by Rachel Shane
As a last resort, I ripped open his closet. Button down shirts in every shade of safe hung from the bars. A neat row of shoes lined the back of his meticulously organized walk-in closet. And there in the very center stood the jackpot. A beautiful, gleaming, metal file cabinet.
Just as I settled onto my knees and wrapped my fingers under the glorious handle—
The door swung open. My heart lodged in my throat.
In two steps Harrison rushed over and blocked my escape from the closet by leaning casually against the doorjamb. “I thought I’d find you here.” He eyed me up and down. “The girls always end up in my room. On their knees.”
My cheeks flamed. To cover, I stood up, dusted off my pants, and tried to brush past him into the room. “Oh, so that’s why your box of condoms is unused.”
“I could turn you into the Greek Org right now. How convenient there’s a rep downstairs. Trespassing.” He ticked off his fingers, still keeping me hostage. “Breaking and entering. Stealing.”
I opened my palms as if to show him my cards. “Unless I stole your heart, I’m very clearly empty handed.”
He pursed his lips. “I think you mean…red handed?”
I let out a growl and when I caught his grin deepening, I froze. New tactic. Offense. Desperate times called for desperate measures. I flipped my hair, swayed my hips, and swaggered toward him, letting my breasts brush his shirt. “So what will it take for you to let me out of here scot free?” My fake lashes fluttered over my lids. This, I could do. Make a guy fall to pieces with some sexy gestures and even sexier words. It had been my ultimate talent, my pastime. My greatest secret. I’d vowed not to sink to this level anymore just to win, but exerting power over Harrison seemed worth the sacrifice.
“Blackmail.” His thumb popped up to tally my new offense. “Bribery.” Index finger joined.
My jaw clenched but I still managed to aim a smile at him. The one that always brought guys to their knees around me. Well, except for one guy, but no amount of cleavage would have swayed him to my side. My heart pricked at the thought of Nate, my gay best friend, which still stung a little. But I was over my crush on him. Mostly.
“No bribes,” I said. “Just a good old fashioned chat.” I stroked my finger along Harrison’s bicep, trailing all the way down his smooth tanned skin to his wrist. I kept my voice low and breathy. “Unless there was something you wanted.”
Please say dick punch. Please say dick punch.
He stared at me with a hungry, animalistic gaze that made my mouth water in a way I hadn’t expected. “I want you,” he breathed. My own lungs responded with a ragged pump. “To leave me alone,” he finished. The grin returned, strategically placed just like his words. “Or rather, to leave Out House alone.”
I forced myself not to bristle. “I take that to mean you think we’re an actual threat?” Good to know. I might not have found anything incriminating, but I filed that information away—Harrison Wagner was scared of us—and let out a grand sigh. “But fine. You win. I’ll leave Out House alone.”
“Pleasure doing business with you.” He stepped aside, allowing me to pass into the room.
“That’s the only kind of pleasure you’re going to get from me.” I started to flee his room but spun around and tilted my head. “Do you have a kid?”
He let out a sharp laugh. “Do I need to add drugs to your list of offenses?” he said. “Because you must be smoking something to think that.”
I crossed my arms. “Then who’s Lily and why do you have a file about a custody hearing for her?”
His jaw tightened and for one brief moment I knew I had gotten to him. “Lily’s my sister. My parents had a nasty divorce a few years ago.” He raised a brow. “Any other painful parts of my past you want to dig up and hurl back at me?”
“Nope. Just that one.” I stomped out of his room and back downstairs, wondering why he still kept a folder about a custody hearing that happened several years ago in the new room he just moved into this weekend. Probably not the best idea to steal the last word during a battle against the guy who held all the cards, but I couldn’t help myself. As soon as I reunited with the lame party, my breath escaped my lungs on a gust. As far as I was concerned, my deal with Harrison ended as soon as his evidence against me did. I was now in the clear.
I squared my shoulders, wiggled my hips to the music, and reinforced my self-imposed mission to get Out House—and especially Harrison—back for stealing our house.
