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“No clue.” Cherish sat down heavily at her desk. “She doesn’t let me in on those ideas until she’s done all her research, but you can bet that’s why she wants the profit and loss statements for this month and quarter.”

Quarter? Haylee must have missed that request when she’d been too focused on failing at her attempt to get Febe to listen to her idea. She’d done enough profit and loss statements throughout her years of working to know that they were the bread and butter of any business. Surely Febe had all those numbers in her head. Why would she need to look at the actual statements? What would they tell her that she didn’t already know?

God, Haylee had so much to learn about running a business. But she didn’t really want to do that, did she? She just wanted the product. She didn’t want to create something from nothing. No, pairing with an already established business would be the best for her ideas. She didn’t have the attention span to do this on her own.

“Haylee?”

“Sorry. What did you say?” Haylee forced herself to look up into Cherish’s gaze.

That gaze that was full of certainty. Cherish canted her head to the side. “Résumés?”

“Already working on that.” Did Cherish sense her unease? Did she sense her insecurity?

“Good.” Cherish rolled her shoulders and went to work.

How was Haylee going to manage it? Keep her job while also making it something she wanted to keep. Something worth keeping. How was she going to push past her impostor syndrome to make something of herself?

Was that even possible?

three

“Why is everyone so scared when it comes to this gala thing?” Haylee rested her hip against Cherish’s desk, only just managing to resist the urge to sit on the corner, risking disarray to Cherish’s precise organization. She had steeled herself for this morning with a little too much caffeine and confidence to allow her to stop now. She could fake it until she made it.

Wasn’t that what everyone did?

Cherish was slow to look up from her computer as though buying herself time to find an answer or bite back a scathing retort.

When she finally looked at Haylee, she raised her eyebrows and pointedly dropped her gaze to Haylee’s hip. To be honest, the corner of the desk was digging uncomfortably into Haylee’s hip bone. She moved off, straightening her back in the process. She had a strange sense that Cherish needed to undo the tight ponytail and relax. But pushing her buttons like this probably wasn’t the best way to get to that.

Haylee shrugged and widened her eyes, knowing Cherish understood she would repeat the question in five…

Four…

Three…

“Last year…” Cherish took a deep breath, closed her eyes and pressed her thumb and forefinger together, pinching the bridge of her nose, “…was a disaster. This year—it can’t be anything like it.”

“Okay.” Haylee nodded, shifting slightly and crossing her arms. So they could talk about the elephant without naming it. Touché. She stared down at Cherish, and it felt so odd, as if she had the illusion of the upper hand when they both knew she didn’t. “But what exactly happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Cherish pursed her lips. “What we need is to focus on making sure this year’s gala goes smoothly without any trouble.”

“What happens if it doesn’t?” Haylee’s stomach twisted with anxiety. She’d rarely managed to do anything right for Febe, so how would she manage this?

“If it goes anything like last year…” Cherish stole a look toward Febe’s closed door “…then the charity we hold the gala for won’t survive another year. They need the funding in order to continue their work, and the charity isn’t something Febe is willing to give up. Ever.”

“Oh, so it’s all about the benefactors? Did Febe insult someone or something?” Haylee pinched her face, trying to think of all the ways Febe could have screwed this up.

Cherish pressed her lips together tightly, not answering. Not that Haylee expected her to. Haylee smoothed her hands down her tan slacks that were already a size too small. Had she really been eating her feelings that much lately? Damn, she had to fix that, too. Especially because it wasn’t like she had the cash to pay for the food she consumed.

“All right, don’t tell me.” Haylee shrugged, chasing away the stressful overeating train of thought.

“So you’ll stop with all the questions and help make sure—” another look to the closed door “—everything runs smoothly?”

“How bad did she fuck it up last year?” Haylee really wanted to know what she was dealing with. It would help her in the end, wouldn’t it?

“Haylee, that isn’t appropriate language for the office.” Cherish’s voice was stern, but the color draining from her face was all the confirmation Haylee needed.

Haylee gnawed on her lower lip, cogs whirling around in her head as stray thoughts fought to find cohesion. Cherish pulled the bottle of pills from her top drawer and swallowed two of them dry. Haylee had seen her doing more and more of that lately, as if she lived in a migraine utopia and didn’t even acknowledge it aside from how much medicine she took. She really should buy stock in the company at this point. After a moment, Cherish grabbed the water bottle from her desk and took a sip.