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The Jamie she knew, the feisty woman intent on truth and transparency, seemed to clash with the words and the sneaky way she found the information that Siena and her colleagues spent half of their working life keeping out of the limelight.

Who was Jamie really? And did her work show more truth of the woman than the caring and adventurous lover Siena couldn’t stop thinking about? Or the sweet woman who helped her twin sister with Halloween parties for kindergarteners?

Either way, Siena knew keeping in contact with Jamie, professional or personal, was going to be nothing short of a roller coaster ride.

She just had to decide if she wanted to buy a ticket.

eighteen

“Well done, Jamie.” Scott greeted Jamie as she plonked her breakfast bagel down onto her desk. The white paper bag was scrunched tightly from her grip as she had been down to the wire getting to work on time. Even though she started at noon this week. Her early week. But it didn’t matter the shift she was on, she still preferred a breakfast bagel over any other option to start her workday.

“Huh?” She looked up to see Scott beaming over at her. “Well done? For only just making it to work on time?”

“No.” Scott laughed and shook his head. “For the blog post.”

“Oh.” Jamie smiled. It had definitely hit harder than she had expected it to. It was part of the reason she had run late for work. She’d been caught up reading comments and looking at pieces other writers had done, taking her initial article and running with it. She had cringed a little bit as some of the writers might have taken it a little further than she would have, and definitely in different directions. But she had jumped in the shower and forced those thoughts away.

This was a good thing. The kind of momentum she hadbeen striving years for. She was finally hitting her stride and her website hits had dramatically increased. Including all her other articles. And it served the diva right to be called out on shit she had blatantly lied about.

“Thanks, Scott.”

“I’ve started following your blog. And I’ve been reading some of your older posts. It’s fascinating. And your writing gets stronger all the time.” Scott’s young, fresh eyes stunned Jamie a little, and she wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed or what else it might be that washed over her. Being in the limelight for her writing hadn’t ever been a problem. Probably because most people only had something negative to say about her topics, and nothing at all to say about the quality of her writing. The only time they even bothered to point out anything was when a typo or a missed comma had snuck through.

“Oh thanks.” Jamie buried her head in the bag to grab out her bagel and hide the pink that had undoubtedly scattered across her now warm cheeks.

“Kettlehouse.”

His voice was so close that she just about jumped out of her chair as she whirled around to find her boss standing two feet from her. He loomed over her, and she hissed internally at the toxic masculinity that reeked from the man.

“Good job on the article with that manager chick.” He leered as he made no secret about peering down her cleavage.

She silently seethed at his description of Siena. “Thanks.”

“What manager woman did you do an article on?” Scott asked, wheeling his seat closer and giving their boss no choice but to step back or be run over.

“It’ll be in tomorrow’s run, you can read it then.” Their boss scowled at Scott before laughing at his own pathetic excuse for a joke.

He turned back to Jamie. “But don’t think it gets you off the hook. I still need the interview with the pop stars. Youbetter get a date to me soon or I’m gonna start thinking you’re blowing smoke up my ass.”

Scott had rolled his chair back to his desk, but she was certain she had heard him mutter something along the lines of that not even being a possibility in his dreams. His commentary was ignored.

“I’ve given you enough time on this. Get it or move onto something else. You need to be getting more scoops like that blog poster who just blew it out of the water with information about that false-saint celeb. Skinny bitch thinking people can be hot and have brains.”

“On it,” Jamie muttered, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. He couldn’t just tell her to offer him her blog pieces before she posts them. Of course he couldn’t. He had to sprinkle on the extra arsehole cologne. He turned away not waiting to see if she had anything else to add.

What she wouldn’t give to see him trip over his own feet as he marched back to his office. It was ridiculous how he continued to run this office like it was 1970. But she knew better than to complain.

“What a fucking ass.” Scott scowled.

“Yep.” Jamie turned to look over at Scott. His face was still twisted into an unimpressed version of the happy young writer Jamie had judged as being too green behind the ears. “Thanks, by the way.”

Scott nodded in acknowledgement, but apparently, he was more concerned about the blog comment. “How doesn’t he know the blog is yours?” Scott asked. “It doesn’t take a genius to see your writing style shine through there and the articles here. Does he even read?”

“He does know. He’s just being an extra layer of asshole today.” Jamie shrugged. “Besides, people see what they want to, I guess. The whole industry is built on first-appearance judgements. It’s why it’s so important for fans to know thattheir idols are just humans as well. They make mistakes, they aren’t perfect, and they might not fit into the molds the world expects them to fit into.”

But hadn’t she done exactly the same thing with Scott? She’d assumed his happy-go-lucky nature made him naive and entirely unaware of the shit this industry could dish out and get you caught up in.

She wondered again why she bothered working there at all.