Page 1 of Crazy In Love

ROUND ONE

FOX

“See you when you get back, Fox!”

“Be safe out there, Fox.”

“Come back to us, Fox.”

Sure, one could assume by my honor-guard-esque sendoff that I’m leaving for an around-the-world expedition.

Or war.

Or missionary work somewhere far worse off than those of us in New York City.

“Be safe, Fox!”

“We’re gonna miss you, Fox.”

Have I donated my organs?

No.

Cured world hunger?

Not even close.

Invented insulin and sold the patent for a mere dollar?

Nope.

Although most of my coworkers press their backs to the walls of my Manhattan office and wave their goodbyes, Brenna breaks formation, stumbling forward and wrapping me in a hug that smells of peaches and coffee.

She’s twice my age and barely more than half my height. She’s also the first face anyone sees on their way into Gable, Gains, and Hemingway—a Fortune 50 Marketing Firm set prestigiously amongst some of the tallestbuildings in New York—so I suppose it’s a good thing her face is particularly kind.

Pulling back with glittering eyes, she holds on and rubs my arms with her buttery-smooth palms. “It’s just six weeks, right? You’reonlygoing for six weeks?”

“Six weeks.” I tug her in and squeeze until her warm breath bursts against my neck, then backing away, I show her my smile and take comfort in the fact I’m adequately fucked up—child of trauma and all that—which means my eyes remain blissfully dry. “I promise. And I’ll be available by email the whole time I’m gone.”

“Bye, Fox!”

“I’m gonna miss you, Fox.”

“Come back soon, Fox.”

I quicken my steps, my four-inch heelsclick-click-clickingagainst the ornate tile flooring on the fifty-first floor of a business that turns over two hundred million dollars a year. Easily. Clearing the crowd and bursting through my office door, I swing back and close it again, only to hear the throaty, happy chuckle of a man I would recognize anywhere. Anytime. Any world.

Booker Hemingway is my boss’s boss’s boss—or something like that—but his office is a mere few feet from mine, and our friendship is something every worker bee aspires for.

“Is there a reason you’re trespassing in my office, Booker?” Turning with a sigh, I lean against the door and study the man perched on the edge of my desk. He wears an expensive suit, not the kind one can buy off the rack, and a watch I wouldn’t wear alone at night in a not-so-good neighborhood.

He’s barely a few years older than my twenty-eight, which makes his rise to one-third owner of a highly regarded marketing firm a hell of a lot more impressive than Gable and Gains—whoare closing in on sixty and seventy, respectively.

Booker’s piercing brown eyes flicker with humor, and his short brown hair creates nothing more than a shadow against his scalp. The dude is handsome. There’s no denying it. But he transforms to obnoxious easily, snatching up my desk football—I keep it for stress relief—and tosses it from one hand to the other.

In Booker’s case, obnoxious rarely translates to annoying.

“You’d be hard-pressed to find a judge who agrees this is trespassing, considering my name on the side of the building. But yeah. There’s areason.” He tosses the ball, catching it on its downward arc. “I needed to say goodbye before you left, but I’m not the type who’ll line up in the hall like the rest of them.”