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Bea opened her eyes again. “No one’s getting hurt. It’s just… a bit uncomfortable right now.”

Liz picked her wine glass up. “Alright, I give up. We’re not ruining our night over this. You’re a grownup and get to make your own choices. But can we drink to independence?”

“Yes,” Bea said with greater certainty than she felt. She picked up her own glass and clinked it against Liz’s. “To independence.”

“And cheating lying boyfriends falling down the stairs and breaking their legs,” added Liz.

Bea cringed. “You can’t say something like that. The universe is listening.”

“Well, let it listen to this.” Liz blew a raspberry. “Now drink up and let me tell you about this new client that I got. She can literally bend over backward, it’s amazing.”

And Bea listened as she kept drinking. Hopefully, the wine would send her to sleep fast enough that she wouldn’t hear anything from the spare room at all tonight.

Chapter Three

Darren looked like he might either throw up or explode, one or the other.

“What’s the emergency?” Alli asked. Maybe he was sick. And if he was sick, maybe he needed an account covered. Given that he was the boss, his clients were big-hitters. This could be her chance.

“What’s the emergency?” he stuttered. He glared at her.

“What?”

“Jesus. You. You’re the emergency, Alli.”

“Me?” She took a second to take this in. “What have I done?”

She saw his jaw tense. “Did you or did you not just call Jim Halen’s son a glorified secretary?”

“Obviously not,” she said, relaxing a little. “That would be pretty stupid, wouldn’t it? I mean, come on, Dar, you’ve known me for a while now, since when have I been that…” Oh shit.

“Al.”

“That was his son?” Anger bubbled up inside her. “How the hell was I supposed to know that? He introduced himself as Jamie. He smelled like a Parisian hooker. And you said that Halen was sending some underling to get the presentation. There’s no way in hell that I’m responsible for this.”

“Really?” Darren said, still pale. “Really? No way in hell, Al? Because from where I’m standing, if you’d have just treated the man with some simple respect, regardless of whether he was anunderling or not, then this wouldn’t be happening.”

“This? What is this exactly?” She put her hands on her hips.

“This,” he said, pointing toward the conference room. The blinds were all closed and she couldn’t see inside. “You know who’s in there?”

The anger was still bubbling but starting to be replaced with something else. Something cold and sticky. “Who’s in there?”

“My boss and his boss and Jim Halen, that’s who.” Darren clenched his teeth.

“Shit.”

“That about covers it.”

She took a breath. “I can fix this.” She could. She could talk her way out of this. An apology, obviously. Probably she could have been a little nicer. She’d made a mistake though, and mistakes were forgivable, surely?

“No,” Darren said. “You are absolutely not fixing this. In fact, you are not to open your mouth unless I give you the nod, do you understand?”

“But—”

“But nothing.” He pressed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Al, you’re the best in my department and you know it. I don’t want to lose you. The way this is going, this is looking very much like a fire-able incident, do you understand that?”

Her legs started to wobble. Fire-able? “I made a mistake,” she said.