Chapter 1
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ceny reach, bene reid Ar this point. I
needed in west on me the von Booked around at my barren apartment in resignation When Mi Blackwell had gone me this place for years ago because he wanted me close enough for emergencies Teas ecstatic.
I had even arranged a sort of bouse warming party, well, it hadn’t exactly been a party
1 had invited Ruby and Inez, my sister and best friend respectively, and we had the whole night getting wasted on cheap liquor and extra cheesy pizza.
Those were the fun days.
spent
1 hadn’t seen either of my girls in weeks even though we all lived in the same city. They had stopped calling me to hang out because each time they did, I always had some excuse why I couldn’t make it. And always because of Mr. Blackwell.
In my horizontal position, I kicked off my three inch pumps and reached for my phone from my bag.
It was past nine pm and I was beat. I needed a break from this job or to quit entirely. My singular week long work leave had been a disaster of epic proportions that had ended with Mr. Blackwell tracing me down to my family house and ordering me to get back to work.
My mother had been dumbfounded.
There was probably some rule that made cutting into your employees leave time illegal or something, but the two thousand dollar bonus made me blind to any such rules.
I sighed. I was making money, sure, but from the way things were looking, I was never
Chapter 1
going to be able to spend it. I had taken to sending my friends and family expensive gifts whenever I had to iniss another event.
My personal life was crumbling to the dust and I didn’t have a love life to talk of The few guys 1 had met. 1 had either unknowingly ghosted them, too busy to keep up with texts and all, stood them up on dates or ran out in the middle of one to handle something else for my boss
As I opened the group text thread between Ruby, Inez and I and caught up with what was happening to them, my phone rang. I groaned, long and low.
“Eden, can you believe Hunter?” the familiar whiny voice said from the phone.
“Oh God, how the hell had she gotten my private number?”
Alexis Quinn wasn’t a bad person, in fact, some days she could be really amusing, the breath of fresh air I desperately needed. There was also nobody that threw a tantrum quite like her. She was Mr. Blackwell’s fiancée and from what I knew, theirs was an arranged match. They had been in the works since they were children even.
The problem was that Mr.. Blackwell isn’t exactly a fan of his fiancée. Truth be told, my boss didn’t like most people. Sometimes I even wondered if he’d care if I died today.
“Hello to you too, Miss Quinn.” I said.
“Are you listening to me? I hate Hunter so much. Really, he’s lucky he’s handsome because he really gets on my nerves.” He was also as rich as Croesus so that was that.
“What did Mr. Blackwell do?” this time around, I can afford it.
“He spent our whole date replying to emails and then he ordered me a salad!”
“Did you not want a salad?” I asked seriously. She huffed.
“That’s not the point.” I was starting to think she didn’t have a point.
“Ordering me salad is like calling me fat. You know, this isn’t the first time he has made an indirect point about my weight. How crude is that!” I winced. Alexis was practically a size zero while I had never even been a size two at any point in my life. Even with all the running around I did for my job, I still had a bit of pooch to me. I normally loved every curve on my body, but I was suddenly considering hitting the gym.
“Hmmm.” I made a non–committal sound. I needed to eat and then pass out in my bed for as long as I could, not listening to my boss‘ fiancée bad mouth him.
She went on and on and on, all the while I mentally listed out the processes involved in
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getting my phone number changed. When she asked later, I could say I got robbed or my phone fell into the ocean and I hadn’t been able to get a new one.
My work phone began to ring while Miss Quinn was still speaking.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to end this call. I’m getting a call from Mr. Blackwell.”
“Well, tell him that I think he’s the worst. I’ve told him, but I don’t think he even heard me” She whined
“You’re the only one he ever listens to anyway.” I blinked.
That can’t be true.
“Yes, it is. If I didn’t know better, I’d say there’s something going on between you two.”
What the hell?
“th–that’s ridiculous.” I spluttered.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Pick Hunter’s call before he has an apoplexy.” She hung up. I scrambled to pick Mr. Blackwell’s call on my other phone, discombobulated by what I had just heard my boss‘ fiancée of all people say.
She was talking nonsense.
She was just mad at him. That was all.
She didn’t mean any of it.
SEND GIFT
