Chapter 18 #2
Spencer’s face goes white. “Why the fuck is he here?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if he’s seen me.” I grip the edges of the chair.
“Do you want to leave? I thought he got fired?”
“We can’t leave; everyone will see. It will look odd and it could damage our chances of making it to the next round after
all our hard work.”
Spencer looks to either side of us, straining his neck to see the executives managing the event chatting among themselves in the corner of the room.
“Making it to the next round doesn’t matter, Jess. We can leave right now; just say the word and we’ll go . . . Or I can deck
him if you’d prefer.” Spencer shoots me a tight smile.
“No. I can stay. I just can’t have him recognize me. He’ll see my name tag is wrong.” I rub my face with my hands, wishing
I’d used the severance money to get a full face transplant instead.
Spencer considers, scanning my face before nodding. “Okay. You’re going to switch with me.”
My brain must not be fully functioning because I just stare at him, trying to process what he wants me to do.
“When the bell goes off, switch seats with me. I’ll stay put and you keep moving,” he says slower, enunciating each word.
“Just follow my lead, okay?”
I nod silently; he reaches forward to touch my knee for reassurance but hesitates. I’m meant to be his assistant, not his
sister. He can see I need comfort, but any unnecessary touching would look inappropriate and unprofessional. After what feels
like an eternity, the bell rings. As we both jolt upright, Spencer pulls a pile of brochures and papers from his folder and
lets go; they slap against the ground, and I instinctually go to help him pick them up. He steps behind me, slapping my leg
to move. If you were watching us closely, we’d look insane, but everyone here is so enthralled by who they are meeting next
they don’t notice when I sit down on the next seat over from Spencer’s and Spencer sits in mine.
Letting out a long breath, I glance at the person now in front of me, a woman about my age with a dark brown slick bob. I instantly relax, recognizing her as one of the assistants from the hotel pool.
“Hey!” Her face warms as she also recognizes me. “Violet, right?”
“Yeah.” I smile, my eyes squinting as I try to remember her name. “Sorry, is it Kat?”
“Kit,” she confirms as we shake hands. “You’ve seen me in my underwear. I think we can go by nicknames now.” Her infectious
laugh puts me even more at ease.
My memory finally locks into place. “Did you end up getting kicked out of the hotel that night?”
“No.” She laughs. “Luckily one of the guys we were with is the assistant to the governor of Rome so he managed to negotiate
a slap on the wrist instead of a full banning. What would all the big-wig investors do in his city without their precious
personal assistants, hey?”
“Society would crumble.” I nod solemnly, my pulse finally regulating.
“Exactly.” She smiles.
“Sorry. I don’t think I got a chance to ask, which company do you work for?”
She smooths her dark hair to briefly reveal an electric-blue strip underneath. “Well, I’m an ‘assistant’s assistant’ at the
moment.” She holds her fingers up in quotes, rolling her eyes at the ridiculousness of her job title. “At a cybersecurity
company. I applied for an intermediate coding job, but they offered me this instead. It’s boring but it pays the bills. I’d
much prefer working somewhere like Wyst.” She points to my name tag with my fake name, fake job title, and real company typed
in Impact font. “What’s that like?”
“Oh, it’s great.” I launch into pitch mode, giving her the rehearsed spiel with personalized elements to suit a cool coder.
This is a verbal safe space. Unlike Spencer, talking to hundreds or even thousands of people at once isn’t my strong suit.
But one-on-one conversations, connecting with other people on a human scale, is where I can thrive.
We talk back and forth for our remaining time; then I move to the next seat along. I relax into my chair, knowing I’m out
of Malcolm’s eye line now with several people separating us.
After the final bell rings, we’re meant to stay and swap details with people we connected with, but I trust Spencer has this
in hand. Under the cover of the mingling crowd, I flee toward the side entrance, glancing over my shoulder to make sure no
one has noticed me leaving. I turn around, my chest seizing as a large bony body bashes into me.
“Hey, watch—” The man’s voice goes silent.
“Sorry,” I say at the same time, keeping my head down and pushing past to the exit. But as I go to move, a hand on my arm
stops me. My whole body tenses as I cut a side glance up.
“Jess,” Malcolm says. Not asks.
With a single look from his piercing eyes, everything comes flooding back. Everything he did, everything he said, everything
that happened to me. The fear, the shame, the disgust—they crawl under my skin, wrenching fingers around my lungs and gripping
tight. I want to punch him, scratch his eyes out so he can never look at me again, but then he’d definitely know it’s me.
“No, sorry. You must be thinking of someone else,” I answer his nonquestion with a shaky voice, my mouth so dry the words
pour out like sand.
I shift, pull my tingling arm from his lanced fingers, and push the bar to open the door into the cold air.
Heat rises up my throat as I shut the door behind me and run until I reach the end of the street.
I heard the door latch about ten seconds after me and pray he didn’t see which way I disappeared.
Or maybe he was just coming to get a second look, to confirm his suspicion.
Either way, Malcolm cannot definitively know that I, Jess Leigh Cole, am here.
Him knowing my real identity could ruin everything.
A wave of heat pushes into me as I turn a corner and vomit into the bushes.