No expense was spared for the Eaton’s private suite at their hotel. Plum velvet sofas with turned arms face each other, perfectly spaced around a large stone hearth. A chandelier drips crystal above us, its light sparkling around the richly papered walls. Cyrus mentioned a kitchenette, and it turns out to be larger than our room and appointed with luxury appliances, including a refrigerator with French doors. An oak table that seats twelve stretches between it and the living room, with each place already set for a dinner party. I spot a note on the counter.
Make yourselves at home. Order what you want. Don’t worry about the bill. It’s on the house.
Francie wanders throughout, pausing before continuing down a hall. There are two bedrooms, each with its own private bathroom. I drop Francie’s bag in the biggest one and turn to her with a grin. It fades as soon as I see her face.
“I don’t know about this,” she says. “This is an expensive place, Sterling.”
“I guess I have friends in high places now.” The joke falls flat.
“That girl? Adair? She has money like this?”
“More, I think,” I admit. I drop onto the bed, knowing there’s more we need to talk about.
“Why didn’t you tell me she’s rich?”
“Does it matter?”
“If you have to ask, it does,” she says. “Do you know what you’re getting yourself into?”
Resentment bubbles inside me. Francie was the one that pushed me toward the private, affluent university. Who did she expect my classmates to be? I fight the urge to boil over. She’s voicing the exact same concerns I had when I first met Adair and her friends.
“Adair’s different,” I promise her.
Francie studies me before forcing a smile. “I hope you’re right.”
15
Adair
Present Day
“This will be your desk.”
I trail my finger across the top of the cheap office chair. It’s not much. A desk shoved into the corner of the room with a beat-up filing cabinet next to it.
The offices at Bluebird Press are a half-story underground. The vibe is exactly the opposite of most offices I’ve been in. Instead of a fluorescent-lighted, taupe-cubicle hell-scape, Bluebird shows signs of actual life. Along the two exterior walls, high windows give the cramped space a surprising amount of natural light. Piles of books and loosely bound, coffee-stained manuscripts gather on well-worn wooden desks. The air is slightly stuffy, except when I walk through a stream of air blown down by the ancient, belt-driven ceiling fan system. The stale, wet-cardboard smell of cheap coffee wafts through the room, but it’s unclear if this is from an actual coffee machine, or if the aroma has simply always been here.
A few steps from my desk there’s a community copy machine liberally plastered with instructions on how to coax it to do one’s bidding. It’s definitely not the executive office I imagined sitting in one day.
I don’t care, because there’s a stack of manuscripts waiting for me on my desk. Who cares about the cramped space? Books take you all over the world. No passport required. Trish watches me nervously, probably wondering if I’m going to demand a corner office.
Thanks to Poppy’s intervention, I’m overdressed for my first day on the job. Where Trish looks comfortable in a pair of slim-legged khaki trousers, canary-yellow ballet flats, and an oversized white tank top, I’m in a blank pencil skirt that hugs my ample hips and 3-inch black crocodile-leather heels that Poppy deemed “tame enough for work.” My saving grace is the soft denim shirt I insisted on. Knotted in the front, the outfit was classic but sophisticated. Even Poppy approved.
Now, I wonder if I’m sending the wrong message. I don’t want Trish to think I’m here to take over. There’s a lot I need to learn from her before I’ll be ready to be a real editor, let alone oversee the entire company as its owner.
“Is it okay?” she asks when I’m quiet for too long. “We can move your desk anywhere—”
“No!” I stop her. I don’t want her to ruin the moment. “This is perfect.”
“I know it’s not fancy…” Trish glances around as if she’s afraid someone might hear her. “But we can’t afford much.”
“About that.” I take a deep breath and prepare myself. “My salary.”
“Obviously, it’s not very competitive,” she says, tugging her honey blonde hair into a messy bun. “I can see if we can afford more.”
“Are you kidding? It’s my first real job. I’d probably work for free coffee,” I confess to her. Now that she knows who I am, there’s no need to hide that fact. “But I also own the place, so maybe I shouldn’t take a salary at all.”
“Of course you should take a salary.” Trish looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. “If you think you’re gonna make any money as the owner, then you’re deluding yourself.”
“But Bluebird can afford this?” I should have seen how difficult this was going to be. As much as I want this job on my own terms and as much as I want to be treated like everyone else, I can’t divorce the fact that I’m responsible for all of them. Why I thought I could come here to play editor and pretend I don’t have the power to make or break this publishing company, I don’t know. Standing here now amid my new coworkers, I realize they’re more than that. They’re my company’s backbone.
“Look, you should get paid for what you do. It’s only fair. But you might want to check with accounting—and by accounting, I mean Meg.” Trish grins and hitches a finger toward a woman sitting on the far side of the room. “She’s pretty much in charge of keeping the books. It’s a really sophisticated operation we have going here.”
“I can see that.” I return her smile. If she can have a good attitude about all of this, I can as
