I opened up a fresh email draft and started writing.
Chapter 11
Tanith
“You got the internship?” Sera squealed the day after Christmas. She, Aurora, and I were crowded on Sera’s canopy bed, covered in blankets and sipping hot cocoa Rory had spiked with Baileys. Sloane had left earlier that morning to “hang out with Lennox,” which obviously meant “have lots of athletic sex with Lennox.” I couldn’t judge her, though. After Christmas Eve, when I’d practically begged Owen to fuck me against a wall, I’d lost any right to scoff about sex.
Sometimes, you found a person who turned you into a ball of wet, aching need, and the only way to fix it was to chase that need to its inevitable conclusion.
“I got the internship,” I confirmed to Sera, still stunned. I had just finished a phone call with my mom and my sisters when I’d seen the email notification pop up on my phone. They’d told us during the interview that Ms. Preston would make her choice before New Year’s Eve—but still. This was a shock.
But then again, from the brisk way her assistant had interviewed me and the other candidates, I got the sense that the Gotham Girl team never wasted time. Even during the holidays.
My phone screen glowed up at me with the official acceptance email, and I stared down at it like a woman in a desert staring at water. Everything I’d worked for, everything I’d wanted—it was all coming to fruition.
For the next five months, I’d be spending two days a week in New York City working with Elizabeth Preston. Elizabeth Preston! At Gotham Girl! I didn’t even care I’d be getting coffee and running copies and sitting on hold with flaky fashion designers to source clothes for photoshoots, I’d be there. At my favorite magazine in my favorite city living out my dream.
I’d be in the center of it all.
“There’s an invitation attached,” I noticed, opening it and quickly scanning the attachment. “They’re inviting all the interns for a New Year’s Eve dinner at Elizabeth Preston’s house in the Hamptons. I’m invited to spend the night too.”
Aurora’s eyebrows lifted. “Spend the night?”
She and Sera exchanged a look and then looked back at me, as if I were supposed to be having a bigger reaction than I was.
But I couldn’t help it; the glow of excitement in my chest was dimming a little. “I don’t know if I can handle dinner and a night at Elizabeth Preston’s house,” I told Sera and Aurora uncertainly. “I was terrified enough just to be interviewed by the Gotham Girl team. She wasn’t even in the room, and I was sweating through my clothes. How am I going to handle dinner? After dinner? Sleeping under her roof?”
Sera put her hands on my shoulders as Aurora slid off the bed.
“Tanith Bradford,” Sera declared, “you are a badass and a scholar. You’re going to impress the hell out of Elizabeth Preston. And you’re going to look amazing doing it.”
“But I—”
Aurora was already inside Sera’s closet, hangers scraping against the metal rods as she examined the clothes. “You need a dress.”
“Not a gown, though,” Sera called to her.
I could practically hear Aurora’s eye roll from here. “I’m a literal princess, van Doren. I know what dinner and a party in the Hamptons calls for.”
Sera made a face in Aurora’s direction and then turned back to me.
“We’re going to suit you up for battle,” she promised. “By the time you ring in the New Year, you’ll be Elizabeth Preston’s new favorite intern.”
“Okay,” I whispered. I turned off my phone screen and pointedly ignored the email underneath the Gotham Girl one. The email I’d been ignoring for a whole day.
I didn’t care what Owen Montgomery had to say to me. He was a mistake I had no intention of repeating. And anyway, I had bigger fish to fry. Fish like wowing the socks off Elizabeth Preston and ensuring my future at Gotham Girl.
“Tell me what I need to do.”
* * *
Elizabeth Preston’s Hamptons house looked like something out of a Gatsby remake. A sprawling mansion of pale stone and a thousand windows, Bay House was a testament to turn-of-the-twentieth-century wealth and good taste. With the dark gleam of Mecox Bay behind it, it needed no ostentatious ornamentations, and clearly, Elizabeth Preston agreed. There were no fountains here, no gaudy statues. Only a sweeping lawn, hunched willows and venerable oaks, and low, tasteful shrubs—a landscape that set off the pre-World War I architecture perfectly.
When the car Elizabeth had sent for me rolled to a stop, I stepped out with a quick word of thanks to the driver. A staff member greeted me at the door who insisted on taking my bag and leading me to the room I’d be staying in for the night.
The house was bustling with activity—catering staff, people carrying musical instruments, people hanging greenery and white flowers everywhere. My nerves, which had been allayed somewhat by Aurora and Sera’s wardrobe and etiquette prep, came back in full force.
“Um, how large is the dinner tonight?” I asked the woman leading me down a hallway of bedrooms.
“The dinner itself is quite small,” she replied briskly, stopping in front of a dark wood door and opening it for me. “Only Ms. Preston’s family and the other two new interns. But the party afterward is quite large. You can expect to see most of her colleagues there. And rivals.”
“Her publishing colleagues?” I asked, trying not to squeak. This was what I wanted, of course, to mingle among the literati and become part of their glamorous and rarefied world, but so soon—and with so little warning—was terrifying.
“Yes,” the woman said distantly, her critical gaze running over the bedroom as if to ensure it met her standards. Seemingly satisfied, she turned to me with a nod. “This is your room. Dinner is early tonight to leave plenty of time for the party. You’ll be expected in the dining room
