Chapter 6
BERNADETTE
Ifelt like I had just been on a whirlwind shopping spree and I didn’t spend a penny. Despite my insistence I pay, Annika assured me there was no way she could sell me the pieces. They were all samples and would only end up in some storeroom if I didn’t take them.
It was hard to argue with that logic.
And I had felt so pretty. I never wore color. I never showed off my shoulders. I’m not sure when I turned into a prude dresser, but after wearing all those pretty things and putting my pantsuit on, I saw it. I saw what the world saw.
Mundane.
Inconsequential.
Boring.
But when Sebastian saw me in that sundress, he had looked impressed. Like he’d been genuinely surprised. Like he’d forgotten how to form words for a second. I made him speechless. When, if ever, had I left a man speechless with my looks? Probably never.
It was addicting. I liked feeling sexy. Pretty. Like I was a woman to be noticed. Usually, I dressed to be unnoticeable. I blended in with the furniture. I could be a plant most days. Just another fixture doing a job.
When he flashed that come-hither smile, I felt it. I felt the power. My panties had been damn close to melting.
Then I reminded myself the man gets paid to be hot.
That’s literally his job. Professional attractive person.
Those blue eyes, that smile, the way he’d looked at me like I was the only woman in the world—it was all practiced.
A skill he’d honed over years of modeling and parties and getting whatever he wanted with a flash of charm.
He got paid to look at models like that all the time. It was probably just another day in the office for him.
But for me? Hot damn.
I was human, after all, with functioning eyes and hormones. I wasn’t immune to a pretty face. And his face? If he was a woman, they would say he could launch a thousand ships. He was the kind of guy that liked to spread the love.
And that was not my style.
Flings and casual hookups held no interest for me. I’d never been the type to lose my head over a pretty face, no matter how pretty that face happened to be.
Still, as I slid into the back of a cab, I had to admit, if I was ever going to take a walk on the wild side, it would be with a man like Sebastian Blackwell.
Which was exactly why I wouldn’t.
The insurance company occupied floors twelve through fifteen of a building in Midtown that had been renovated sometime in the nineties and hadn’t been touched since.
The lobby was all marble and brass, trying for timeless elegance and achieving dated corporation instead.
It wasn’t as modern and pretty as the Blackwell building.
I took the elevator up to fourteen, where my father’s corner office overlooked the city.
I stopped by my own office first, which was nice, but half the size of my father’s and only had a single window. I straightened my jacket, checked that my bun was still severe, and walked down the hall to face the man who’d taught me everything I knew about insurance and nothing about being happy.
His door was partially open. I knocked once and walked in. He sat behind his massive desk, reading something on his computer screen.
“Bernadette,” he said without looking up. “Close the door.”
I did, then took one of the leather chairs across from him.
The office was exactly what you’d expect from a man who valued control above all else.
It was organized, expensive, and impersonal.
The only photo was of him shaking hands with some politician at a fundraiser.
No family pictures. No personal touches.
He finally looked up from his screen. I always felt like he was evaluating me. Judging me. He was looking for something wrong.
Maybe that was why I dressed the way I did. I could blend into the chair with my monochromatic outfit. Nothing to pick out. No visible stains.
“How did the meeting go?” he asked.
“Fine. Sebastian Blackwell wanted clarification on the safety protocols. We discussed some of the finer points.”
“I don’t need the details. I need to know if he’s taking this seriously. Is he going to be a problem?”
I thought about Sebastian’s lack of understanding of the information.
“He’s enthusiastic,” I said carefully. “Creative. He has big ideas.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“He’ll follow the rules,” I said, with more confidence than I felt. Honestly, I wasn’t sure Sebastian Blackwell had ever met a rule he didn’t want to break. “I’ll make sure of it.”
My father leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him. “This policy is worth a lot of money, Bernadette. If things go sideways—if there’s an accident, if the Miratoan government shuts them down, if anything happens that triggers the payout—we’re talking millions of dollars.”
“I understand that.”
“Do you? Because this isn’t like our other accounts. This is high profile. High risk. And it’s your job to make sure we don’t lose money on this deal.”
There it was. The real reason he’d put me on this job instead of one of the senior adjusters. Not because he trusted me, but because he could control me. Family loyalty meant I’d do whatever it took to protect the company’s bottom line.
“I know what my job is,” I said, keeping my voice calm.
“Good. At the end of the day, we’re a business. We make money by collecting premiums and not paying out claims. That’s the model. That’s how we survive.”
I’d heard this speech before, in various forms, throughout my career.
It always made my stomach turn. Yes, insurance was a business.
Yes, we needed to be profitable. But there was a difference between being smart about risk and leaving clients hanging when they needed the insurance they paid for because of some fine print.
“I know,” I said.
“Your job is to make sure nothing happens. Watch them like a hawk. Document everything. If they so much as step one toe out of line, I want to know about it.”
“You want me to find a reason to void the policy.”
It wasn’t a question. We both knew that’s what he was saying, even if he wouldn’t admit it outright.
“I want you to do your job,” he said, but his eyes said something else entirely. “Two weeks on a tropical island with a bunch of models and fashion people. They’re going to screw something up. It’s inevitable. Just make sure we’re protected when they do.”
