Chapter 3
Gabriella
I watched as Mr. Rolex, who I had now dubbed as Mr. Asshole, peeled away from the curb in his fancy black sports car. Of course he would drive a car like that. It went along with his watch and his suit and his stupid handsome face. Too bad none of that did anything to hide his personality.
“Prick,” I muttered as his car disappeared around a corner.
I shivered slightly, even under the summer sun, as the cold coffee seeped into my skin.
I looked down at my ruined outfit and shook my head.
Today of all days. I checked the time on my phone.
There was no time to go home and change, especially since my father was already expecting me twenty minutes ago. With coffee.
I groaned as I headed back into the coffee shop, grabbing a few napkins from the counter and stepping back into the line that thankfully had dwindled slightly.
As I waited, again, I dabbed at the coffee that was drying into a sticky coating.
I sighed, tossing the napkins and tissues I had used on that jerk’s suit.
It had been hard to ignore how solid his body felt under that suit.
I could see the pleased expression on his face as my hands had tried to clean up.
I rolled my eyes and stepped up to the counter to place another order.
With coffee in a carrier this time, I walked quickly down the sidewalk toward work. On the way, still peeved from this morning’s encounter, I called one of my best friends, Juliet. She picked up on the third ring.
“Hey, future CEO,” she answered excitedly.
I laughed softly. “Not yet, I’m not.”
“You’ll get it. Are you on your way there?”
“Yeah,” I said breathlessly as I picked up the pace. My feet were starting to ache. Maybe these shoes were a bad idea.
“You okay?” asked Juliet skeptically.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “My morning isn’t going as well as I planned…”
“Uh-oh. What happened?”
I went on to tell her about spotting the man in the coffee shop and the spillage fiasco and what a jerk he had turned out to be.
“He just left you there? On the sidewalk? Covered in coffee?” she asked in awe.
“Yep.”
“What a dick!” she practically yelled.
I pulled the phone away from my ear. “Tell me about it.”
“Sounds like your typical New York playboy. They are all the same,” she said in disgust, and I could practically see her rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone.
“I wouldn’t know…” I said.
Juliet had dated around more than me in the city.
In life, in general. I was always too busy working to entertain the idea of settling down.
No one I had been with liked the fact that I put work first. I just chalked it up to them being turned off by a hard-working, independent woman.
But I was okay with that. I didn’t mind being alone. Most of the time.
“Well, at least he didn’t get away unscathed,” said Juliet.
I smirked. Juliet was snarky and I liked it.
She was still the same girl from high school where we had met.
It was the first day of my freshman year and I had found myself sitting alone in homeroom watching on as my friends from middle school all huddled around talking about their summer camp experiences with boys.
Since I had no experiences of my own yet and wasn’t really interested in adolescent jerks in my city, my so-called friends iced me out.
I pretended to be jotting notes in my binder that was covered in pictures of me and those same girls, trying to be unbothered by suddenly being left out.
That was when Juliet walked in, her long blonde hair tied into two braids that hung over her oversized band tee.
She slid into the desk next to mine and pulled out a book, somehow managing to focus on reading in the loud, frenzy of summer catch up before the bell rang.
I watched her read for a moment, trying to determine if she was a new student. I had never seen her before. She seemed effortlessly cool, in a way she didn’t have to try. She just was cool. Confident in herself. In her style. In her quiet demeanor.
“Yes. I’m new,” she said, her eyes still on her book.
“Uh…oh, yes,” I stammered, clearly caught looking at her. “I was just trying to figure out if I’ve seen you before.”
“You haven’t.”
“Right.” I nodded, twisting my mouth to the side nervously.
“I’m Juliet,” she said, finally looking up from her book.
Her deep blue eyes searched mine, as if trying to assess if I was worth getting to know.
“Gabriella,” I said.
She closed her book and leaned forward on her desk, still looking at me.
“Those your friends?” she asked, nodding to the girls who used to be.
“Were…” I shrugged. “Apparently, I’m not in the ‘boy crazy’ club.”
Juliet made a face and stuck her tongue out. “Me either. I’ve only been here like five minutes and I’ve already decided that it’s Josh Hartnett or bust.”
I laughed out loud. “It’s Ben for me.”
“We can have a double wedding.”
I grinned at the idea.
“We’ll start our own club…” she offered.
“What kind?” I asked curiously, even though I didn’t care what the club was. I was just happy to have met someone new who seemed cool.
She shrugged. “We’ll figure it out.”
We never did come up with a name, but we did quickly become best friends after that.
We went through every phase together, and while we had no interest in boys that first day of school, that changed later as we navigated through heartbreak together with ice cream and rom-coms we’d cry over together.
