Chapter 8
Cassidy braces her hands on the marble sink and watches in the mirror as her smile spreads until it almost hurts. The forest green looks like a meadow on a particularly sunny morning, nothing but brightness and the promise that the day is going to be incredible.
She picks up her mascara and applies a little to make her eyes look more open. Then she sweeps the thick brush across her cheekbones, leaving a thin layer of powder blush that makes her look—at least—halfway alive.
"Congratulations, Cass." Payton's arms wrap around her from behind. "I knew you'd make it."
Cassidy lets out a laugh after making a face—it wasn't supposed to be that hard.
The deal was six months of practice, and if she earned the position, the marketing department at Whitestone would be the next step.
What was never supposed to happen was that Director Carter put a target on her chest and Cassidy spent a solid month proving herself and fighting to stay on her feet.
"Don't make any plans Friday," Payton says, pointing a finger at her. "I'm taking you to dinner at that place you love."
"Don't worry. That battle I had to fight left me so exhausted that all I've done is work and sleep."
Payton knows it, because she barely saw Cassidy around the apartment, and when she did come home, she'd drag her feet straight to her room.
More than once she'd wanted to tell her to quit—that she didn't need to put herself through it, that she could cover her loan payments until she found something new—but she held back.
Because Cassidy, just like her, doesn't give up easily.
Especially not when someone points a finger at her, tries to humiliate her, or tries to convince her she's not good enough at something.
The sisters leave the bathroom when the coffee maker beeps, and the older one pours two enormous mugs before settling onto the high kitchen stool.
"Your boss is such a bitch," the lawyer says—she's known from the start about Diane's animosity toward her sister. "I hope they fire her for abuse of power."
A smile plays on Cassidy's lips, because even though her sister isn't wrong, she can't picture Diane Carter getting fired for pushing an employee too hard.
In the month she spent working under her supervision—during which her boss barely addressed her directly, delegating most tasks through Jason Thompson—she's learned a lot about the woman they call, with good reason, the Cobra.
Diane has led the business development department at Whitestone for fifteen years, and the rumors range from an aging ex-lover handing her the position, to her poisoning her predecessor to take the top spot.
Cassidy didn't believe any of it. She's convinced that a woman like Diane reaches a role like that by proving her worth and leaving no loose ends.
There isn't much information about her private life, either.
When she attends the consulting firm's events, she shows up for a couple of hours, poses for the obligatory photos, and leaves.
She doesn't bring anyone. She doesn't talk to anyone except a few members of the executive team—and Clara Fitzgerald.
Cassidy's queer radar hasn't been working great when it comes to Diane.
Sometimes she reads her as a textbook lesbian, other times she comes across as your typical man-eating straight woman, so Cassidy genuinely isn't sure.
But when she sees her with the marketing director—whom she clocked the second she met her—there's a low, dull sound that settles in her right ear, like an alarm screaming that there's a story between those two.
"She is," Cassidy confirms, "but I can't deny she's the best at what she does. And when you're that good..."
Her sister's snort makes Cassidy look up at her.
"That doesn't give her the right to treat her colleagues"—she stresses the word, because as far as she knows, Diane doesn't have employees; she doesn't own the company—"like something she scraped off her shoe.
In the years I've been at the firm, I've seen that type twice. You know how they ended up?"
Cassidy brings her mug to her lips and shrugs.
"Out on the street without a single contact left to help them find a new job." Payton finishes her coffee, stands up, and sets the mug in the sink. "And from everything you've told me, I'm pretty sure that's what's waiting for her."
Cassidy takes a moment to think it over.
She agrees with her sister, except for one thing: she has a personal conviction that Diane knows exactly who she is and what she's planted along her professional path—so if she ever does get fired, Cassidy doubts she'll need a new job.
She's almost certainly prepared for when that moment comes.
"See you tonight," they say as the sounds of the New York streets push in, and both of them head in opposite directions.
The forty-minute commute to Whitestone leaves plenty of room for Cassidy's restless mind to chew on the same question it always does: why this almost irrational fascination with Diane Carter?
She's not looking for her approval—that much is clear.
She's not trying to get her attention, either.
It's something else entirely, like she wants to see her in a different position than queen on her throne.
Something more vulnerable. Under her, if she's being honest.
As she parks in the employee lot, she tries to shake the thought loose.
She's not the type to chase a straight woman—assuming Diane even is straight—or manufacture a situation just to get someone into bed.
She's the type who keeps a well-crafted profile on Halo—an app that has delivered remarkable results—or the type who heads to West Hollywood on a Friday night and ends up tangled in bed with a stranger.
Which is exactly what she'll do this weekend, after dinner with her sister.
"Don't get too close." Tanya sneezes three times in a row, and Cassidy steps back fast. "I woke up this morning with a face full of snot and a scratchy throat."
The intern wrinkles her nose and eyes her desk next to her infectious coworker with something like grief.
"I'm gonna go..." Cassidy jerks her thumb over her shoulder with no clear destination in mind.