“Is there anything else?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“Don’t embarrass the company. Don’t embarrass me. And don’t get distracted by whatever playboy antics that Blackwell boy gets up to. I’ve seen the pictures. He’s exactly the kind of irresponsible idiot who causes the problems we’re trying to avoid.”
I felt that familiar wave of heat whenever I thought too hard about Sebastian. “I’m a professional. My personal feelings don’t factor into my work.”
“See that they don’t.” He turned back to his computer, dismissing me. “Have a safe flight. Check in every other day. And Bernadette?”
I paused at the door. “Yeah?”
“Don’t screw this up.”
I left his office feeling like I needed a shower. Or a drink. Or maybe just a different father.
My apartment was in a decent building on the Upper West Side, close enough to the office that I could walk when the weather was nice. It was a one-bedroom with hardwood floors and good light, furnished with pieces I’d inherited from my grandmother mixed with generic items from West Elm.
My apartment was nice, not homey or exceptional, but nice.
Lonely, if I was being honest with myself.
I had barely taken off my pumps when there was a knock at the door.
I opened it to find a courier with several garment bags and shopping bags with the Blackwell logo. “Bernadette Simmons?”
“Yes.”
“Sign here.”
I quickly signed for the delivery and took everything inside. I stared at the pile. Annika wasn’t kidding when she said she was making my clothes a priority. If I had bought all this stuff in a store, I had no doubt I would have spent somewhere in the six-figure range.
I carried everything to my room and unloaded the bags. The clothes were pretty. More than pretty—they were the kind of clothes that made you feel feminine and sexy.
And I hadn’t paid for any of them.
I frowned, pulling out my phone to calculate what I should reimburse Blackwell for. But the prices weren’t listed on any tags, and when I tried to look up similar pieces online, nothing came up.
A conflict of interest, probably. I should document it. Put it in a memo somewhere. Cover my ass if my father tried to claim I’d been compromised by accepting gifts from a client.
But I also didn’t have time to shop for myself before we left. I worked too much. I barely had time to sleep, let alone wander through department stores looking for appropriate tropical business attire.
Plus—and I was only admitting this to myself in the privacy of my own apartment—I wanted them.
And despite how I presented myself in my professional environment, I wasn’t actually a passionless robot.
I was just a woman who’d learned that showing too much personality around dickhead businessmen was a liability.
If I dressed too feminine, they didn’t take me seriously. If I laughed at their jokes, they thought I was flirting. If I pushed back too hard, I was labeled “difficult.” If I didn’t push back enough, I was a wimp.
I’d rather be thought of as a bitch than a joke.
And I was already working under my father’s shadow, where everyone in the office thought I was a nepo baby who’d only gotten her position because of her last name.
As if it was some blessing to work in insurance.
As if I’d chosen this path because I loved it and not because my father had threatened to disown me if I didn’t.
Not just financially, either, but he would straight up cut me off, as in don’t come to family dinners, you’re dead to me.
“If you turn your back on this family, this family will turn its back on you,” he’d said when I’d been twenty-two and stupid enough to mention wanting to go to graduate school for something else. Anything else. “This company is your legacy. You don’t get to walk away from it.”
So I hadn’t. I’d put on the pantsuit, pulled my hair back, and learned to be the kind of ruthless professional my father wanted me to be.
Most days, I told myself it was fine. I was good at my job. I helped people, in my own way. And if the work itself wasn’t fulfilling, at least it was stable.
But then I would come home to this empty apartment with its endless silence, and I would wonder what the hell I was doing with my life.
I laid out the sundresses on my bed, trying to remember the last time I’d bought new clothes that weren’t for work.
Had to be at least three years. Maybe four.
I’d been seeing Max then—the guy who’d turned out to be way too interested in feet, among other red flags I’d ignored because I was lonely and he’d seemed nice at first.
Before that, there was John, who’d been rude to waitstaff and thought tipping was optional. And before him, Mike with the podcast about cryptocurrency and male empowerment, which should have been a red flag from day one but I’d been desperate enough to give him a chance anyway.
I hadn’t dated anyone in over a year. Hadn’t even tried.
What was the point? I worked sixty-hour weeks.
I didn’t have hobbies. I didn’t have friends outside of work, and the friends I had at work were really just colleagues who I occasionally got drinks with to complain about our jobs.
There was no one to wear cute sundresses for.
Except Sebastian had looked at me like there was.
I caught myself smiling at the memory and immediately stopped. The man was a notorious playboy who probably looked at every woman like that. He’d probably forgotten about me the second I left the workshop.
But still. It had been nice. Being looked at like I might be worthy of a kiss or something more.
Maybe after this job, I could try dating again. Dip my toes back into that particular pool. Find someone stable and kind who didn’t have weird fetishes or terrible personality traits.
That was assuming I survived two weeks in Sebastian Blackwell’s orbit. I had a feeling that was going to be the most difficult part of my whole damn plan.
“After this job,” I said out loud to no one. “After this job, something’s going to change.”
I was going to find a way to live. Really live. Not just survive and exist anymore.