The Boss (The Boss 1)

I stopped chewing at that thought. I’d never really thought of Porteras in a negative light before. But Gabriella really had been the glue holding the whole thing together. In the sixteen years she’d run the publication, she’d only ever taken two sick days, and they were the stuff of legend. “The day Gabriella missed work for Princess Di’s funeral,” people whispered, with a touch of manic fear in their eyes. Gabriella taking an unscheduled day off plunged the office into a near-cannibalistic frenzy, apparently.

There was no way I was going out that door today. My cell rang. “Sophie, what the hell is going on up there?” Holli. Thank God. I clutched the phone tight to my ear and scrambled

to keep the eggs from hitting the floor. “I have no idea. Gabriella isn’t here.” I suspected Holli was headed into the building, based on the loud

lobby noises distorting in the background. “Is the shoot cancelled? I just saw someone crying and carrying a printer out the front door.”

“I don’t know.” Holli is my roommate. She’s also a model, and today she was supposed to be at the spring jacket shoot on the seventh floor. By spring, would Porteras still be on the stands?

“Well, if this place is going down, I’ll just go home. I have hours of Real Housewives DVRed that I have to catch up on.” Holli sounded almost bored at the idea of the top fashion magazine in the country going into a tailspin. Probably because no matter what happened, she would be fine. Holli didn’t have an ego about her job, and would just as happily do cleaning product commercials as high-fashion shoots. I often used her somewhat lackadaisical approach to her career to get some perspective on my own.

But right at that moment, I didn’t want perspective. I wanted to run around screaming with my hair on fire, just like everyone else. “No, I’m sure the shoot is still on.” Possibly. Probably not. “Go up to seven and see what they say. I don’t want you to get in trouble with your agency.”

“Will do, boss,” Holli chirped, then gasped like a scandalized young miss in a Jane Austen movie. “O. M. G. What if they gave you Gabriella’s job? Like, since you’re her second in command?”

“I’m not her second in command. I’m her assistant. And that kind of thing only happens in the movies.” But that left me with a very good question I hadn’t come up with during my moping. Who would be the new Gabriella?

The doors from reception opened, and masculine voices drifted in. I shifted my phone from one hand to the other and balanced the plate of eggs and salmon on my arm as I rose on legs clumsy and prickly from sitting in one place too long. “Holli, I have to go.”

I didn’t wait for her response before I ended the call. I dropped the phone on the desk and slid the half-eaten breakfast back into its place, just as muted footsteps entered the room.

I smoothed down my black skirt and raised my head, trying to project an air of confidence that crumbled the moment I saw the man who’d lead the way into the room.

Not him. No. I knew him. Or, didn’t. My pulse drowned out every other sound in the room as I took him in. A sleek, sharkskin-gray suit, no tie, open collar, so different from the casual attire we’d scattered all over that hotel room floor six years ago.

My throat was so dry I thought it might seal itself off. That was probably a good thing, because it meant I wouldn’t be puking up eggs and salmon all over his shiny, expensive black leather shoes.

“Are you...” I watched his perfect lips form the words. Recognition flickered across his face and he raked his dark ash blonde hair back from his brow with his fingers. I braced myself for the impact of the words that followed: “Gabriella’s assistant?”

Anger and mortification fought over which was going to send my blood into my head. I tried to will myself pale as I nodded. “Um, yeah. Yes.”

He put his hand out. “Neil Elwood, Elwood and Stern.”

I wanted to snap, “Yes, I know that! We slept together!” There was no way in hell I was going to say anything of the sort. Not if he didn’t remember me. Also, I didn’t technically know who he was. When we’d spent the night together, he’d told me his name was Leif, and that he wrote for a car magazine. Apparently he’d misspoken, because Neil Elwood didn’t write for magazines. Neil Elwood owned magazines.

“Bad luck,” he said apologetically. It sounded much more polite in his posh English accent than it would have if some guy from New Jersey had just said, “Bad luck,” about my losing my freaking job. His voice had caught my attention the day we’d met, and it did wicked things to me now.