I slid into my chair across from Theo and his best friend Cassandra. The two had begun working together straight out of college, and had quickly grown into the best of friends. Unfortunately, Cass had been transferred to their company’s Silicon Valley office the month before, and was only in town for a couple of days to pack up her apartment. My brother had never looked more morose.

“Well, they did it.”

“Did what?” Cass asked around a bite of her salad.

“They fired me. Mayor Donaldson demanded my head on a platter.”

“They can’t do that,” Theo explained evenly. “That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

If anyone knew about corporate lawsuits, it was Theo. That was how he’d become CEO after his predecessor had knocked up a few secretaries.

“You think I don’t know that?” I shot my brother a look as I reached across and grabbed one of his french fries. “They tried to pretend it was part of a wider downsizing effort, but when the only people getting sacked are the reporters who were critical of the mayor’s campaign, it’s not hard to put two and two together.”

“You should sue them for wrongful termination,” Cass advised as she picked around her meal.

“I should, but I won’t.” I didn’t want to be known as the reporter who’d sued her employers. “Work is hard enough to come by these days; when you’re a troublemaker who rocks the boat, you’re limiting your chances even more.”  

“And newspapers are a dying breed,” Theo added unhelpfully.

As if I needed reminding.

I’d grown up watching Dan Rather with my dad, and nothing—including the proverbial writing on the wall—could have stopped me from majoring in journalism in college. By the time I’d graduated, the digital revolution was well underway, and more often than not, being a reporter was a one-way ticket to the unemployment line. Thankfully, I’d been one of the lucky ones, able to eke out a living doing what I loved. But I’d lived with the knowledge that it could all disappear one day. Frankly, the fact that it had taken this long was surprising.

Cass tossed a frown Theo’s way. “Hey, Debbie Downer. No need to add to her worries.”

“What? I’m just being practical.”

“That’s you,” I muttered under my breath, “Mr. Practical.”

Theo had been in love with Cass for as long as he’d known her, but because they worked together he’d never acted on those feelings. Five years ago, he’d brought her to Thanksgiving at my place and when I’d asked when he was going to tell her how he felt, he’d told me he needed to be practical.

Now, that practicality had come back to bite him in the ass. While there hadn’t been any rules at their company about dating your colleagues, the second he’d been named CEO, that door had been slammed shut and sealed off forever.

Cass poked at the dry lettuce on her plate. “You could always come work for me. I’m pretty sure I could get the CEO to up my hiring budget.” She prodded Theo playfully with her shoulder and he smirked.

This wasn’t the first time Cass had tried to recruit me. It wasn’t that I was opposed to working in a corporate environment, but I honestly didn’t know what I could bring to the table. There was a huge difference between covering elections and writing about security technology. “I appreciate the offer, but I still don’t see how I’d be a good fit.”

She snorted. “Please. You write coherently. That puts you leaps and bounds in front of the guy I’ve got doing the job now.”

“Bill?” Theo asked.

Cass screwed up her face. “Am I still not allowed to fire him?”

My brother’s lips thinned into a hard line and he shook his head. “Unfortunately, no.”

“What’s up with Bill?” I asked, chugging down the last of my iced coffee.

Theo leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “He’s our largest investor’s brother-in-law, and it’s been made clear to me that our funding is predicated on his continued employment. It turns out we’re the third company this guy has been foisted on in the past five years.”

I winced. “Ouch.”

“You can say that again,” Cass agreed. “His writing is painful. I’m pretty sure he uses the thesaurus more than the dictionary.” She shoved a forkful of food into her mouth and we all fell silent.

While they were busy finishing their lunches, I was busy wondering if it was time to throw in the towel on my dreams of becoming the next Woodward or Bernstein.

“Out of curiosity, what would the job entail?” I asked a few minutes later. While Cass had often said she’d love it if I went to work for her, we’d never discussed the specifics of the position. We hadn’t needed to; I’d been gainfully employed.

She sat up straight in her seat and leaned forward, her whole demeanor changing. Cass was one of the sweetest people I’d ever met, but when it came time to talk business she was a shark. While my brother might have been winning awards left and right for being a hot shot young CEO, it was Cass who’d done the leg work to get him nominated. As the Chief Marketing Officer for their company, she worked tirelessly to make both him and the organization look good.

“First of all, you’d report directly to me.”

That was a good start. As a reporter, I’d always had an editor I worked for and with, but I’d never had the typical boss-slash-employee relationship you found in most office environments. “And—hypothetically speaking—what would I be working on?”

Cass’s lips spread, revealing pearly white teeth, but it wasn’t the warm smile I’d grown accustomed to all the years I’d known her. It wasn’t exactly predatory, but there was something hard and scheming about it. Almost as if we were in the midst of a difficult contract negotiation and she had me by the balls and knew—euphemistically speaking, of course.

