The Romance Plan: Cupids: Book 5

by Lila Monroe

  The criminally perky woman from MediaCorp leaves me another voicemail the following morning, then calls again that afternoon. “I really need to talk to you about your author list,” she trills cheerily. “I’m available anytime.”

  Shoot. My author list! I’ve been so focused on my own bleak fate the last few days, I haven’t spent nearly enough time worrying about what’s going to happen to them. They’re probably going to get cut loose like dead weight now that Sterling is getting absorbed by a soulless behemoth like MediaCorp. Maybe if I go in there and plead my case, the same way I did with Liam back at the very beginning, I can convince Perky Lady’s bosses to at least honor their contracts.

  Or maybe they’ll laugh me all the way back below 14th Street.

  Still, once the thought enters my mind I know I have to try. I march to the closet and put on my most professional-looking outfit, a subdued pencil skirt and silk shell top, then yank my admittedlyunwashed hair into a tidy bun on top of my head. I slick some cream blush onto my cheeks to disguise my ghoulish post-breakup pallor and slip on my lucky polka dot heels. Then I hop on the subway and head uptown.

  The MediaCorp Tower is enormous, all imposing steel and glass like something out of the Capitol in the Hunger Games—which is probably why Liam liked it so much, I think grimly, remembering the little competition he put us through on his first day at Sterling. My heels click ominously on the marble as I approach the security desk. An elevator whooshes me up to the eighty-third floor so quickly I almost get vertigo. I give my name to the admin at reception, but I’ve barely had time to sit down in the waiting area when a brisk-looking blonde bustles through the door to retrieve me.

  “Eliza!” Anne Brower is older than she sounded on the phone, and significantly cooler-looking, in a pair of high-waisted black pants and killer heels. “It is so nice to meet you in person. Come on back. Can I grab you anything? Coffee? Matcha?”

  I shake my head.. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “I have to tell you, I’m a huge fan of Verity’s,” she continues as she leads me down a long, bustling corridor. “I just gobbled the new book.”

  “Oh!” That surprises me. She’s being awfully warm and friendly, considering she’s sending me and all my colleagues straight to the unemployment line, but I guess even soulless corporations practice hospitality from time to time. “Thank you. It was a team effort, but I’m sure you know what a star Verity is.”

  “I do! Which is one of the many things I wanted to talk to you about.” She ushers me into her office, motions for me to have a seat. “First of all, sorry to have stalked you,” she says with a self-deprecating smile, once we’re settled in. “But everything is just happening so fast, and I wanted to make sure to get your take before we made any decisions about office space or the release calendar.”

  I frown. “Office space?” I repeat.

  Anne nods. “We’ve got room two floors down,” she continues, “but I wanted you to take a look at it before we commit to anything to make sure there’s enough room for all your people. Now, as far as your fall and winter lists go, we should be able to proceed as planned without any major disruptions, though I did want to ask you about delivery—”

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupt as Anne rifles through a stack of folders on her desk. She’s going on like I know what she’s talking about, which I definitely do not. “I’m confused. Office space? My winter list? Delivery for what, exactly?”

  Anne looks at me a little oddly for a moment. Then all at once the lightbulb seems to go on. “Oh my goodness,” she says, laughing a little, “did Mr. Sterling not tell you?”

  I feel myself get very still. “Tell me… what?”

  “Well, I don’t mind telling you, your boss drives quite the hard bargain,” Anne says with a smile. “He had a very long list of conditions he wanted us to agree to before he’d sign the acquisition paperwork.”

  “What kind of conditions?” I ask in a small voice.

  “He made us promise to honor the contracts with all your authors, for one,” Anne tells me, “and to keep all staff on for a minimum of one year. It was a real sticking point for him.”

  “It was?” I feel dizzy, even though I’m already sitting down.

  “We’ll be keeping the Sterling name as an imprint under the larger MediaCorp umbrella,” she explains, “so the company will live on.” She smiles. “And we’d love to have you at the helm.”

