CHAPTER ONE #3
“Tears don’t work on me, sweetheart. Ask my ex-wife.”
“I wasn’t going to cry.”
“Smart. Flirting and bribery won’t work either. She didn’t care, and neither do I.”
“I don’t have time to unpack your relationship drama. The meter’s busted. It rejected my quarter, ignored my card, and didn’t respond no matter how much wrist action and enthusiasm I offered up.”
“Listen, doll, I don’t make the rules. I enforce them. Your kind of vehicle—” he nods toward my car “—tends to attract attention in this neighborhood.”
“First off, it’s a Lexus. It might not be up to your aesthetic, but it’s legally registered, insured, and entitled to park at any functional meter.”
“Lady, this is Beverly Hills. If you can’t maintain our standards, you should consider parking… elsewhere,” he says, ripping the ticket from his printer.
The subtext isn’t even subtext at this point: You don’t belong here.
I pull out my phone and start snapping pictures—of him, his badge, the parking meter, my car.
“What’s with the paparazzi treatment?”
“Just documenting evidence for my court case,” I say sweetly, zooming in on his nametag. “Officer… Cockburn?”
He sighs. “Yes. That’s my real name.”
“Wow. That explains… honestly, a lot.”
“I’d watch that attitude if I were you. We take note of… problematic vehicles in this district.”
My stomach boils at the not-so-veiled threat .
He holds out the paper. “Save yourself the legal fees and pay the seventy-five dollars. City policy is so simple, even a kindergartner gets it. Broken meter? Don’t park there.”
“Listen up, Officer Cockburn,” I say, drawing his name out obnoxiously. “You might think you’re the king of the sidewalk, but that badge doesn’t make you special. I’m fighting this ticket. See you in court.”
I snatch the paper from his hand and unlock my car. I can feel his beady eyes as I slide into the driver’s seat, slam the door, and toss the ticket onto my messy dashboard. Another financial hit I can’t afford. But I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Officer Little Dick and his broken meter win.
At least Jim got lunch. I’ll count that as a win, even if the scoreboard’s on fire.
***
This day needs to die. Full-on Viking funeral—torch it, sink it, and let a shark crap it out.
I scan Sterling Tower’s 32nd-floor boardroom—a shrine to capitalism, where twenty suits with perfect hair sit around an obscenely long glass table, flanked by a dozen more faces on a wall of monitors.
Floor-to-ceiling windows offer a sweeping view of LA—the city where money talks, and the rest of us clean up after it.
My seat? Dead last—right next to the Wi-Fi hub, the projector, and a tangled mess of power cords. But hey, it’s closest to the tray of untouched artisanal muffins. Untouched because in Beverly Hills, no one eats carbs without an Ozempic chaser .
SqueeEEEP!
I shift, and my leather chair rips a fart. Awesome.
What I really don’t need is to become the center of attention in this meeting.
I made it here with twelve seconds to spare, which meant no bathroom stop, no lipstick fix, and zero lunch.
I had to park on the street again (garage was full), and while the meter actually worked this time (small miracles) , it only gave me an hour.
I’ve got a timer set on my phone to run down and feed it in exactly—thirty-seven minutes.
I can’t have Officer Cockburn popping out of a shrub like an angry leprechaun with a citation instead of gold.
“We are on the edge of a pivotal moment,” Gavin says, commanding the room as if he was born to do it. “In two weeks, we go public. This is not about ringing the bell; it’s about opening a new chapter for our company. We need to hit the ground running on day one.”
My big brother, Gavin Brinkman. Six feet of sharp suits and sharper ambition.
His dark-brown hair is cut and styled with precision, and his hazel-green eyes—the only feature we share besides our smart mouths—scan the room like lasers.
The women here are openly salivating. One exec is tongue-bathing her Montblanc pen like it’s foreplay.
Gavin doesn’t care. Sex comes third for my brother—first is business, second is more business.
