Chapter 7
Diane reads the final summary of the economic study her financial team put together for a potential client for the second time.
She's not an expert in that area, but she understands it well enough, and besides, if Grayson Murphy—the department's lead analyst—is the one who put it together, she has no doubt the numbers are solid.
What's keeping her jaw clenched and her neck knotted with unbearable strain is the analysis Cassidy Collins prepared in barely four hours.
It borders on an infuriating kind of perfection—data studied with precision, charts showing projected growth depending on which strategy is applied, three examples of the ones she considered most efficient, and a clear pitch for a sustainable proposal designed to close the contract without hesitation.
"Brilliant, don't you think?"
The Cobra looks up and studies Clara Fitzgerald's face. The woman is sitting across from her in a relaxed pose, watching her with a faint pull at the corners of her lips, a hint of mockery in it, and that image sends Diane back to a past that sometimes feels like another life.
"Brilliant is a very loaded word," she says, dropping the folder onto the desk with a sharp thud.
She rolls her head back and tries to work it in a slow circle. In moments like these, the weight she's been carrying there for longer than she can remember hardens into solid concrete she can barely hold up.
"You should take a vacation."
"And you should stay out of my business," Diane says, standing and walking toward the mini-fridge next to the bookshelf where she keeps all those books she once studied through long sleepless nights.
When she pulls the door open, she sighs with irritation; in her opinion, sparkling water only works with gin, and the thought produces the sensation of a blade splitting her skin open.
She grabs a bottle, opens it, and pours it into a short glass.
She takes a sip and savors it like she's sitting in her favorite club, tucked in a corner where no one bothered her and she could see everything.
When she turns to go back to her chair, Clara is studying her, but she doesn't say what she's thinking, and Diane's left eye twitches slightly. The marketing director knows what she can say and when, and this isn't the right moment to bring up anything that has nothing to do with work.
"Anyway," Clara says, standing and running her fingers through her freshly cut blond hair, "at some point you'll have to talk to the team and make the intern's trial period official.
It's been two weeks, and you have to admit that every one of your demands—no matter how absurd some of them were—she's met without a single mistake. "
Diane clicks her tongue and for a moment she looks almost human, a brief instant where the armor she's built around herself shows some of the cracks the intern has managed to slip through.
"She still has two weeks left, so we'll see if she stays as sharp as you say."
"God, Diane," Clara says, making a face that twists her lips. "I don't know what your problem is with Cassidy, but it looks like you've made it your mission to make her life hell, and—"
Clara stops abruptly. Her brows furrow, and the silence that falls between them turns the office into a sealed room. Diane can almost hear the other woman's mind moving at full speed, connecting the dots.
"When we first met—"
"Close the door on your way out, Clara." The Cobra's hiss cuts her off and lands squarely in the marketing director's chest. "And I'd advise you to mind your own business. My department is mine to run. I set the rules, and I don't allow anyone to question them."
Diane looks away in a gesture that anyone who barely knows her would read as that signature attitude of hers—the one that signals a conversation is over and she's done paying attention—but Clara knows perfectly well that the slight shift of her shoulders and the way her hand has moved to the diamond bracelet she never takes off are screaming that she's trying to hide what her eyes can't.
The sound of the office door closing makes Diane finally look up and press her back against her chair.
She's uncomfortable, and she hates that feeling, especially because she's spent years controlling every aspect of her life to avoid feeling exactly what's making her skin burn right now.
The problem is she doesn't know exactly what's causing it—or she doesn't want to fully admit it—but she needs to do something about it, because if she doesn't, she's going to lose her mind.
She takes off her watch, stands, and walks to the window.
She breathes in the stale air of her office and looks out at the street, which today offers a different view.
The morning came in cold; even though it's still October, people are already wearing heavier coats.
At the near end of the street, an older woman is adjusting the collar of a teenager's jacket, then smoothing both hands over the fabric, brushing away what Diane imagines must be dust or maybe pet hair.
The image drags her back three decades, and this time the pressure settles into her lower back like the crack of a whip.
"How could you get it dirty, Diane?" her mother was saying, working without success at a vanilla ice cream stain on the coat sleeve. "We have to return it first thing tomorrow and they're going to charge us a good chunk of the deposit for this."
Her father watched her with dark eyes and that clenched-jaw look she would later inherit with exact precision. Beside him, her siblings stood in spotless clothes, waiting in their usual submissive way for their mother to finish.
"If we can't afford these outfits, why don't we just stay home?" Diane always asked herself the same question. She never understood why her family seemed to live so far beyond their means.
Her father's footsteps sounded beside her until Diane caught the heavy, unpleasant cologne he wore to these kinds of events.
"A good family always does what it takes to hold its head up and keep pace with its surroundings," he said, gripping her jaw between two fingers and forcing her to look up at him. "And for that, you do whatever needs to be done. Never forget it."
