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quiet. She’d even liked her tiny, cramped, overpriced apartment.

In the end, after receiving a call from the head of the Stellar Fund

Venture Capitalist Group, she’d decided that she just needed a change. She

felt like it was the right move in her career. She wondered how many other

thirty-four-year-old, Harvard educated, career minded women would have

given up New York to go south. It seemed to her that it was probably the

other way around, but that really didn’t bother her. In the end, her hard

work in New York had paid off and that was what mattered, not the fact that

her father thought she should have stayed put instead of venturing out of her

comfort zone for a new experience.

“Hey— um…”

Christina jerked her head up at the high, thin voice coming from the

doorway of her office. April Reed— a fitting name because the woman was

literally just about as slim as one— adjusted her bright pink fuzzy sweater.

She tugged at it, stretching it until it hung limply and loosely about her

narrow hips.

She forced a smile, even though she was annoyed at the interruption.

Her thoughts might not have been pleasant— when she thought about trying

to live up to her father’s legacy, they seldom were— but she still didn’t like

the disruption.

April tucked a strand of mousy, thin brown hair behind her ear. She had

thick, blocky glasses on, which contrasted sharply with her long, thin nose

and even thinner lips. “I was just wondering if you wanted a coffee or

something?” Over the past two and a half weeks, April had made every

effort to be nice. She had the office closest to Christina’s.

“Oh. No thank you. I don’t actually drink coffee.”

Christina had told April that several times already but reminded

herself to be nice. Coffee was something that people did to get to know

each other. It wasn’t just a drink. Christina always had found it hard to

make friends. People saw her as competitive and too intense. She knew that