  For a moment I just gape at her. I just hallucinated, I must have. “You want me to… stay on?”

  “As senior editor.” Anne continues. “Of course, we understand you’re probably in incredibly high demand after your success with Verity,” Anne says quickly. “And the compensation package we’re willing to offer reflect that.” She smiles. “In particular if you can work your magic on Verity again!”

  She slides a sheet of paper across the table towards me, and the number on it would make my legs give way if I wasn’t already sitting down.

  “So, let me tell you a little how I imagine your role here at the Sterling imprint…”

  I shuffle out of the meeting an hour later completely dazed. It’s all I can do not to wander out into traffic or body-check into any businessmen as I wander down the sidewalk, trying to process everything Anne just said. I told her that I’d give her an answer on the job within a couple of days, but I can’t believe the position even exists at all.

  My own senior editor gig, heading up a Sterling imprint, with all my old authors, and most of the staff, too…

  It’s incredible. Impossible.

  And Liam is the one who made it happen.

  I stop dead in the street, as the realization hits: If this was what he was trying to explain to me that night outside Verity’s launch party—

  Then I was wrong about him.

  Not just wrong.

  Colossally wrong.

  I cringe when I think back to everything I said to him. I basically called him a soulless money monster, accused him of selling us all out, when the whole time, he’d been fighting to keep Sterling alive in whatever form he could.

  He fought for me. And I just drove him away, instead.

  I have to find a way to make it right, no matter what it costs me.

  I just hope it’s not too late.

  23

  Liam

  “Harder,” Madison commands me a few days later, even as I thrust with as much force as I possibly can. Both of us are sweating, damp tendrils of Madison’s curly hair escaping her ponytail. Her cheeks are pink with exertion. “Harder!”

  I go again, my whole body tensing with the strain. “Like that?” I ask with a grunt.

  “Better,” she gasps. “That’s it. But go ahead and use me. Really put your weight into it. I promise it’s not going to hurt me. Yes. Yes!”

  That’s when Jase strolls into the gym.

  “I knew I’d find you here,” he says, leaning against an elliptical machine with an easy grin. “You’re the only guy I know who would use a breakup as an opportunity to increase his own personal productivity.”

  “That’s not what I’m doing,” I protest, although it’s true that if I’m spending every waking moment perfecting my deadlifts and updating my resume, it’s a lot easier not to think about Eliza.

  At least, in theory.

  In practice, not so much.

  I turn to Madison, the trainer I’ve been working with since I got to New York—a petite brunette who could probably bench press me without much trouble. “I think I’m smoked for today,” I tell her. “Same time tomorrow?”

  “You got it,” she says, picking up her water bottle and offering me a towel. “But I’m not going to be so easy on you next time.”

  Jase watches her go, the appreciation visible on his face. “She’s cute,” he observes.

  “You are emphatically not her type,” I inform him.

  “Really?” Jase asks, with the genuine confusion of a guy who’s basically never been turned down by a woman in his entire life. “Who i
s?”

  I fix him with a look. “Jessica Simpson, maybe?”

  “Ah.” Jase nods. “Noted. Come on,” he says now, nodding toward the locker room. “If you’re not going to make it happen at the gym, why don’t you hit the showers and we’ll go out tonight?”

  I shake my head. “Thanks,” I tell him, “but I think I’ll just go home and veg.”

  “No way,” Jase says. “You know the best way to get over someone—”

  “Don’t say it.”

  “—Is to get under someone else.” Jase grins. “If not your hot trainer, then one of the five million other beautiful women in this city.”

  “That’s your MO, not mine,” I remind him.

  “Fair enough,” he admits. “Then let’s do the next best thing: eat. I see you’re watching your girlish figure, but I’ve got to taste-test some pizzas.”

  I sigh. “You’re still on that, huh?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Jase smiles proudly. “At this rate, I’m going to be the Millennial Pizza King of all five boroughs by my next birthday.”

