CHAPTER ONE
Audrey
The conference room smells like custom-tailored wool, designer perfume, and bergamot air diffusers working overtime to mask the stress-sweat and fear.
Twelve floors above Bryant Park, Sinclair Consulting is hemorrhaging credibility, and no one knows how to tourniquet the wound but me.
I smooth my blazer. Straighten my posture. Press the cap of my pen into the inside of my wrist and take a deep breath.
“We don’t chase virtue,” Preston Sinclair says finally, tone arid as dry toast. “We curate perception.”
He turns to me, eyes flat and expectant. “I’m sure Benson’s got some ideas on how to get us out of this.”
I don't respond beyond a quick nod. Preston doesn’t really want me to voice my thoughts. He just wants reassurance that I can spin this disaster into gold.
The disaster in question? A junior partner at Sinclair decided to get intimate with his assistant in the HR file room, during a company off-site, then blamed the entire encounter on misinterpreting her “tone” in Slack.
There are screenshots. There is security footage. There’s also a leaked email from another exec calling the situation “a branding issue, not a people issue.”
So now we’re a firm accused of silencing victims and protecting predators. We’re trending for all the wrong reasons.
Preston doesn’t wait for me to speak anyway. He’s already in motion, tugging at his cufflinks like he’s winding himself up.
“Enough talk about what went wrong,” he says. “We need a story about what’s right. Something wholesome. Redemption… with teeth.”
He taps his tablet, and the wall screen comes alive with a paused video—a shaky phone clip of a man in a Santa hat handing a check to a single mom outside a Walmart. The caption glows: #SaveChristmas.
“My granddaughter showed me this last night.” His tone makes it sound contagious. “Hashtags. Homemade heroics. There’s tons of them. People filming themselves donating turkeys, paying rent, fixing cars for strangers. Millions of views in a day. It’s sincerity as sport.”
He gives the word sincerity the same energy most people reserve for disease.
He scrolls again, and the next thumbnail fills the screen: collapsed metal roofing, a tangle of fencing, mud-covered volunteers. A banner at the bottom reads:
Animal Shelter destroyed in tornado—locals rally to rebuild.
“She cried over this one,” Preston mutters. “Bawled. Said, ‘This is what you should be doing, Grandpa.’”
He glances around the table, daring anyone to laugh. No one does.
“So,” he continues, turning back to me, “we’ll do exactly that. Sinclair Consulting will ‘save Christmas.’ We’ll pick this charming little disaster, help rebuild the shelter, livestream the progress, flood the feeds with good feelings. And voila, our brand becomes generosity itself.”
He snaps the tablet shut. “Simple. Sympathetic. Viral.”
I speak up, throat tightening, “Where is this?”
“Mississippi,” he says. “Town called Bellhaven.”
The word hits me like a slap.
I blink.
Preston smiles, thin and knowing. “Yes, that’s the one. Small town. Big heart. Picturesque. And—” he flicks a finger toward me “—home to our very own Southern success story. The prodigal daughter with a Manhattan résumé. Perfect optics.”
Of course he knows. Of course.
“You want me to lead this?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice steady.
“I want you to be this,” he says. “You’ll go down there, charm the locals, smile for the cameras, rebuild their kennel or barn or whatever it is. We’ll match donations, post updates, tie it all up with a Christmas bow. #SaveTheShelter. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
I stare at him. At the smug curl of his mouth. At the screensaver on the wall behind him—our sleek, icy-cold logo spinning slowly like a verdict.
“I’m not sure I’m the best fit—” I start.
“Benson.” His tone cuts the air clean. “You’re not being punished. You’re being positioned. Think of it as… redemption, dressed in flannel. Sincerity on the rocks. You know the town, they’ll trust you.”
Positioned, huh? Like a pawn. Or a prop.
My pen slips. I catch it before anyone notices, fingers white-knuckled around the barrel. My heart skips, stutters—then gallops like it’s trying to beat the memories out of me.
“Bellhaven is a PR dream,” he continues. “Tornado damage, adorable animals, local vet playing Saint Francis. And then we send you, our composed, stylish, emotionally bulletproof wunderkind, to remind the public that Sinclair can do something pure.”
He leans back, fully satisfied now. “Congratulations. You’re our miracle on Main Street.”
Across the table, someone exhales in relief. Another scribbles notes like we’re back on solid ground. For them, this is a win.
Of course it is, they’re not being sent back to their podunk town.
But I don’t relax. Not even a little.
I don’t say that returning to Bellhaven feels like swallowing glass.
I don’t say that the town holds the softest and sharpest memories I’ve ever buried.
I definitely don’t say the name that’s still written on my heart like a faint scar: Cameron Hayes.
My pulse pounds under my skin like a countdown. The pen digs into my wrist.
Control, Audrey.
I smile. “Understood, sir.”
He nods. “Take the rest of the day to prep. You fly out tomorrow.”
Back in my office, I close the door and brace both hands against my desk. The pen is still in my fist. I press it into the soft skin of my wrist, chasing the sharp bite of control. Just enough to feel it.
Bellhaven. Home. Him.
