7. Serena
Serena
Rows of lilac bushes bloom outside the Onyx building.
I stop on the sidewalk, looking at them as pedestrians walk around me. It’s a dick move to interrupt traffic like this, but it’s the first time I’ve really seen the flowers around the building, the way they contrast with the sleek black marble facade.
Before I’ve really given it much thought, my camera is in my hand, and I’m capturing the gentle sway of the flowers, the way the morning sun hits them.
Midday would be too harsh, and golden hour would betray the feeling of the lilacs—these are a morning bloom.
Unassuming. A scent that floats throughout the city.
I get closer, press my face into one of the flowers, and breathe deeply.
They bring back a memory—my grandmother telling me about her love for lilacs, about the old bush outside her place that bloomed lopsided, mellow purple flowers dotting one half only.
I swallow down the grief that rises in my throat at the thought and tuck my camera back into its bag, walking through the sliding doors and into the cool, air-conditioned hush of the lobby.
The Onyx building houses all the administrative work that takes place for the management of the property firm. I know that because last night, after getting the text from Travis, I took a little more time to investigate the company.
Turns out, Onyx is completely separate from anything Stephan Oakley—Travis’s father—did in his lifetime. According to an interview with Travis, he didn’t use a cent of his father’s inheritance to start the venture. It seemed important to him to do it on his own.
My roommates all had their own thoughts about whether or not that made Travis a self-made man.
“Can you really be self-made when you received the best education? Didn’t have to work when you were in school? When college was always a given?” Georgie had asked, crossing her arms, not even trying to hide her envy.
“Yeah, but think about it,” Lillie had said, lifting her hands up and framing them as she stared at the ceiling. “Rich people have to go through so much shit, you know? Like, their parents never spend any time with them or whatever.”
“Is your thesis that the rich trauma balances out the rich privilege?” Grayson asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
Lillie dropped her hands and shrugged, “Guess it depends on the person.”
“Good morning, Miss MacKenzie!”
A chipper voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and I blink at Travis’s assistant, Dianne.
“Good morning, Dianne,” I say, and if she’s surprised that I remembered her name, she doesn’t show it, waving for me to take a seat outside Travis’s office.
I’m a little early and wearing one of my more conservative outfits: a vintage mini-dress with large black, red, and white overlapping triangles.
Paired with casual shoes and a ponytail, I’ve dressed it down enough to not come off as eccentric.
I hope.
After the text came in last night, Monopoly was forgotten. Instead, my roommates spent the evening trying to figure out what Travis might want with me, while Grayson put on Wolf of Wall Street in the background and kept trying to entice us into watching it, saying it was “thematic.”
Bianca must have gotten home after we all went to bed, because I didn’t see her come in.
“You can go on in—he’s ready for you.”
At the sound of Dianne’s voice, I startle out of my thoughts and stand, hand going to the camera bag hanging at my side. Just like before, my heart beats in my throat as I push through the doors, but this time it’s not from adrenaline.
It’s from the knowledge that I’ve been thinking about this man. Way too much.
Last night, I dreamed there was a knock on my bedroom door, and when I opened it, he was standing on the other side.
“You forgot something at the office,” dream-Travis said, darkly, before pushing inside my bedroom and sliding his cool hands up under my tank top.
Now, I walk into his office and come face-to-face with him once more. In my entire time freelancing for Onyx, I’ve never had this much time alone with the CEO.
“Good morning,” he says, setting down a tablet and facing me.
Rather than sitting behind his massive desk, he’s standing, and it does something to the air in the room.
Once again, his face is stoic, purely passive, and even though I’m looking right at him, it’s hard for me to get a read on what he’s thinking.
I wonder if that’s what people feel when they look at me, and I recognize the walls he’s put up. The effortless way he’s shuffled his emotions to the background, covered them with apathy.
“Good morning.” I resist the urge to run my hands over my dress, then immediately give in. Travis’s gaze tracks the movement, and I feel its effects in my pulse. Even standing in this room with him is too fucking much. Thick, syrupy tension.
Slowly, Travis turns and walks around the side of the desk, bringing himself closer to me. When he’s just two feet away, I catch his cologne. Woodsy and smoky.
