Page 82 of The Exit Strategy

“Sorry.”

I snap my head up to find Junie standing in the doorway. It’s like I’m intentionally inviting trouble into my life now because I’m not nearly as anal about locking that damn door as I used to be.

“It was open. I just—” Apparently the doorjamb is more interesting than I am because that’s where she directs her focus.

My body jerks forward as though it wants to reach for her, hold her, keep her. But my mind shouts at me to stop.

She asked me to stop knocking, and I’m trying. I really fucking am. But when she’s in my orbit, two things happen. First, it just feels fucking right. And second, no matter how close I get, it’s never enough.

“Fen told me,” I say preemptively, assuming she’s here because Grace posted another video that shows Junie in all her Spite-Berry glory, but this one was from her sophomore year of college.

My gaze draws to her delicate shoulder she raises as if to say it’s fine. “Hudson has already sent a takedown notice. But that’s not—I wanted to ask you something.”

“You can ask me anything, Junie.”I just wish I could always give you an honest answer.

She frowns as though she heard the second part of my statement, and since I haven’t been sleeping, I hope to fuck I kept my internal thoughts to myself.

“It’s about the design competition Nana Mae entered you in.”

I dig deep for my composure and nod. “What about it?”

“She showed me the award ceremony invitation.”

Fuck. I didn’t go downstairs at all today, so I haven’t seen the mail, but I have no doubt that Nana Mae has it displayed prominently somewhere.

“Okay.” I cross my arms over my chest, and Junie recognizes it for what it is—a defensive stance that makes her stand straighter, preparing for a fight.

“It’s sponsored by Meridian.”

The sensation of snakes slithering through my bloodstream has the muscles in my shoulders tightening.

“Is that…? I mean, I remember that name.”

I stop breathing altogether. “What do you want to know?” My tone carries an edge that Junie doesn’t deserve.

Her hands ball into fists on her hips. “I know that once upon a time they were your dream. I know that you didn’t get your internship, though I never understood why. I know that it must have broken something in you when you weren’t selected because you left us all shortly after you announced you’d chosen a different path.”

She inches closer as her temper flares. “A path that you had never, not once, mentioned in all the years any of us have known you. All I ever heard was that you were going to work for Meridian.”

Meridian was where my mother worked. It was her legacy. Something I wanted to carry on…

Junie pokes me in the chest. Hard, her pointer finger feeling as though it’s made of steel. “You’re the reason I chose my dream job in seventh grade. I’d never known anyone as ambitious as you. And now, here we are.”

Barely six inches separates us now and still, she presses forward. “You’re invited to an awards ceremony that obviously means a great deal to Nana Mae but must hit you in painful ways too. So here I am, once again, putting myself out there to see if you’re fucking okay with going to a fucking gala for a fucking company who never fucking deserved you.”

Her chest heaves.

Her eyes shine.

Juniper Mercer, in all her spiteful glory, has never looked more goddamn sexy.

“It’s…complicated.”

Her nostrils flare, and I recognize my own death sentence in her eyes. “Isn’t everything?” She’s growling now. So fired up on my behalf, I’d laugh if it didn’t hit me in all the sensitive, emotional parts of myself I’ve locked away.

Junie has always seen past my defenses, and because of other people’s choices, I can’t show her how much that means to me.

She paces the length of my office before spinning on me and pinning me with a feral-looking set to her jaw.