Cross Your Heart and Hope He Dies

Chapter One

Juliette Winters contemplated the skyline, her future, and the possibility of throwing up.

Not from nerves, mind you. Nerves were for discount mall close-up magicians and toddler beauty pageant stage moms during the talent portion. Juliette didn’t get nervous. She got aggressive, hyped, focused, and vicious, in that precise order. But never nervous.

No, it was this fucking boat. The unnatural tilt of the deck forward and back brought on a similar wave of motion from the depths of her belly to the back of her throat, leaving a burning sensation as it subsided.

Staring at the horizon like her doctor had instructed did little to help, and the medicated patch she’d insisted he prescribe didn’t seem to be doing its job either.

She gripped the rail harder, willing her body into submission.

“You will not fuck this up for me,” she seethed at the ocean. “I refuse to be defeated by a fish’s toilet.”

The sun lingered in the west, painting the sky brilliant red to luminous orange to dusky blue, all of it twinkling back at her from the brilliance of Elliott Bay.

It would have been pretty, if the lurch of another wave hadn’t made her consider leaping overboard and swimming for shore.

She defaulted to an old visualization technique her mother and father used when she was a child, when they said she was dysregulated and her emotions needed to be “appropriately expressed.” She visualized Warren Ellingham finally turning in the manuscript he’d been promising the publisher for months.

She’d make sure it was on every major news outlet by six o’clock the next day, they’d sell millions of copies, she’d be named book visionary of the year (which wasn’t an award anybody gave out yet, but they would create it just for her), and she’d achieve all her dreams and Juniper Kensington would totally suck it at their high school reunion nearly fifteen years after ruining Juliette’s life.

“It’s almost time,” came Veeta’s softly accented voice behind her, nearly undoing the past hour of meditation, medication, and manipulation she’d enacted on her body.

Veeta had recently been promoted from marketing intern to assistant marketer—one of the last hires Simon Says could afford to make—and they took their role as Juliette’s second-in-command very seriously.

“I found some peppermint oil in the galley, which was not easy, considering the chef in there is on a real power trip about chutney. He threatened to punt someone’s dog into the sun if they didn’t find him some fresh mangoes. ”

“Forget about the peppermint, give me the Dramamine,” Juliette said.

“Didn’t your doctor warn you not to mix the scopolamine patch with any other—”

“Doctor’s orders are suggestions, like stoplights.”

Veeta sighed, slipping a small pill into her hand. “Don’t you want to at least try the peppermint oil? I can dab it behind your ears.”

“I believe in casual sex and hard drugs, I’ll stick with the Dramamine,” Juliette said, tossing the pill back. “Any sign of Warren?”

“No, but there’s been plenty of chatter about the Pub Daily blind item,” said Veeta.

“Half the party is speculating that Warren will announce his retirement tonight, and the other half thinks he’s the business magnate with the tell-all memoir.

That Piedmont woman is nearly beside herself trying to get a straight answer out of Simon.

She’s offered him a free round of golf at the country club if he gives her an early copy. ”

“Good, let people speculate, it will create more interest,” Juliette said, the Dramamine/scopolamine combo seeming to finally do the job.

Her limbs felt loose, her head pleasantly light and fluffy.

“I’ve already got interviews lined up with The Financial Times, CNN, the Seattle Times, and Joe Rogan.

Gross, I know, but he’ll hit that sweet spot of old guys who read Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Plus, it will pub two months before Father’s Day.

We’ll sell out of the first print run in no time. ”

They had better sell out if Juliette was going to hold Simon to his promise to make her COO of Simon Says so she could save the company from the brink of disaster, where they’d been teetering for over a year.

They needed this deal more than anyone knew.

Even if she might heave up all her insides in the process of securing it.

“Juliette, you’re clearly unwell,” Veeta said, their tone gentle.

“Why don’t you take the tender boat back to land, let Simon be here for the big announcement?

Or Spencer, since he’ll be editing the manuscript—I’m pretty sure he’s hiding here somewhere with Kennedy. Let someone else close the deal.”

“No, it has to be me,” Juliette said, swallowing back a wave of nausea. “I don’t trust anyone else not to botch it after the year we’ve had. I have to be there for the announcement.”

It had to be her name next to Warren’s in all the papers tomorrow.

Her face next to his in the photos. Everyone needed to know the deal was her brainchild, that she had single-handedly engineered it.

She couldn’t risk Simon or Spencer screwing it up, not after all the work she had put in to court Warren in the first place.

“I understand,” Veeta said, though Juliette knew they couldn’t possibly understand what was at stake for her. Not with the stupid reunion looming.

Juliette straightened off the railing, steeling herself for the night ahead. “Okay, I’ll hunt down Warren and prep him for the big announcement. You find Simon and make sure he doesn’t give away the farm for a few holes of golf.”

Everyone had to go barefoot so they didn’t damage the teak decking of the yacht, but Juliette still stood an impressive five feet ten inches tall even without heels. She swung her long blond hair over one shoulder, the wind immediately tossing it back in her face.

“I need you to take a picture of me,” she said, handing off her phone. “Hair?”

“Flawless,” Veeta confirmed.

She shimmied the hips of her sequined sheath dress, smoothing it into place. “Dress?”

“Stunning.”

“Strength of will?”

Veeta held up the phone, snapping the photo. “Objectively terrifying.”

Juliette posted to her main feed on Instagram, captioning the picture with “about to close the deal of the century, nbd.” When her feed refreshed, a photo of Juniper at some tropical destination popped up with some lame caption about feeling blessed or grateful or thinking about orphans, something stupid like that.

She’d once watched Juniper humiliate a bunch of middle school girls to the point of crying at a high school track meet because they were cheering too loud and distracted her on the 200 meter. Fucking Juniper.

Juliette steeled her icy blue gaze. “Let’s go blow some minds.”