Diane blinks when a taxi's horn shatters the unwanted memory that had replayed in her mind.
She turns and picks up her watch, but instead of sitting back down, she decides to head to the finance department—because her stubbornness isn't going to disappear just because some girl puts together a good proposal.
She wants Grayson to confirm that those numbers are achievable and not the product of an overly optimistic intern's imagination.
She walks down the hallway on the third floor with an unreadable expression, taking a quiet, morbid pleasure in noticing how the murmurs die at her approach and people try to make themselves invisible before her gaze lands on them.
When she turns the corner toward the elevator, her feet almost stop dead, and she's certain that if she hadn't forced them to keep moving, she would have stumbled.
Samuel Barnes is there, one shoulder leaned against the wall, wearing the grin of a kid who just got handed a present.
Across from him, Cassidy is gesturing with her hands, apparently oblivious to everything around her, her eyes fixed on the man.
Diane can't quite name what she feels, because a burning knot lodges itself behind her sternum while a thousand needles sink into the back of her neck all at once—but everything gets worse when forest green catches her.
Cassidy has turned her head, because something in the air has shifted.
Static electricity, a scent, a wave of heat that started at her feet and climbed all the way to her head, cutting off her breath completely.
It's barely a second, but the two women connect the way two souls might if they were once a single one in a past life and are only now finding each other again—the air thinning between them, the pull of it settling low in Diane's belly before she can shut it down.
"Diane," Samuel greets her, visibly thrown by the look on both their faces.
"Samuel." The clipped tone doesn't faze him—he's known this woman for years, even if they've never exchanged more than a handful of words.
Cassidy bites her lower lip without thinking, her breath catching.
Diane Carter still strikes her as every bit as unreachable as she is tyrannical, yet she can't stop noticing how perfectly those suits fit her, the sharp line of her shoulders, the way she owns every inch of space around her.
Even though she's spent two weeks working longer hours than agreed, taking analyses home with her, and turning in polished deliverables, the woman has never once said "thank you" or "good job.
" What Cassidy has been getting in return is a maddening silence, a kind of cold shoulder applied to her and no one else, and so far she's received nothing to tell her she's on the right track.
Clara, however, has had the decency to correct her when she spotted something that could be improved, and has made it clear that the work Cassidy has been doing is exceptional.
She's not complaining, and even though that kind of encouragement always helps, she can't stop wanting to hear those words from Diane's mouth.
"I'll walk with you," Samuel says, stepping in. "I want to ask you something."
Diane extends her arm and presses the elevator button once, with a lightness she's clearly had to force herself to use.
"I'll have Tatiana check my calendar and let you know—"
"You don't need to schedule a meeting," the partner says, cutting her off—a quiet reminder that he outranks her—and Diane lifts her chin to keep herself from turning around and telling him to go to hell. "I promise it'll only take a few minutes."
The elevator doors open and Samuel says a warm goodbye to Cassidy—"see you later"—which does nothing but confirm to Diane that the damn man is sleeping with the intern.
"How's Cassidy doing?" he asks once they're both inside.
The answer takes a moment because Diane is struggling to decide what to say, especially since she can't remember the last time any partner took that kind of personal interest in a simple intern.
The pain in her back sharpens, and she, not wanting to get into an argument she probably won't win, falls back on her best political answer for exactly these situations.
"It's still too early to say."
Samuel looks at her. He's always known this woman was one of the people who helped hold the company together through its hardest times, but he also knows no one is irreplaceable, and he genuinely cannot understand how she still works at Whitestone with that arrogant, heavy-handed attitude—no matter how good she is at what she does.
"She's been with us for almost three weeks," Samuel says, clasping his hands in front of him. "I'd have thought someone like you would have at least formed an opinion by now."
"I don't base my assessments on opinions," she says, dropping her voice lower and slowing the last word down deliberately, "about someone who still has time left to prove whether or not she's capable, Samuel."
The elevator opens and Diane doesn't wait before stepping into the hallway, though she can't get far, because his voice stops her.
"I was just hoping for the courtesy of a heads-up," Samuel says, checking the time on his watch. "I'm her mentor, and I know firsthand that she's exceptional. She just needs the right guidance to reach her full potential. I hope I didn't make a mistake choosing you."
Samuel is the one walking away now, and he leaves Diane nearly open-mouthed. Barnes chose her to guide Cassidy Collins? She'd expected anything but that, because she's spent years making her work speak for itself, and playing babysitter to some young woman's affair is not in her job description.
She tightens both fists, because she understands now that getting rid of the intern isn't as simple as asking HR to terminate her contract.
"Damn it," she mutters before pressing the elevator button again—because if she walks into the finance department in this state, the next head to roll will be her own.