Page 20 of His Good Girl

“How was he?”

I closed my eyes for half a second.

He was warm, dangerous, and impossibly kind. Older than I should want and more familiar than I was comfortable with under the circumstances. The last person I should have been thinking about that way and the only person my mind seemed interested in offering up for my consideration.

“He was good to me,” I said finally.

Jules was quiet for once. Then she said, softer, “Good.”

I opened my eyes. “He was also very clear that it’s a real job.”

“As opposed to what? A decorative goddaughter residency?”

“Basically.”

“And?”

“And he was right.”

“Annoying.”

“Deeply.”

“But you’re going tomorrow.”

I looked down at my shoes, at the damp city grit along the edge of one sole, at the thin line between disaster and opportunity.

“I’m going tomorrow,” I answered.

After we hung up, I did not move right away. I watched people pass under the awning, watched the revolving doors turn behind me, watched my own reflection flicker in the glass. I looked like a woman who had gotten ready in twenty-three minutes and been professionally insulted by a man named Benjamin before being offered a probationary position by her godfather. I looked like I needed more coffee, less shame, and possibly a lint roller, but I also looked, if I tilted my head and allowed the possibility, like someone at the beginning of a brand-new future.

That was the dangerous part. This whole thing inspired hope. A little spark cupped between both hands, fragile and hot enough to burn me if I held it wrong.

And as I stepped into the thinning rain and started toward the coffee shop on the corner, trying very hard not to look back up at the forty-seventh floor, I did look back. I made it six whole steps before my spine gave up on dignity and turned around, my heart still doing that stupid, hopeful little thing it had no right to do. I looked, as if I might catch some impossible glimpse of him standing at the window, one hand in his pocket, already regretting or defending or forgetting the decision he had just made.

He had given me a job. That was all. A probationary position, a desk somewhere far from his office, and a warning dressed neatly as a chance.

Still, as I turned back toward the corner and continued into the bright, wet morning, I could feel the shape of my life turning around.

And for some reason, I couldn’t wait for tomorrow to come.

CHAPTER 3

Callum Rowe

I read Avery Hale’s email at 5:12 on Sunday morning, which was too early for a confession and too late for me to pretend I had not been awake most of the night.

Hartwell had made weekends theoretical.

The city outside the windows of my office was still dark. Rain moved against the windows in thin silver streaks. Somewhere below, the lobby crews would have been polishing stone, security would have been changing shifts, and the first ambitious fools would soon start arriving with coffees in hand, ready to sacrifice sleep for a chance to get ahead.

I had been at my desk since a little after four, reading through another round of legal summaries on the Hartwell Civic Center mess, every page more irritating than the last. They were making a bunch of anonymous claims through carefully phrased insinuations. There was nothing specific enough to sue over yet, but they weren’t harmless enough to ignore. This was the kind of problem that required lawyers, patience, and a willingness tosmile politely while someone tried to set fire to your reputation from across the room.

Then I checked my email.

At first, I thought it was a mistake. Her name sat there in my inbox like some different life, small and bright among the subject lines about risk exposure and bid integrity and council hearings. The subject line read ‘A favor.’

I opened it.