  “It’s good to have goals.”

  “Thank you.”

  We pick up half a dozen test pies from Mario’s and head back to the Clubhouse. It’s still early enough that the place is mostly empty, but a pretty blonde is setting up behind the bar. “Hey Jase,” she calls, her shirt riding up to reveal a toned, tanned stomach as she lifts her arms to hook a pair of wineglasses in a rack over her head. She motions to the pizzas. “Hungry?”

  He winks. “I’ll save you a slice, how about.”

  She lifts an eyebrow. “Save me two.”

  “You know,” Jase murmurs as we make our way across the still-empty dance floor, “she’s got a sister.”

  “That’s nice for her,” I reply blandly. Jase rolls his eyes, and I make a face in return. It’s not like I don’t get what he’s doing—and it would be nice if I could just screw or drink my way into utter oblivion until I emerged on the other side of the fog totally over Eliza. But that’s never been the kind of guy I am, and I know myself well enough to know it’s definitely not going to work now.

  Eliza isn’t the kind of woman you can forget so easily.

  I sink down onto the leather couch in Jase’s office, tilting my head back and staring up at the ceiling as I replay our fight outside the hotel for the hundredth time in the last few days. I know I should have just explained to her what was going on with Sterling and the buyout in the moment. But my words failed me, just like they have so many times before. And that split-second hesitation on my part was all it took for Eliza to let me know exactly what she secretly thought of me all this time.

  Heartless. Uptight.

  “Stop it,” Jase orders, handing me a beer out of the mini fridge.

  “I didn’t say anything,” I protest.

  Jase snorts, opening a beer of his own. “I could hear you thinking.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Your thoughts are loud.” He shrugs. “Why don’t you just call her? Explain to her that she got it wrong.”

  Right away, I shake my head. “It’s useless,” I say flatly. “She’s made up her mind about me already.”

  Jase leans back in his desk chair. “I mean, can you blame her?”

  I feel my eyes narrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jase rubs thoughtfully at his beard. “Well, by your own admission, you didn’t explain yourself very well,” he points out. “And it’s not exactly like you have some stellar track record of putting people over profits. How was she supposed to guess you bent over backwards to make sure she and her friends all got good deals? Who was going to tell her, if not you?”

  I frown. I know from decades of experience that Jase isn’t looking for a fight. He’s just calling it like he sees it, same as always. Still, the observation stings. “She should have known better,” I insist stubbornly. “She should have known me better.”

  Jase shrugs. “So why not tell her that?” he asks, like it’s just that simple, then shoves a piece of pizza into his mouth.

  Jase asks if I want to make a night of it—“Sisters,” he reminds me again, his lips twisting gleefully—but I shake my head. Instead, I take a cab back to my apartment, hanging up my jacket in the mostly-bare closet and fetching a glass of water from the gleaming white kitchen. My footsteps echo in the cavernous space. Eliza had a point about this place, I can’t help but admit to myself as I look around at the carefully neutral furnishings, the walls all painted in various shades of taupe. It’s luxurious, but anonymous. It’s nice, but it’s… beige. In all the time I’ve been living here, the only time it’s ever really felt like a proper home was—

  Well.

  When Eliza was here, making a mess in the kitchen and sprawling on the sofa in my T-shirts and trying to convince me to order ice cream from Postmates at 3am.

  This place is a lot more orderly without her, that’s for sure. But it’s a whole lot emptier, too.

  I could say the same thing about my life.

  My phone rings just then, Aisling’s name flashing on the screen. I clear my throat—and my mind—before I answer. “This is Liam.”

  “First of all, I hear congratulations are in order,” she begins, never one to waste time or resources on social niceties. “You did impressive work on Sterling.”

  Tell that to the one person who really matters, I can’t help but think. Still, I thank her. “It was an ambitious undertaking for sure,” I admit, sitting down on a stool at the chilly, granite-topped island. “Hopefully we were able to balance people and profits this time.”

