Page 54

“Right, Jace. I’m so sorry, but if you’ll excuse me, I have to run something to my boss.”

“No worries. Carry on.”

There’s a glint in his eye as he steps to the side, and I give him a pleasant smile and dip of my head before taking off. I snake my way through the crowd, making sure to greet people but also stayon track. I’m about halfway across the room by the time I’m able to spot Jenna through the glass windows.

A shock of brown hair cuts across my vision, causing me to halt in my tracks. I whip my head to the side, searching for it.

Cullen?

A man who looks eerily similar to him from the back is being dragged away by a pretty blonde. Alarm bells ring in my mind, signaling my stomach to twist and call back my earlier nausea. I take a step in their direction when a hand clasps around my wrist.

“Jenna’s looking for you.”

Anne pulls me away, dragging me with her until we get onto the balcony. I lose sight of the couple, but that feeling of unease doesn’t melt away.

“Found her.”

Anne all but shoves me before Jenna and gestures like I’m some prized animal she just hunted and has dropped before her owner for approval.

I quickly dig around my purse and pull out the extra business cards for Jenna. She takes them with a slight look of annoyance, and I kick myself for slacking off for even a second. The event may be chugging along smoothly, but that doesn’t mean an incident won’t happen. Jenna will be on edge until the event ends and Celine praises her for a job well done.

Still, I can’t quite get rid of this niggling in the back of my brain. I need an excuse to get back inside and find out whether my eyes had been playing tricks on me. I obviously know Jace and Cullen are friends; that means it isn’t completely unfounded that he would be here.

“See those men over there?”

Jenna darts her eyes to the left as she tucks the business cards into her purse. I follow her line of sight to two men speaking withDavina. The one on the left is taller, broader, and manlier, while the other looks like he was plucked from a Big Five frat house.

“Emmett Rockwell on the left. Frankie Jones on the right.”

The name clicks in my head. “As in the Frankie Jones who’s dating Bridget Vaughn?”

“Engaged, actually.” Anne corrects with a smug look.

“Correct, and according to Anne, he is looking to launch his own merch line now that he’s about to marry the city’s favorite socialite.”

“Hot mess is more like it,” Anne mutters under her breath.

She isn’t wrong. Bridget Vaughn is your classic case of a born and bred rich city kid. Her grandfather founded some massive company and her mother was a reality TV star. Bridget was sneaking in and getting drunk in New York nightclubs when she was only fourteen and attending parties with people way above her age, and the tabloids ate that up. Her family sent her away to boarding school for a few years, but her reputation remains cemented in stone.

“We have the opportunity to design his brand, give Frankie a full social media package and everything. It could even lead us on a direct path to the Vaughns if we get it right.”

It isn’t the sort of project I want. Sure, the media loves to tear Bridget down, but it doesn’t paint Frankie in the prettiest picture either. There are always rumors about him getting high and slipping into back rooms with other women. Is that really the type of client we want to represent?

Not only that, but this is a clientAnnefound. If Celine goes for it, that would be another tally on her board and not mine. The client I’d lined up had fizzled into bubbles since I was unable to meet their ten-day deadline, and now I have nothing to show.

Dammit. I need to take this event more seriously. I need to find something better than Frankie Jones.

“Davina’s been sweetening him up, but I need you to find Celine and bring her over. I think we could close this before the conversation’s even started.” Jenna nudges my foot. “Verity.”

“Yes, I’ll go find her.”

Because what the hell else am I supposed to do when my team leader makes an ask?

I slip back inside and start scanning the room for our CEO. I’m not tall enough to peer over the crowd like some of the modelesque women in the room, so I continue to circle until I get to a raised seating area with a few chess tables.

My eyes bounce over the milling people. I clock Jace flirting it up with a group of women by the projector room. There’s a stoic man stationed right by the entrance, watching the crowd with a bothered expression. A few people try to approach him but are quickly turned away. I spot that head of brown hair again, and that niggling feeling in the back of my brain returns.

My feet start carrying me in his direction on instinct. The main floor is densely packed, and I get pushed back a few times by people who have had a little too much to drink this far into the night. I keep my eyes trained on the man, determined not to lose him. Which isn’t too hard, since he sits a head taller than most of the people here.