We navigated through other trials and tribulations too, like the divorce of her parents and the pressure I sometimes felt being the daughter of a big-time businessman.
I didn’t talk much about my father with anyone, realizing that people treated me differently.
They were too nice, but it seemed artificial, like a sweetener packet on a coffee shop counter.
It’s sweet, almost painfully so to the point where it makes your cheeks pucker, but there was something off about it.
That was how people were when they found out who my father was, their only interest in getting to know me was getting access to my family’s affluence.
Juliet wasn’t like that, though. She couldn’t care less. I could really be myself with her.
Unfortunately, we drifted apart in college when we went to schools in different states.
It was a dumb stroke of luck that over a decade later she ended up living down the hall from me when I moved to New York a few months ago.
I had to do a triple-take when I saw her as she was taking out the trash one day, but the band tee and pale blonde hair pulled into a messy bun confirmed it.
After we got over the initial shock, we fell back into a rhythm easily, like we had never left high school, except now we could drink wine.
“How hot was he?” asked Juliet, her smirk coming through the phone.
“Mmm, take homecoming king from high school and quadruple it.”
She whistled. “Wow.”
“Too bad he was just as much of a jerk.”
“Aren’t they all?” she muttered.
I adjusted the coffee tray in my hand, carefully balancing it to avoid another fiasco, especially now that I was mostly dry. I looked ahead and saw my building on the corner, towering above the rest, the sunlight reflecting off the blue-hued glass panes stacked atop each other.
“I’m here,” I said, not even trying to hide my nervousness.
“You’ve got this, Gabs. You deserve it. Everyone knows it,” she said confidently.
I wish she were here. I could use her cool confidence to rub off on me.
“Thanks, Jules. I’ll call you later.”
I hung up the phone and slid it into my purse before swiftly walking into the building, the door already held open by the doorman.
I nodded and said a quick thank you before breezing past security.
Being the daughter of Penn Harold meant I didn’t need to show an identification badge, which I was thankful for as I nervously clutched the coffee carrier in my hands.
I tapped my aching foot against the black tile floor of the elevator as I watched the numbers go up, up, up on the screen above my head.
Why the hell was I so nervous? Juliet was right.
I did deserve this. I worked hard for this.
I just wished I wasn’t covered in dried coffee stains when I accepted my father’s promotion.
The elevator doors opened and I walked onto the expansive floor. I headed toward my father’s office and peeked inside, but his desk was empty.
“Good morning, Gabriella,” said his assistant cheerfully from behind me where she sat perched at her own desk.
“Hey, Bernice. Where is he?” I asked, nodding toward my father’s empty office.
“Conference room.” She smiled, tossing her thumb in its direction.
“Already?” I asked, trying to hide my panic as my eyes darted down the hall.
“You know how he is. Always early. Always eager.”
No truer words had been spoken. It’s probably one of the reasons why my father got where he was. Even though I was thirty minutes early, even after this morning’s coffee disaster, I was still somehow late.
“Thanks,” I said, walking toward the large room. Through the glass walls, I could see my father at the head of the table that was already surrounded by men in suits. The board members.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Was I really the last one here? It was like I missed some imaginary memo that said arrive early. I knew it wouldn’t look good. It was hard enough being the next of kin in this business, but then you throw in being a woman. I had twice as much to prove.
“Ah, there you are,” said my father as I stepped through the open glass door.
His brown eyes looked at me and I swore there was a flash of disappointment before he blinked it away.
I couldn’t help but feel like I had embarrassed him by showing up last and in my current state. I swallowed down the lump in my throat.
I rushed toward him and plucked his black iced coffee from the cardboard carrier. The pop the only sound that filled the room.
“Here’s your coffee,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky as it felt.
Calm down. I said to myself.
But I couldn’t help but feel like a newbie, like I hadn’t worked for the company for the past ten years.
Right now, I felt more like a foolish intern eager to impress, and not the strong badass I knew I was.
I tried to remind myself of that now as my father’s eyes took in my ruined skirt suit. His eyebrow raised a tick.
Before he could say anything, I cut in. “Some smug asshole bumped into me at the coffee shop. I didn’t have time to change.”
I heard someone loudly clear their throat behind me.
“I’ve been called worse before,” said a deep voice.
I knew that voice. I had heard it before…
A pool of dread began to form in my stomach as I slowly turned around.
My face drained of color when I spotted the jerk from the coffee shop sitting at the table, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
I tried not to stare at that mouth. Instead, my eyes took in the fact that he was in a brand new suit.
No sign of any coffee stains. He somehow looked even better than he did half an hour ago.
Asshole.
“And if I remember correctly, you bumped into me.” He shrugged.
Asshole.