I open my laptop. Pull up the news clip Preston’s assistant sent. There it is—grainy footage of a man carrying a muddy goose out of the rubble.
Cameron fucking Hayes.
The image hits me harder than it should. His face hasn’t changed much—same jawline, same damn eyes that look like the sky before a storm.
And right beside him… a little girl with his smile. Dimples and all.
My chest tightens. I press the pen harder.
This is just PR, I tell myself.
A project. A clean narrative with a cozy ending. And when it’s over, I’ll come back to Manhattan and rebuild whatever Preston hasn’t torched.
Remember, this is Sinclair Consulting’s redemption arc.
All I have to do is execute. Easy.
I tap out a message to Lydia.
Me: Bellhaven. Tomorrow.
Lydia: Is that a town or a threat?
Me: Yes.
Lydia: Ouch
The peanut is between “M” and “R.”
That’s a problem.
Peanuts don’t belong between milk chocolate and raisins. They throw off the whole curve. Salty shouldn’t touch sweet until the second bite. That’s the rule.
I sigh and start over.
It’s ridiculous, I know. But so is the smell of jet fuel, the recycled air, the man in 6D who keeps clearing his throat like he’s preparing to recite Shakespeare. This whole flight is a symphony of things I can’t control.
So I try a different sort. Chocolate, raisins, cashews. Then peanuts, cranberries, yogurt bites.
C-R-C-P-C-Y
Much better with the C’s distributed.
I twist the cap off my pen and press the end gently into the soft skin of my wrist.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Focus.
My therapist once told me I have “productive coping mechanisms.” As if that’s a compliment. As if managing a five-alarm panic spiral by editing pitch decks or color-coding snacks is healthy just because it looks tidy.
Across the aisle, a toddler shrieks. Behind me, someone coughs.
You’d never know I’m spiraling. My hair’s still smooth, makeup perfect. Tailored slacks, sweater camel-toned and cashmere. I’d look like a J.Crew ad if they made room for hips, height, and a three-figure hourly rate.
Instead, all my professional clothes are bespoke. It’s one of the perks of being one of the highest paid women in the industry.
Except that a third of my income goes to my wardrobe budget.
It takes a lot to keep up with the increasingly younger (and thinner) publicists in Manhattan.
But in my head, it’s all static.
Bellhaven is three hours and one layover away. And with every mile I get closer, the parts of me I’ve locked down for a decade start shifting in their cages.
Cameron’s face flickers behind my eyes again, and with it, the demolished animal shelter. The animals. The kid.
I press the pen again. Harder this time.
Spin is easier than sincerity. No one bleeds for spin.
That’s why I’m good at this. Why I get sent in when everything’s broken. Because I know how to perform sincerity without ever feeling it.
But now they’ve sent me to a town that remembers everything about me I’ve tried to forget.
I look down at my trail mix. It’s perfect. A silent, edible spreadsheet.
The plane banks slightly left, the motion smooth but disorienting. My trail mix doesn’t survive it—an M&M rolls, skittering across the tray table, then dropping to the carpet like it’s escaping the awkward tension.
Outside the window, the clouds thin. Below, the Mississippi Delta starts to take shape—brown fields, small towns, lazy gray rivers cutting through a patchwork of autumn.
I close my eyes. Just for a second.
The hum of the engine buzzes under my skin.
It sounds like cicadas.
That sticky, electric drone that used to fill Bellhaven’s summer nights, thick as humidity. I haven’t thought about that sound in years, but now it’s here, dragging me back—
And suddenly I’m seventeen again. Barefoot. Laughing. In the meadow behind the church, grass still wet from a summer thundershower earlier in the afternoon. His jacket around my shoulders.
His hands are on my hips, the cool grass beneath my bare feet, the faint clang of the town’s namesake bell in the square marking the hour like some benevolent chaperone. You’ll remember this, it seemed to say. Forever.
And his mouth—God, his mouth. Hot and sweet, moving with mine, like they were made for each other.
The air smells like honeysuckle and heat. I tremble, not from fear but from wanting something so badly I thought it might burn me alive.
Cameron’s hands shake, too. We fumble with buttons, whisper reassurances, mouths hungry and unsure, but everything about it feels right. Too big for us, but right.
The feel of his lips on my neck. The way he whispers my name like a promise. The low rasp of “You okay?” just before—
My eyes snap open.
I sit up straighter. Pull my sweater tighter across my chest.
Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
This is not the time for nostalgia-flavored hallucinations.
I dig for my pen again, but the cap’s gone. My fingers twitch.
The man beside me shifts, jostling the armrest. I flinch.
Focus, Audrey.
Focus on the campaign. The optics. The messaging plan. Focus on anything but the memory of Cameron Hayes kissing me like I was a wish he didn’t believe he deserved.
My gaze flicks to the in-flight screen. Forty minutes to go.
Forty minutes until I land in the town that never forgets. Where everyone still calls me “that Benson girl” and thinks success smells like sin if you wear it with heels.
The plane tilts forward, the seatbelt sign dings.
No backing out now…
Now you gotta see where this goes: Christmas Challenge With Dr. Rescue.