RyMadLives
Aster Amirpour is a slut and a murderer and everyone knows it but you.
StarLovR
You’re blog is as ugly and boring and basic as you are.
CrzYLuVZomby38
If the dress don’t fit, you must acquit! But we all know it fits, so . . .
AsterMustDie
I hope you end up as dead as Madison.
Layla Harrison sat at her desk, mindlessly sipping her coffee and glaring at the comments section emblazoned across her computer screen. She was supposed to be working. Supposed to be making her mark by ensuring that the party to herald the launch of Ira Redman’s new Unrivaled tequila label was the most hyped, most talked-about party of the season. Instead, she was using company time (along with the company computer) to read the comments a bunch of media-manipulated morons had left on her blog.
“Innocent or guilty?”
Layla looked up to find Emerson, the guy from a few cubicles over, standing too close for comfort and peering over her shoulder.
With a click, Layla minimized the tab along with the other pic on her screen—the one of a frightened and pale Aster being ushered into a police car, the headline above it screaming, Party Promoter Aster Amirpour Arrested for the Murder of Madison Brooks!
It wasn’t like she needed to study it. She’d stood right beside Tommy Phillips and watched the whole sordid scene play out just one week before.
“Definitely, one hundred percent not guilty,” Layla snapped. To Emerson the case was little more than a hot piece of gossip about a fellow Unrivaled employee. It wasn’t personal for him like it was for her. She resented him using it as an icebreaker, and had no problem letting him know it.
“Not like it matters.” Emerson regarded her through wide topaz-colored eyes that his thick lashes and perfectly groomed brows only seemed to enhance. It was Layla’s first day on the job, and it was already the second time she’d been on the receiving end of his go-to condescending expression. Thankfully she’d started midweek, so there were only two more days left until the weekend.
The first was when she got lost in the maze of identical cubicles on her way back from the break room, and Emerson escorted her to her desk with an eye roll and an audible sigh. Layla had spent the next half hour silently fuming. How was she supposed to recognize hers when they all looked the same? When it came to designing his clubs, Ira Redman spared no expense. So why wouldn’t she expect a cool millennial campus, brimming with espresso bars, basketball courts, spa rooms, and maybe even a yoga studio or meditation den? But the Unrivaled Nightlife corporate offices, which basically amounted to a study in greige with their matc
hing wall-to-wall carpet and workstations, were so opposite of what she’d envisioned—so disappointingly bland—that when she’d first walked in, she was sure she’d arrived at an accounting firm.
The rest of the day was spent online, researching Madison Brooks’s disappearance a little over one month before and the evidence the LAPD had managed to stack against Aster in the ensuing weeks, only to get caught slacking off by Emerson of all people.
“Cases like that are all about perception.” Emerson was still standing too close, still peering over her shoulder even though there was nothing to see—her screen had gone blank. “And perception always drives results.”
Layla allowed her gaze to roam the fine planes of his face—the high cheekbones, square jaw, finely sculpted chin, smooth dark skin—and found herself frozen, unable to breathe. Extreme beauty often had that effect—as did the paralyzing fear of getting fired on her first day of work. She could only hope Emerson wouldn’t inform Ira of her less than stellar performance.
“Figured you would’ve known that,” he said. “After all, isn’t that what our department’s all about? Manipulating public perception into believing Ira’s clubs are the only worthy place to see and be seen, and that his tequila is the only brand worth drinking?”
Layla fidgeted, fingers picking at the strands of her platinum bob while swiveling back and forth in her seat. While she was beginning to resent Emerson’s presence, even she had to admit there was truth in his words.
“Anyway,” he continued, in a light, breezy tone she didn’t quite trust. He had it out for her, of that she was sure. “I’m guessing this was meant for you, seeing as it has your name on it.” He dropped a rectangular package onto her desk.
Layla squinted at the parcel. On the surface, it seemed innocuous enough, but something about it set her on edge. For one thing, there was no return address. For another, it was her first day on the job—she wasn’t expecting any mail.
“Found it on my chair when I came back from lunch. A simple mail room mix-up, I’m sure.”
Layla’s fingers fumbled awkwardly at its edges, but she had no intention of opening it till Emerson was safely returned to his cubicle. “Okay, thanks,” she said, her voice as dismissive as she could possibly make it. She waited until he rounded the corner and disappeared from view.
The package was substantial, but not terribly weighty. And when she shook it ever so slightly, she could sense something bulky shifting inside. All of which brought her no closer to guessing its contents.
Hoping the mail room had some sort of defined protocol for screening potential mail bombs, she retrieved a pair of scissors from her drawer, sliced through the tape, and stared perplexed at the red satin heart-shaped box she found tucked inside with a small envelope attached to its front.
It was the kind of box usually seen on Valentine’s Day. The kind of box that looked very out of place sitting on her desk in the middle of a scorching-hot August afternoon. And with no love life to speak of since Mateo had dumped her, she couldn’t even venture a guess as to who might’ve sent it.
Her dad simply wasn’t the grand gesture type. And Ira—well, Ira was her boss, which made it grossly inappropriate and completely out of the question. As for Tommy . . . well, she wouldn’t allow herself to consider it.