come back to Alterman,” Steph says with a hopeful smile.

“You could come work with me.” The voice comes from behind me and we all turn. Carter has materialized, and looks . . . stunning. Flushed with some exuberant emotion, he’s clearly just come from a meeting: neatly pressed suit, dress shirt open at the collar, tie loosened around his neck. I feel all of us exhale in a swoon in unison.

A swoonison.

“Or,” he says, grinning as he walks toward us, “I could work with you.” Pulling out the barstool beside me, he adds, “Or, I don’t know, we could figure out how the hell to work together.”

Carter sits down and pulls out a piece of paper folded into thirds. He carefully opens it, flattening it against the table for us to read. It’s an agent contract between Dan Printz and Carter Aaron—just Dan, just Carter.

“I’ve secured twenty percent of fifteen million,” he says with a casual grin. “If I did this on my own I could only take on one, maybe two more clients. It would help me out a lot if you could join me, show me the ropes?”

I stare at him, feeling my eyes fill, and he reaches up, pretending to be shocked by the presence of tears.

“Is that a yes? Are we going rogue?”

I surprise the hell out of my friends by launching myself into Carter’s lap, but no one seems to mind. I think we all realize in this moment that I’ve worked my entire career so far for this—the opportunity of a lifetime.