If the Sun Never Sets (If Love 2)

Despite her encouraging words, Kelly resembled a cobra, coiled to strike.

Beside her, Matt rubbed a hand through his hair. He, at least, at the grace to look embarrassed.

Farrah’s face paled. Something sparked in her eyes—realization. Over what, Blake didn’t know. “Thank you, but no thank you.” She stood up. “We have somewhere to be, so I’ll leave you two alone. Always a pleasure running into you.”

Blake followed Farrah into the elevator, where she jabbed at the button for his floor so hard, he was surprised it didn’t break.

“You were way nicer to them than I would’ve been,” he said. “What assholes. I know someone who knows someone. If you want, they can make it quick.”

His joke fell flat on its face.

Farrah stared straight ahead, her face set in stone. “It’s her.”

“What?”

“Kelly’s the reason I haven’t received responses from any of the firms I applied to.” He detected a slight tremble in her shoulders. Not from nerves, but from anger. “She blackballed me. God, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. She’s vindictive and petty enough to do something like this. There was a senior designer who worked at KBI when I first joined. Julie. She got a shoutout in some magazine’s list of the fifty top up-and-coming designers in the city. Kelly couldn’t stand it, even though she wasn’t an up-and-comer nor eligible for the list herself. She fired Julie, badmouthed her to the entire industry—something about Julie stealing design ideas—and forced her to move back to Michigan. I was new and under Kelly’s spell. I thought she was telling the truth. But now that I think about it…” She shook her head.

The elevator dinged. “Can she do that?” Blake didn’t know much about the design world, but based on what he saw on reality TV, he didn’t put it past Kelly to do the things Farrah said. People were crazy.

“She’s the most influential and well-respected interior designer in New York,” Farrah said flatly. “She sits on the board of NIDA. People believe everything she says.”

“She’s also banging her godson and employee.”

“No hard evidence, and knowing Kelly, she’ll cover her tracks.” Farrah groaned. “It’s true what they say. Never meet your idols because they’ll disappoint you. I knew she wasn’t the warmest person on the planet, but I never thought…” She rubbed her eyes as Blake opened the door to his apartment. “God knows what she’s said about me.”

“I’m sorry.” Blake hated how helpless he felt. “I can talk to Landon. He’s a big KBI client.” At least, until he dropped their ass, which he’d do in a heartbeat. Blake got the sense Landon wasn’t the biggest Kelly Burke fan himself.

“No.” Farrah drew in a deep breath. “I don’t want to bother him with small stuff. He has enough on his plate, and so do you. You have the New York opening and the Miami rollout…don’t worry about it. It’s my life. I’ll figure it out.”

“Hey.” Blake cupped her face in his hands. “It’s not ‘small stuff.’ Like you said, it’s your life. Your career. And I will help you in any way I can. Just say the word.”

“Thank you.” Farrah swiped under her eye. “Can we not talk about this anymore? I just want to eat pastelitos and watch bad reality TV. I’ll deal with the Kelly stuff later.”

“You got it.”

The two spent the rest of the day gorging on pastries and Chinese takeout and watching Love is Blind on Netflix. Blake had a shit ton of work to do, and today had been his least productive day in years, but as Farrah’s hand curled around his on the couch—her first time holding his hand since they ran into each other again—he knew it was worth it.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

If Farrah tried hard enough, she could use the Kelly-screwing-her-godson-and-employee info to her advantage and take down her old boss. Kelly wasn’t married, but it would be a big enough scandal to tarnish her otherwise spotless reputation.

Farrah had been ready to do it. She’d even drafted anonymous emails to the gossip rags and Kelly’s competitors, tipping them off on her salacious discovery. But she’d deleted them before ever hitting send.

She wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t care about drama and revenge, and she refused to stoop to Kelly’s level. Plus, Farrah didn’t have concrete evidence that Kelly blackballed her, though that seemed like the most plausible explanation.

She believed in karma. If Kelly did screw her over, she’d get her comeuppance.

&n

bsp; After an afternoon of wallowing, Farrah threw her energy into her new project instead of plotting her old boss’s downfall like a soap opera villain. Thank God Kelly’s reach didn’t extend to every single person in Manhattan. Farrah could find enough clients to tide her over if she hustled hard enough.

Yuliya, the model, proved easy enough to work with. Her studio apartment was small, and she needed an interior decorator more than a designer. Decorators focused solely on aesthetics; designers focused on aesthetics, space planning, and structural execution. It didn’t take Farrah long to pull together a concept that had Yuliya squealing in excited Russian.

“You’re back early.” She looked up from her computer when the front door slammed open, and Olivia marched in wearing her new green wrap dress and strappy black heels. “Date didn’t go well?”

Olivia had been on a record number of dates since the Fourth of July, though none of the poor men ever made it past date three.

“It was fine.” Olivia kicked off her shoes and placed them between her black ankle boots and black sandals. The shoe rack in their entryway was, like everything else in the apartment, organized and color-coded to Olivia’s exact specifications. “But men in finance are so boring. Just because I deal with financial models during the day doesn’t mean I want to discuss them over bucatini alla carbonara.”