Chapter 1 #2
I lean forward. "There was a shooting over the weekend. Two dead, one critical. Word is it's connected to the territory disputes between—"
"No." He cuts me off. "We touch that, we're putting targets on our backs. Those people don't play, Harper."
Those people. I think about Ace. About his family.
About the world I've been tiptoeing around for months. The same Greek mafia causing chaos on the streets in LA is tied to the murder I was investigating in Red Creek. This is what excited me to go into this field. To see this other side of the world that usually remains hidden. It fascinates me. Vampires might not live among us, but mafia families do. And I don’t know which is more frightening.
"Okay," I say. "Then let me dig. I'll go through the tip line, pull anything promising, and put together a shortlist by the end of the week. Something with teeth this time."
He studies me for a moment, then nods slowly. "Fine. Do that."
I let out an exhale, his attention is now firmly back on his phone, which means I’m free to leave. Conversation dead.
My hand is on the door handle when his voice stops me.
"Harper."
I turn. He's leaning against the front of his desk now, arms crossed, watching me with an expression I can't quite name. Not sure I even want to assess his personality any further. I’ve worked here for four years now. My dad knew Hudson’s father and got me a job here as soon as I got my bachelor's.
My dad worked as a journalist for the New Falls paper for years.
He loved it, and I guess his love for it rubbed off on me and lead me here.
"I wanted to ask you something. More… personal," he says.
I keep my face neutral, but my hand tightens around the door handle, holding me steady.
"Okay?"
"Are you single?"
I blink. "Excuse me?"
"Single. Are you? Currently?"
"I—" My brain short-circuits for half a second. "Yeah. Why?"
He smiles, and a shiver runs down my spine.
"Remember when you begged me for the Red Creek assignment? Practically camped outside this office until I gave it to you?"
"I wouldn't say begged—"
"And I said yes, but told you you'd owe me one?"
My stomach drops. "I remember."
"I'm cashing in." He pushes off the desk and tucks his hands into his pockets. "I need a date. Tomorrow night."
"No."
The word comes out before I can stop it. Something flickers in his eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or irritation at being told a word he doesn't hear often enough.
"Hear me out," he says, rushing out his words.
"It's not a real date. It's a performance.
My father, as you know, has two years left to live.
Maybe less. He wants to sign the company over to me before he dies.
Otherwise, it gets split between my family, and the board members all get a say.
It will be a mess. But he's got conditions.
He wants to see me settled. Responsible.
Not the guy Page Six photographs stumbling out of clubs at three a.m."
"So stop stumbling out of clubs at three a.m.," I deadpan.
I grew up around cowboys. I fell in love with one. These guys in suits really need to learn something from them about being a man.
"I have. But he doesn't believe it. He needs to see it. And what he needs to see is me walking into his charity gala tomorrow night with a woman on my arm who looks like she can actually stand me."
I stare at him with my nose scrunched. "You want me to pretend to be your girlfriend. To trick your dying father."
"I want you to help me reassure a dying man that his legacy is in good hands.
" He holds my gaze. "My parents would love you, Harper.
That whole…" He gestures vaguely at me. "Small-town warmth thing.
The big smile. The whole I was raised right energy.
They'd believe I could fall for someone like you. "
Someone like me. Not me. Someone like me. I hear the distinction even if he doesn't.
I should say no. Because this is fucked up. But he’s the CEO.
And he gave me the Red Creek story. He gave me the power to bury it, to keep Ace and his family safe. And I owe him for that, even if he doesn't know the real reason. And I need to stay in his good books, just in case the Sterling family pops up again.
"One night," I say. "One event. We keep it professional."
"Of course."
"No touching that isn't strictly necessary."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"And this clears my debt. Completely."
He smiles again, and this time it reaches his eyes. It shouldn't make me uneasy, but it does.
"Completely. I'll email the details. I'll pick you up at eight. It's black tie." His gaze drops, traveling slowly from my face to my heels and back up in a way that makes my skin prickle. "You'll look stunning, I'm sure."
I turn to leave.
"Oh, and Harper?" He tilts his head, considering. "Maybe lose the nose ring?"
My hand goes to it instinctively, thumb pressing against the silver ring.
I got this piercing on my eighteenth birthday in a shop on Main Street back in New Falls.
Ace was in the chair next to me, getting his Jacob's ladder done, grinning at me through the pain because he knew I was nervous.
Despite the fact that someone was sticking needles into his dick.
He held my hand across the gap between our chairs.
"No," I say evenly.
Something shifts behind Hudson's eyes. "You're right. It suits you. Forget I said anything."
I walk out without another word and drop into my chair hard enough that it rolls. Samantha's eyes are the size of dinner plates.
"Did he fire you?" she whispers.
"No." I pull my keyboard toward me and start typing nothing, just to have something to do with my hands. "Worse."
"Worse?"
I look at her, and despite everything, I almost laugh. One thing moving to a city has taught me is that life is a fucking mess.
"I have to go on a date with our boss."
Her jaw hits the floor.
“I hope the same thing doesn’t happen to you,” she whispers, glancing around to make sure no one is in earshot.
I frown. “What thing?”
Her cheeks turn red. “You know Sabrina, from accounts?”
I nod. “Yeah. The new girl? Isn’t she like nineteen?”
“Yeah. Rumor is, she went on a date with Hudson a couple of weeks ago, and the next day, she’s clearing her desk into a box in floods of tears. Gone,” she tells me, throwing her hands in the air as she reclines in her seat.
An emptiness forms in the pit of my stomach.
“I take it the date didn’t go well?”
She shrugs. “No clue. Nobody knows anything about it. Whether or not it’s even true, you know what it’s like here, gossip central.”
I rub my hand across my chest. I can’t lose this job, not before I kill every story about the Sterlings. But I won’t let that man walk all over me either.
“I’ll be fine. I can handle him,” I tell her.
“You'd better. You’re the only one I like here. If you go, I’ll leave too,” she says with a smile.
I turn back to my screen, and Ace Sterling's name is still there, waiting in the minimized tab at the bottom. Like he's always been. Waiting.
I lost everything to pursue this dream, and I can’t take that back. I can’t rewrite my decisions. I came here to investigate crime stories because I thought it was my calling. And now I’m burying stories for him that I know could take him down.
And the worst part? He'll never know.
I pull up the tip line database and start scrolling, because if I sit still for one more second, I'm going to do something stupid, like call the only number I ever memorized by heart, just to hear him breathe. To tell him happy birthday.
The same way he texts me every year for mine. But I won’t call. Because I’ve seen how successful he is. I know he loves that ranch. And I won’t let him choose me over that again.
Three hundred and sixty-five days since a man touched me.
Two thousand and thirty-seven since one made it matter.
And tomorrow night, I'm wearing a black dress for the wrong one.