Which meant I had to unearth whatever it was Harrison feared I’d find.
SO MUCH FOR MY vow not to use my looks, but old habits died hard. Don’t tell my therapist. I donned my sexiest outfit: a severely low cut black tank top I usually reserved for the bars. A sophisticated blazer covered up the indecent parts—for now anyway. Until I evaluated which would be more likely to get me the job, my looks or my skills. Considering the staff of The Daily Snowflake consisted mostly of horny college boys, I had a feeling I’d be ditching the stuffy blazer when I shrugged off my jacket.
I readied my former beauty pageant smile—complete with Vaseline on my teeth for extra shine—and prayed someone with a penis would open the door. Don’t tell my mother I was wielding the very weapon that made us estranged. Sure enough a shrimpy guy with too much forehead and not enough hair greeted me. He sputtered at the sight of me, and I instantly regretted resorting to my looks again.
“PR position,” I said, pushing right past him into the foyer. “I want it.”
The newspaper clippings and awards hanging on the walls of the lobby were even more braggy than the smiling composite photos displayed in sorority living rooms. Each one said the same message, “Look! Here are our best assets!” Several hallways veered off into various directions like an intricate maze. An ornate stairwell led to the second floor.
Shrimpy circled around me, his mouth still flopped open, either in awe or in shock that a girl was speaking to him. “I—uh—I don’t think that position’s officially open yet.”
According to the work-in-progress Thursday edition I found on Harrison’s laptop, the ad wouldn’t run for a few more days. I tried not to hate myself as I tossed my hair from one side to another, whipping it in Shrimpy’s face so he’d be hit with the coconut scent. “Harrison Wagner told me about it.”
I waited for the swirl of guilt to hit me at utilizing the devil’s name for my own gain, but nothing came. Guess I didn’t feel that bad about using Harrison. After all, he’d used Rho Sig and then ground his heel into our faces last year. And last night.
“Oh.” Shrimpy perked up, his shoulders rising to make him a few centimeters taller. “Okay. But, uh, he’s not here right now.”
I donned a mock frown at this seemingly shocking news. Of course he wasn’t here. He was currently slaving away in some Poly-Sci elective that sounded boring as hell. If I’d shown up here when Harrison held reign, I’d be out the door before I could even list my strengths and weakness. Strengths: talking my way into getting whatever I wanted, or whatever my clients wanted if I was putting this in PR-context. Weaknesses: what I wanted didn’t exactly jive with the intents of the rest of this newspaper staff, I guessed.
I pouted. “Well, he already knows me so it would probably be best if I met with someone else anyway, right? I want to get this on merit, not on nepotism.”
Or whatever the opposite of nepotism was: getting turned away by your mortal enemy.
The guy nodded as if that made total sense. “Stay right here.” He held up his hands in a traffic stop. “I’ll be right back.” The unspoken part of his request: and when I come back, I’m going to need both your phone number and probably a kiss.
My heels clacked as I circled the room, stopping under each article. Blood froze in my veins at the clipping hanging front and center. Sorority shut down. Byline: Harrison Wagner.
It had been almost six months and the consequences of Harrison’s actions still followed me everywhere. Hot anger swooped through me, but this time I utilized the dee
p breathing techniques I’d learned in therapy until I calmed down.
A door opened and my benefactor returned with a severe woman who was all angles and no curves. Her dyed auburn ponytail was pulled back so sleek, I wondered if she sacrificed a couple brain cells for the ‘do. She hid her age behind layers of foundation, her cheekbones jutting with purpose. Not a student. The boss.
Blazer it was. Thank God.
She extended a firm handshake. “I’m Genevieve McCleary. Why don’t you follow me into my office?”
