Her mother wrote back.
So exciting. What’s the job like? What are your thoughts?
Jessica replied that she was undecided and, after a little more conversation with her mother, reviewed some of her other social media accounts.
Jessica saw she had messages from both Daisy and Aubrey, but before she could open them, Aubrey saw she was online and popped up on chat.
How is it going? Why haven’t we heard from you?
Awful incident at the airport. All my luggage, my computer and phone stolen. Haven’t posted anything about it, as I don’t want Mom and Dad to worry. I’m using the computer at the New York Public Library right now. So much to tell you!
And Daisy and I to tell you!! We have both been given the most extraordinary gifts. Daisy got a house in Italy.
What?
Yes! And I’ve been given the funds to have the most grand adventure of my entire life. I can afford to circle the globe, travel, have adventures. I feel as if I’ve won a lottery!
I don’t really understand.
We don’t either. We’ve been waiting for you to check in, because we think your job offer is related, too.
In what way?
Well, doesn’t it seem just a little too coincidental that all three of us are being given these opportunities? Not just gifts, really, but life-changing chances?
Jessica could feel something in her going cold.
From who?
But then, she knew. There was only one thread connecting the three of them. That little old lady and her dog that they had helped in Copenhagen. The three of them had talked about that before: how Viv had said she wanted to keep in touch, but though Aubrey, Daisy and Jessica had, Viv had not. While she had accepted their friend and contact requests, her social media accounts had never been used and she had never responded to messages or inquiries after her health.
Daisy and I think she might be Vivian Ascot.
I don’t think I recognize that name.
Yes, you do. Ascot Corporation. They were the big sponsors of the music festival. It’s one of the biggest corps in the world. They’re into everything from ducks to doughnuts. Didn’t you say your job interview was with Jensen, Henry and Ascot?
Aubrey had underlined Ascot to make her point. Jessica stared at the screen and felt as if the bottom was falling out of her world. It was a worse shock than having her things stolen. She’d been tricked. Deceived.
Oh, no doubt Viv—if this was Viv behind all this—thought she was doing a good deed, repaying some perceived debt or act of kindness.
But it meant that Jessica hadn’t been chosen for this job because of her qualifications, or her know-how.
She felt a fool. How could she have believed, even for one second, that the owner of a miniscule bookstore in a town no one had ever heard of, which did not even deserve its own dot on the map, had come to the attention of an international firm like JHA?
No wonder she had been picked off at the airport! She might as well have had “easy mark” tattooed across her forehead.
And he was part of it! Jamie was part of it.
She’d planned to abandon her parents. And her bookstore. And her community. On the power of a kiss! She was deeply ashamed of herself.
And she was shocked by her lack of discernment. Last night, she had felt as if she could trust this man almost more than anyone else she had ever met! She wasn’t just so naive they could pick her off at the airport, she was an immature fool.
I’ve just about got interim travel documents in place, so I’ll be heading home soon. I’ll call you and Daisy when I get there.
We haven’t talked about your job yet! Or NYC.
Her job. Jessica felt unnaturally irritated that Aubrey hadn’t picked up on it. It was a joke. A sham. There was no job. It was a creation of some little old lady with way too much time on her hands and way too much money. You didn’t shape people’s lives as if they were children’s modeling clay just waiting to be molded!
She logged off the computer, resisting a temptation to try a seedy site while she was signed in under Jamie’s name. What would happen? Alarms go off? An investigation into him? His reputation smirched? It would be a stupid, childish, “take that” gesture.
As she got up from the computer, she saw him coming toward her.
He was every bit as glorious as the first time she had laid eyes on him. It could make a woman weak when she desperately needed to be strong.
“What’s wrong?” he said, as he came up to her. He took her shoulders in his hands. “Jessica? What’s happened? Did you get bad news from home?”
“Bad news,” she said, shaking out from under his hands, “but not from home.”
She turned away from him and went out the main exit, past Patience and Fortitude, the magic of meeting them dissipated.
The magic of this city dissipated.
Suddenly it didn’t seem energetic and vibrant and as if she could never get enough.
It felt dirty and noisy and crowded and she just wanted to go home.
“Jessica—” he put his hand on her shoulder and she spun around. “What’s happened?”
His face, the genuine concern that darkened his eyes, made her feel as if she could be made of steel, and still melt. She had to be strong! She drew in a sharp breath and jerked out from under his hand.
“Does the name Vivian Ascot mean anything to you?”
“You know Ascot is part of our company name,” he said, his tone guarded.
“I did know that. What I didn’t know was that a little old lady that I told you about last night—the one I helped at the music festival in Copenhagen—had that name. I knew her only as Viv. But you know her, don’t you?”
“Not really. She’s mostly a silent partner. I met her once.”
“The whole thing—the whole