  “People and profits?” Aisling repeats. “Don’t tell me you’re getting soft out there in New York City. I thought the East Coast was supposed to toughen people up.”

  I feel myself prickle. “I don’t know if it’s a question of toughness, exactly,” I protest. “But the longer I do this, the more I really do think there’s a way to streamline operations without costing people their livelihoods.”

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that,” Aisling says with a scoff, “because I’ve got a job that’s perfect for you. Restructuring a mom and pop restaurant chain out of Houston.” She laughs. “Talk about an all-you-can-eat buffet.”

  “Layoffs?”

  “Dozens,” she reports, “at least.” I can practically hear her salivating on the other end of the line. “Are you interested?”

  I hesitate. A few months ago, I would have been chomping at the bit right along with her, eager to wade in there and start handing out pink slips, but somehow I just can’t work up the enthusiasm. “Maybe,” I say finally, hedging.

  “What do you mean, maybe?” Aisling sounds surprised. “You’re done with the Sterling job, aren’t you? It’s not like there’s anything keeping you in town.”

  I wince, I can’t help it. Aisling isn’t trying to be cruel—after all, she doesn’t even know Eliza—but she might as well have taken a red pen and drawn a big fat circle around the utter failure of my romantic life. “No,” I admit, “there’s nothing keeping me here. Can I let you know in a few days?”

  Aisling sighs. “I suppose,” she says, “but don’t take too long. I’ve got half a mind to fly down there and do this one myself.”

  Be my guest, I think and don’t say. Instead I hang up and pour myself a drink, the night stretching out in front of me, dark and lonely. Maybe Aisling is right, I think, flipping idly through the channels before finally turning the TV off and sitting down at my computer. Maybe getting out of New York wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, even if I have to ruin dozens of perfectly nice people’s lives to do it.

  Or maybe not.

  When I open my email, I’m surprised to find a message from a headhunter mixed in amongst the news updates and sale alerts. Aisling didn’t mention passing my information along, though I suppose it slipped her mind in the excitement of a potential business to gut. Dear Mr. Sterling, the note reads, I was impressed to hear about your work with St
erling Publishers and would be interested in meeting with you about future consulting opportunities. Our clients are interested in finding creative organizational solutions and would very much appreciate your expertise.

  I take a sip of my bourbon, and then hit reply. After all, what do I have to lose?

  I’d be happy to meet, I type. When were you thinking?

  The headhunter’s office is all the way on the Upper East Side, but it’s a beautiful early-fall morning, so I decide to walk instead of getting a cab. I try to enjoy the crisp, cool air on my face, the hum of a city coming back to life after summer, but the truth is that even something as seemingly unrelated as the changing weather makes me think about Eliza. I can only imagine what kind of ridiculous seasonal shenanigans she’d be trying to rope me into if we were still seeing each other—hayrides, maybe, or an apple pie bake-off. Something out of a romance novel.

  But romance novels aren’t real.

  I try to push Eliza out of my mind as I turn the corner, double-checking the address from the headhunter’s email. I’m expecting a high-rise office building but instead the office is on the basement level of a tidy brownstone, with neat gold script on the door. Cupids Anonymous, the type says. I frown. Must be a former resident, I decide. I straighten my tie—and stop in my tracks as soon as I walk through the door.

  Because sitting at the reception desk in a simple black dress, hair long and loose around her shoulders and her hands folded neatly in front of her, is…

  “Eliza?”

  24

  Eliza

  “Um,” I begin, a little meekly. “Surprise?”

  Liam just stares at me for a moment, stone-faced and inscrutable and so, so handsome. I don’t know exactly what I was hoping for when I came up with this little plan—for him to sweep me up into his arms and forgive me, no questions asked? Maybe. Instead the silence stretches out between us, thick and terrible. I can almost see him mentally calculating the distance to the door.