She took the stairs two at a time and her sculpted ass reaped the benefits. I huffed after her, running my finger along the slick layer of sweat decorating my upper lip. Her heels commanded attention, dwarfing my hip swaying gait in comparison to her confident swagger. She twisted the knob that opened to an elegant room at the front of the house. At Throckmorton, all extra curriculars from fraternities to the campus TV station were run out of the mansions surrounding the school. In Genevieve’s office, the windows overlooked the street outside where green grass clung to the soil as if it planned to be around for a while. But it would probably turn brown by next week and be covered with snow the week after.
Genevieve’s giant leather seat swiveled as she settled into it. I scooted the standard issue dorm chair closer to her desk. Her mouth parted to say something, so I stuck my hand into my school bag and plucked out a creamy resumé before she could be inconvenienced enough to ask for it.
She clamped her mouth shut and ran her eyes over the page. I straightened in my chair, utilizing the perfect posture technique from my beauty pageant days. Those days were a secret not one person at Throckmorton knew about and hopefully never would. That was a past I wanted to stay far behind.
“You interned at CNN this summer?” She sounded impressed, which buoyed me.
I beamed a confident smile and nodded at her. The key to winning an interview was to let the facts speak for themselves…and not reveal the truth behind those facts. I’d only received the internship position because Erin’s dad was one of the executives and I couldn’t stomach the idea of spending another day in my house in Texas where my single mother would silently hate me for my decision to leave the beauty pageant world. So Erin had let me stay with her, and her dad had secured us both internships. Television News PR was far from where I wanted to end up. I preferred to be at the front lines of a make-up company where I could arm myself with free samples while I filled swag bags for celebs. From my pageant days, I knew how to sell all things related to, well, beauty. But I had to admit, even though I’d stomped in here for all the wrong reasons, having a newspaper PR position on my resumé would look pretty attractive when it came time to apply for any job. Especially if I rounded out my experience diversity with an internship this summer in the beauty industry.
She set the creamy card stock paper down and folded her arms on her desk. I readied myself for the obvious questions, the ones interviewers plucked out of books so they could compare your cliché answer against every other cliché answer. “Tell me about your involvement on various PR tasks while at CNN.”
You mean besides getting coffee and running countless errands? And flirting with that cute news anchor who worked on floor seventeen? “It was my job to spin the network in a positive light when we received backlash from viewers.” And by that, I meant it was my job to scour Twitter for nasty comments and log them into a spreadsheet. Grunt work.
She leaned in. “Can you give an example?”
I couldn’t tell her what I did—that wouldn’t impress her. So I told her what I would have done. “One of our News Anchors got caught in a compromising situation…” With me. Just flirting, nothing more, but the pictures could be misconstrued to claim otherwise.
Genevieve nodded as if she followed the story as well. But she couldn’t have. Because it never made it to the public.
“Photographs leaked.” To Erin and nowhere else. “I swooped in and stopped them from hitting the web.” By deleting them off my phone. “I contacted all the scandalous websites and offered a deal. A trade, if you will. Another juicier story in exchange for them forgetting about the photos.” Technically the juicy story did happen, but it wasn’t in exchange for anything. It was doled out on a silver platter in an attempt to drive publicity to a new show we were airing. “If you don’t mind…” I plucked a pencil from her neat jar and scribbled the website URL on a post-it. I slid it over to her as if I were offering her a bribe. “The article in question.”
She typed in each key carefully, her lips curling as she read the words. The story had gone viral, but that was no surprise. The amount we paid for the exclusive required it. Besides, who wouldn’t want to see the brand new host of a stuffy network streaking through Washington D.C…during a closed set taping with a strategically concealed sock hiding his unmentionables The random strangers on the street were paid extras.
Genevieve glanced up at me. “Can you start today? Our first staff meeting’s in…” Her eyes flew to the clock. “Forty five minutes.”
I had class in forty-five minutes, but I could miss that. What I couldn’t miss was the look on Harrison’s face.
I sprawled out in a swivel chair at the front of the doorway, my smile greeting every person who entered the room. My new boss Genevieve commanded attention at the very front, sipping her hot coffee and keeping her eyes locked on both the door and the clock. I suspected she was the kind of person who not only cared if you were late but also hated if you weren’t early.