This time, I actually do resist the urge to close my eyes. It’s completely juvenile, this reaction. But being aware of it doesn’t make it any less intense.
“Sorry for the late notice,” he says, mercifully stopping his advance toward me.
Instead, he leans back against his desk and picks a non-existent piece of lint from his cuff.
Looking down at his hand, he says, “I was hoping I might be able to hire you for a job. All day on Saturday, I’d need you there early and potentially into Sunday morning. ”
“A… job?”
Now he looks at me, one eyebrow raised. On anyone else, it might be playful.
On him, it’s precise. “Yes. This weekend is the launch of the hotel line—featuring the condos you photographed before—and apparently the photographer we hired for the event can’t make it.
Obviously, we can discuss a bonus for you.
And it would be doing Onyx a great favor. ”
Face flushed red, I look down at the camera hanging at my side. What the hell was I thinking when he mentioned a job over the weekend? I’m not an escort. If he even suggested such a thing, I’d shove it down his throat.
Or, at least, I like to think I would.
I like to think I would never agree to something like that. No matter how handsome the man was.
Swallowing, I remember that I’m supposed to go to the farmer’s market Saturday morning with Bianca.
And then I also remember that I’m out all the money I put into that shared savings account, and I need to build my emergency fund back up. I need to be able to help with rent.
What I do not do is allow myself to go anywhere near the truth—that I’m saying yes to this offer not because of the money or what it might do for my future career.
I’m saying yes to this offer because I can’t deny the urge to be near the much-older, impossibly handsome brother of the man I’ve just gotten out of a relationship with.
“Yes, I can do it.” Before I can really think it through, I thrust my hand out in Travis’s direction.
Travis raises his brow again, and my flush deepens. Just when I think he’ll turn without shaking it, he steps forward and slides his cool palm against mine.
The touch is electric, immediately jolting right down to that spot between my legs once more. I suck in a shaky breath, pray to god he didn’t hear me do it, and thank him quickly before turning to leave, swallowing down great gulps of air the moment I’m on the other side of his office door.
“It’s a recipe from TikTok,” Lillie hums as she spoons out ladles of dumplings and a coconut curry onto our plates. “Like, half the stuff here is just from Trader Joe’s.”
“So, you’re not a real chef,” Georgia deadpans.
Lillie pauses, pulling the pan back and raising her eyebrows at Georgie.
The med student laughs, realizes Lillie isn’t joking, then rescinds her teasing.
Instead of apologizing, Georgia jokingly dips her head, holding her bowl up like a peasant begging for porridge.
“You’d all do well to remember what they say about the hand that feeds!” Lillie cackles in a Russian accent before taking the pan back into the kitchen.
We’re sitting around in the living room—where we normally gather for meals—digging into our food while Sid and Grayson argue over what to watch. Sid has nominated Bridgerton. Grayson wants to watch compilations of figure skating from the Olympics.
Georgia mediates the fight, but I’m hardly paying attention.
I can’t stop looking at the place at the edge of the settee where Bianca usually curls up.
I guess I’d thought that when I moved in again, things would go right back to the way they were.
And they have with everyone else. It’s just my best friend who is suddenly missing.
Every time I try to text her about it, try to dig into what might be going on with her, she manages to brush me off or redirect the conversation toward what’s going on in my life. Last time we messaged, she left off saying she might be able to find someone to fix the record player.
Even if she could, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Of course, Bianca will offer to cover it if I admit that. She still doesn’t understand why I won’t let her buy me things or pay for my stuff.
“I’m just saying,” Grayson says, standing now beside the TV, pointing at the YouTube icon, “that it’s our patriotic duty?—”
His speech is cut short by a knock on the door.
“Is it Bianca?” Lillie asks, emerging from the kitchen with her lavender hair down, her apron off. Sitting on the couch, she folds her legs beneath her and calls out, “Come in, bitch.”
There’s a pause, then Sid says, “It’s… not Bianca.”
He’s looking down at his phone, which reminds me that he installed cameras around the outside of the house. At the time, he claimed it was so he could catch the raccoons on video, but none of us really bought that explanation.
“Who is it?” I’m already standing, setting my food down on a scuffed side table.