I’d heard about this side of her, but I’d never experienced it first hand. A couple of years ago, Theo and I had gotten blitzed on his homemade eggnog, and he’d waxed poetic about what a sight to behold she was in the boardroom. And by “waxed poetic” I mean he’d talked my ear off about how that hidden side of her really turned his crank. Now, I understood what he’d meant when he’d said she operated with a “take no prisoners” attitude. This was a friendly conversation about a possible job, but I got the distinct impression she was treating it as she would any other high-stakes negotiation.

“Hypothetically speaking, I have budget to hire an executive communications assistant who’d work under me making this one—” she cocked her thumb at my brother “—look good.”

“I already look good,” Theo joked, and she shot him a conspiratorial grin.

“Yeah, because I work my ass off doing it,” she agreed before turning back to me. “Outbound marketing is a full-time job, and we’ve established I can’t trust Bill to do the internal comms side of things. Since you know your brother better than anyone, I’d like to hire you to write his newsletters, create his presentations, and craft his speeches.”

That sounded easy enough, except for one small detail. “That all sounds great, but you’re forgetting I don’t know shit about what your company does. How am I supposed to do that if I don’t have the faintest notion how any of it actually works?”

Theo laughed and shook his head like I’d said something funny. “And you think we did when we started?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You’re cute—” Cass tittered, “—but no. Even now, I meet with the head of engineering once a month so he can break it all down for me in layman’s terms. If you come work for me, you’ll sit in on those meetings, but I’ll also expect you to read up on the technology and the industry in your own time.”

My own time? What was that? I hadn’t had ‘my own time’ for as long as I could remember. As it was, it was a minor miracle I’d managed to carve out time for David and my book club in my busy schedule. But if I wasn’t constantly chasing down stories or pitching ideas to an editor that he’d never go for, I might actually have free time. Still, I wasn’t entirely convinced. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!” she exclaimed, Sweet Cass coming back into the fray. “Think of all the working lunches we can have that we can expense when I’m in town.”

Theo rolled his eyes and I glanced down at Cass’s plate of lettuce. I’d known her for more than a decade, and the only time I’d ever seen her eat anything other than a salad was when Theo had brought her home for the holidays. Even then, she’d eaten like a bird. I’d once asked him what that was all about, but he’d simply shrugged and muttered something about her being on a stupid fucking diet.

“I appreciate the offer, really. Can I think about it for a couple of days?”

“Of course,” Cass replied, pushing her half-eaten meal to the side and patting her flat stomach. “Want to run across the street with me before I have to go back to the office? There’s a purse I’ve been dying to get that’s on sale, and I want to pick it up before I head back to California.”

Theo’s face fell, but he quickly recovered. Pushing back his chair, he dropped his napkin onto the table. “And that’s my cue,” he said, pulling out a wad of cash.

Cass pushed his hand away. “Nope, I’ve got this.”

Theo stared down at her, something unreadable flashing in his dark green eyes. “You’re not paying for my lunch.”

Cass laughed. “I’m not, you are. Or rather, the company is.” She gestured toward me. “Recruiting expense.”

Theo shook his head. “You know I’m your boss, right?”

Cass stood as well and patted Theo’s arm, her hand lingering a bit longer than necessary. “I never forget it.”

I tried not to read too much into her words, but you’d have to be deaf not to hear the open longing and frustration in her tone.

Theo came around the table to wrap me in a quick hug. “I assume I’ll see you on Sunday?”

When I chewed my lip and looked away, he said, “Oh come on! Not again.”

“What’s ‘not again’?” Cass asked, her eyes bouncing between my brother and me.

“Victoria is fucking our step-brother.”

I smacked his arm, my palm smarting when it connected with hard, wiry muscle. “I’m not fucking David.”

He raised a skeptical eyebrow.  

“Okay, fine. Yes, David and I are together. But when you say we’re ‘fucking’ it sounds so tawdry.”

Cass laughed, and hefted her purse up over her shoulder. “I hate to break it to you, Vick, but fucking your step-brother is kind of tawdry.”

I threw up my hands and let out a dramatic sigh. “Gah! You two are exactly the same. No wonder he l—” My eyes grew wide and I clamped my mouth shut around the bomb I’d been about to unleash.

Theo, his face glowing with mortification, rushed to cover my faux pas. Wrapping his arm around Cass, he pulled her in against him and ruffled her hair. “Yup, underneath all this refinement, we’re both just teenage boys who like jokes about sex.”

Cass smacked his arm away and pushed out of his embrace. Righting her bangs, she muttered something under her breath. I didn’t quite catch it, but my brother must have because his face went from pink to white. Whatever he’d heard had shocked him.

Cass turned to me, completely unruffled by their exchange. “You coming?”

I flicked my eyes between my brother and the woman he so obviously loved. I hated that they had to keep their feelings hidden—from the world, and from each other. I’d never seen two people who were more suited than Theo and Cass were. Maybe if she and I had some alone time, I could try and push her toward him.

“Yup, I’m coming,” I said, blowing an air kiss toward my brother.

“See you Sunday!” he called out as I flipped him the bird.

Once out on the sidewalk, Cass looped her arm through mine as we approached the crosswalk. “Okay, spill. I want to hear all about this step-brother of yours.”