The Rolex on his wrist catches the light, and my heart does that stupid squeeze.
Mom and I busted our asses for that watch—she scrubbed extra toilets while I served burnt pancakes and bottomless coffee at Denny’s.
Seeing him open that box on his graduation day was the last time I saw him truly smile .
And the fact that he still wears it? Every damn day? Instead of upgrading to some flashy billionaire flex? Yeah. That’s an emotional Rubik’s cube I’ll never solve.
The Brinkman siblings. Two sides of the same fucked-up coin. Gavin took the “work harder than God” route out of poverty—found himself a billionaire best friend, learned to speak fluent Country Club, and never looked back.
Me? I took the scenic route. The “set it on fire and see what happens” path. While Gavin was shaking hands with the elite, I was collecting detention slips like trophies and perfecting the art of making rich girls cry with nothing but words.
He built an empire. I built a rap sheet of minor offenses and major disappointments.
And yet… seeing him now, owning a room full of people who would’ve ignored him as a kid? It makes me puff up with pride. My brother did this. The same kid who used to share his school lunch with me when Mom couldn’t afford to pack two is now a fucking financial god.
I just wish success hadn’t made him so… them.
“Going public will give us the resources to expand our services and reach more people who deserve a chance to grow their wealth.” Gavin pauses. “Petra… next slide.”
Oh, shit.
My fingers attack the laptop. Slides go flying on the screen. Growth charts, retention stats, stock photos of unnaturally happy couples.
“The personalized investment tools slide,” Gavin says, jaw tightening.
“Yep. Working on it. Uh—one sec.”
I overshoot again. Finally, I land on the correct slide.
And then… it happens.
GRRRRROOOWWWLLL.
My empty, CPK- deprived stomach howls like it’s about to club something and eat it raw.
He clears his throat. “As I was saying, our proprietary algorithm has shown remarkable—”
GRRRRRRROOOOOOOOWWWWLLLLL.
My stomach is possessed by a hungry demon. Gavin’s forehead vein pulses, and the suits around the table shift uncomfortably.
GRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWLLLLLLL!
“Petra! Please grab a damn muffin. If your stomach gets any louder, we’ll need to give it a seat at the table and offer it voting rights.”
Laughter erupts—tight, amused, and at my expense. Even the woman eye-fucking my brother lets out a dainty snort.
I stand up and reach past the crystal pitchers of water for the pile of pastries when—
“Apologies. My jet’s Wi-Fi was out over Colorado. Please continue.”
That voice.
There’s only one voice on this godforsaken planet that can make my thighs quiver, instantly ruining a perfectly good pair of panties.
My head snaps up to the wall of screens, where a new Zoom window has appeared, and there he is.
Bryce. Sterling.
My fingers freeze mid-grab, suspended in pastry purgatory. Every cell in my body goes on high alert.
Even in digital form, the man is unfairly gorgeous.
His golden-blond hair is short and sleek, and my fingers itch to run through it.
He’s wearing a charcoal gray suit, the kind with a subtle pattern that whispers custom.
Those piercing blue eyes survey the room with quiet authority.
His head tilts, eyes shifting ever so slightly.
Is he… Is he looking at me? Oh God, I’m pathetic. But what if he is?
“Petra, the next slide!”
Shit. Slides. Right. I’m the slide girl. Why am I not sliding?
I jolt backwards, landing hard on the leather chair.
PPPBBBBBTHHHHHHHHRRRRRT!
It’s not a squeak.
It’s not a groan.
It is a full-blown nuclear fart trumpet.
Every face turns toward me in collective panic. On screen, Bryce’s eyebrows shoot up so high they nearly leave his forehead.
“It was the chair!”
I shoot up—trying to clear my name—when my elbow clips the water pitcher.
WHOOSH! SMACK!! SPLASH!!!
A tidal wave sloshes across the table.