The chairs that surrounded the long wooden conference table filled up fast. I counted the number of people sitting with rigid, professional posture like me. Only two others. Everyone else lounged or gabbed or treated this like an ongoing party that served intellectual stimulation instead of watery beer. My fingers shook under the table in a way I hadn’t expected and I realized I was nervous. I got this on merit. Now I had to prove myself.
The door swung open again and Harrison shouldered in. His crisp button down fit right into the meeting, though I knew he’d just come from class where fraternity letters and pajama pants were more apropos. Trendy plastic-rimmed glasses that had been absent at the party last night gave him a sophisticated vibe that was clearly a lie. He aimed his snarky smirk at everyone around the table and when he got to me, he froze.
I batted my eyelashes at him.
He straightened, his body stiff as he perused the table for an empty seat. I removed my purse from the one next to me and flourished my hand toward it. It was the only empty seat left. My smile delivered two messages: a welcoming hello…and a challenge.
He kept his eyes on me as he plopped down in the chair. “What are you doing here?” he whispered, low, as if he didn’t want to be seen speaking to me.
“Recon. Annoying you. Fluffing my resumé. Take your pick.”
Genevieve stood up. “Welcome, welcome everyone. It’s good to have you all back. And we have a few new faces already.” She nodded her head toward me. “I’d like you all to meet Bianca Cruz, our new PR rock star.”
My lids fluttered closed, savoring her words. PR rock star. I could be that. I had to be that.
“PR?” Harrison raised a brow. “I wonder how you possibly found out about this open position…” He tapped long slender fingers against the table.
I shrugged. “Some mysteries can never be explained.”
Genevieve went on to introduce two other people in the photography department and told them they’d be sharing an office, then turned to me. “The PR position is a new one, so we’ll figure out where you’ll sit by tomorrow and get back to you.”
A hand shot in the air. Coming from right next to me. “She can share my space, Ms. McCleary.” Harrison was being so polite, he spoke with an almost southern drawl. Another lie. He was from an hour away in snowy, upstate New York. Though I couldn’t blame him for that kind of deception. I’d banished all forms of Spanish and Japanese from my vocabulary in a desperate attempt to distance myself from my mother, who spoke both. My accent only se
eped into a few outlier words now and I banished those from my vocabulary too.
Genevieve nodded. “Perfect.”
He leaned toward me, dropping his voice. “Have to keep my enemies close, and all.”
I SAT ON THE familiar gray couch I’d parked my butt on two hours a week all last year, folding and re-folding the tissue into my hands into small squares. The squeeze ball on the stand next to me tempted me, but I was here because I had to stop wanting to squeeze things.
My therapist, Ms. Landau, waited patiently for me to speak, her mop of curls hiding her dark eyes. She dressed in jeans and t-shirts, probably to appear as if she was on the same level as the students, but her clipboard said otherwise.
With a shaky breath, I finally spoke. “I punched someone.”
Part of me wanted her to recoil, to have a reaction, but she always kept her face void of any emotion, as if everything I told her was same old same old. That’s why I liked her. She never judged me. “And how do you feel about that?”
I’d prepared myself for this question, but I still bristled. The truth was, I felt great, Harrison deserved the lapse in my anger management. But I also felt awful. I didn’t want to be a girl who couldn’t control her anger. That placed me too firmly into the feisty Latina stereotypes I was trying to avoid, distance myself from, which was entirely the problem. I’d bottled up all the hateful, fury-filled words I wanted to hurl at my mother but my body always found ways of expelling that pent up energy through white hot rage that thundered through me. Harrison’s jaw was the first time in months I’d lost control. “Not good?” I said.
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
I folded and re-folded my tissue. I sighed, understanding the real meaning behind her question: was I lying? “It felt good because I really hate him.”
She glanced down at her clipboard. “The guy who stole your sorority house?” she asked, picking up right where we left off.