"Yeah, that's the smart call." Tanya blows her nose into a tissue and tosses it in the trash. "Sorry—I should've moved myself, but I thought of it too late."
Cassidy waves her off with an easy gesture, then escapes to the only open table in the room, wedged between the bathroom and the mini fridge.
Almost an hour later, while she's deep in a proposal Jason sent her, she hears footsteps nearby—then a sudden stop.
"Hey, what are you doing sitting over here?"
Cassidy turns toward the voice and Clara's warm face comes into view.
"My coworker brought a viral load with her today that I'm refusing to catch." Clara raises an eyebrow, and Cassidy smiles. "There's nowhere else to sit."
Clara steps aside as a guy comes out of the bathroom, the door slamming behind him. Then she looks at the mini fridge, which hums a steady, grating drone, and it clicks immediately why this table was free.
"I don't know how you concentrate here."
Cassidy points to the small earbuds in her ears.
"Only way." She shrugs like it's no big deal.
"Come on, you can work in my office." Clara doesn't hesitate, nodding for Cassidy to follow. "There's the corner desk my assistant uses sometimes. You can have it today."
Cassidy jumps up from her seat, gathers her things, and follows Clara.
They walk into the room where Cassidy has been several times over the past month, and she goes straight to the workspace.
The chair is noticeably better quality than the ones most employees use, and the placement—next to one of the two small windows—lets in enough natural light that it doesn't feel like working in a cave.
She puts her earbuds back in when she notices the marketing director already on the phone, but not even two minutes pass before the door swings open and that woodsy scent hits her like a punch straight to the nose.
Diane Carter's jaw tightens as her eyes go directly to the corner.
That intense gaze locks on without blinking.
For a moment she goes completely still, because the last thing she expected this Wednesday was to open Clara's office door and find the girl who—without knowing it, and there's no reason she ever needs to—has shaken her well-ordered world in a way she still can't explain.
"Did you need something?" Clara pulls off her glasses the moment she hangs up and sets them on the desk with a bored look. Diane and that habit of walking in without knocking.
The woman with the ocean-blue eyes moves toward her, spine rigid, fighting an almost uncontrollable urge to turn around and leave.
"The CEO of Arnico called. He's pleased with the strategy's results and wants us to put together a proposal for an acquisition they're planning." Her voice is so mechanical that if Cassidy hadn't already met her, she'd have no trouble believing the woman was a machine.
She doesn't look at Cassidy once. She ignores her so deliberately that the intern might almost think she hadn't noticed her at all.
Except she had—because Cassidy caught the faint twitch in Diane's left eye, the same one she's spotted before when something annoys or unsettles her, and she wonders, not for the first time, why this woman dislikes her so much.
"I have a free hour at three this afternoon." Clara glances at what looks like her calendar on the computer screen. "Can we go over it then?"
"My office."
Diane turns to leave, but then she hears Clara's voice again and doesn't stop—not until she hears her name.
"...and Cassidy can be there."
"No." She says it before she's even fully turned around.
Clara lets out a quiet breath, but that "no" is not acceptable. She's just as much in charge as Diane, and decisions in that area are made jointly.
"Cassidy's trial period ended two days ago." She folds her hands calmly on the desk. "And as far as I'm aware, neither she nor I have been informed that she didn't pass."
Clara stands, walks around her desk, and leans back against it with her arms crossed.
"Which means she is now an intern working in my department and providing support to yours when there's a project that involves both.
" Clara lets the silence fall between them like a shield against Diane's blue missiles.
"Have Tatiana send me the client summary and copy Cassidy on it.
" She turns to look at the girl, addressing her directly.
"Once you get it, assess what kind of proposal we can put together. "
The intern nods.
"What do I do with Jason's analysis?"
Diane doesn't catch herself before her brow knits together. She hopes she's wrong and it's not what she thinks—what she asked her team lead to deliver that afternoon.
"Which analysis?" Diane cuts in before Clara can open her mouth.
The click of heels marks a kind of countdown for Cassidy, and when it reaches zero, her boss is close enough that she can feel the warmth radiating off her.
"The impact assessment of the business strategy we've applied over the last three months." Cassidy points to her screen, where Jason's email spells it out as briefly as possible.
Diane has to clench her fist several times to keep the blood from rushing to her head and dropping her onto the carpet from a stroke.
Jason strikes her as the kind of parasite that burrows under your skin and slowly kills you just by being there.
She's wanted him gone for a while, but he's friends with two partners who offered her a decent arrangement—new devices for her department and the transfer of two employees from Risk Analysis—in exchange for taking him on as team lead after Levi Hall was let go.
They told her he was capable. Manageable. The kind who wouldn't cause problems.
"Drop that and work on the analysis I'm sending you right now." Diane glances at her for just a moment, then fixes her eyes on her phone. "You've got it. Get started."
"I should let Ja—"
"I'll handle him," she hisses, cold and flat. "You do what I asked."
And without another word, Diane Carter walks to the office door. She leaves with her shoulders back, hiding the heat that the nearness of a girl who shouldn't even be working for her has left burning on her skin.