My laptop? Baptized. The Wi-Fi hub? Gone. There’s a soft hiss, then a pop , lots of sparks, and the entire Zoom screen goes black.
Bryce? Vanished like a gentleman ghost.
“OhmyGod—I can fix it!” I lie, napkin-bombing the tech as if tissue paper stands a chance.
“Sorry, everyone,” Gavin says to the room, already pulling out his phone. “We’ll need to reschedule.”
He doesn’t raise his voice. Doesn’t throw anything. Doesn’t even scowl. But everyone evacuates as if the floor just caught fire.
When the last person escapes, he turns to me. I freeze mid-pat.
“Before you say anything, I know this looks bad—”
“Bad? This week’s been a disaster. If you really want my help paying for college? Earn it. I challenge you to make it through one day without a crisis.”
“Bro, I get it, okay. I am a flaming dumpster of incompetence.”
“Enough jokes. No more excuses, sis. I already had to cancel two investor calls, and we did not have time to reschedule this meeting.”
The disappointment in his voice makes my stomach twist. “I’m trying, okay? I swear.”
“I didn’t bring you on to be your babysitter, Petra.”
“It was an accident.”
“I want to see you win. I wouldn’t have crafted this plan if I didn’t see your potential. But you need to step up, believe in yourself, and take this seriously.”
MWARP! MWARP! MWARP!
Shit! My meter alarm. I slap at my phone blindly.
“Is there something more pressing than this discussion?”
“Nope.”
“Good. I need you to head to Harry Winston and retrieve the custom cufflinks Fiona commissioned. The gala tonight at Bryce’s mother’s is very important to her, so I want everything to be flawless.”
The name hits me like a slap across the face.
Fiona. As in Fiona Whitfield.
My brother’s future wife. My former high school tormentor.
A slideshow of humiliations flashes through my brain like a horror movie marathon:
Fiona, in homeroom, whispering (at full volume) that my mom cleans her toilets .
Fiona telling the entire school I was pregnant—twins, apparently—with the janitor’s babies.
Fiona organizing “Poor Petra Day” on my sixteenth birthday—a theme where everyone at school showed up in ripped clothes, dirt on their faces, and the team mascot gathered money in a glittery donation jar labeled: Help the Less Fortunate (Like Petra) .
Sometimes I wonder if she put some kind of rich-girl voodoo spell on my brother, because the Gavin I know wouldn’t willingly choose Satan as a life partner.
“You’re making that face again,” he says.
“What face?”
“That expression you make every time I mention my fiancée. Fiona is not the same person she was in high school. People change.”
“True. She’s upgraded her nose and has clearly perfected her gaslighting technique.”
MWARP! MWARP! MWARP!
I toss Gavin a salute and pivot toward the door.
“No face. No problem. Just very, very concerned about cufflink logistics.”
Gavin yells as I run down the hall, “Work on the face. In two months, she’ll be family. Make an effort.”
The elevator takes forever. My head is spinning with visions of Bryce in a tux at that ritzy gala tonight. The one at his mother’s house—a soirée I’d never be invited to, not in this lifetime.
Forget Bryce. Forget Fiona. Focus on the mission. Get the damn cufflinks. Don’t get fired.
I scramble out of the building when—
NO! No no no no no.
My car is being towed.
Officer Cockburn—yes, still his real name—is standing beside it, looking like he’s climaxing over the sight of my misery.
I bolt toward him, a total crazy person, waving my arms. “WAIT! That’s my car! I’m literally right here!”
CRACK!
My fake-ass heel—the one I lovingly Frankensteined with nail polish to pass for Louboutins—snaps.
One minute I’m upright. The next?
SPLAT.
Face-first into the sidewalk.
Hard.
“OW! MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKER!”
Today started at rock bottom. And now? We’ve tunneled into a level of hell so fresh, Lucifer hasn’t even unpacked. And I still have to go pick up the cufflinks. Lucky freaking me.