“Leaving soon?” My friend, Ashton, leans against my doorway as I log off my desktop. His charcoal suit jacket’s thrown over one shoulder, leather work bag over the other, and he looks more worn out than me.

It’s well past ten at night, but we’re not necessarily the last ones here. The thing is, we’re both smart enough to know our place on the totem pole. We’re the newbies. Rookie junior associates with no experience. That means we need to be the first ones in and the last ones out until we prove our worth.

I unplug my phone from the charger and slip it into my purse. “Just packing up.”

“Cool. I’ll walk you to your car.”

“Thanks.”

He moves into the hallway, and I follow him out, pulling my door closed behind me. “I hear congrats are in order.”

“On the O’Sullivan Entertainment file? Yes, I’m excited to have my first real client.”

“They gave you your own file?” he asks, sounding impressed and a little skeptical.

“Yes. It’s not a litigation or anything,” I tell him, to downplay my big news. In all likelihood, I’m the first junior associate to have the honor. Even if I earned the assignment based on merit, I have no delusions. I’m the boss’s daughter. The office rumor mill will spin it fifty different ways that all point to nepotism.

But then I realize something as we make it over to the elevators.

“If you didn’t know about the O’Sullivan file, what were the congratulations about?”

“The guy,” he says with a one-sided smirk.

“What guy?”

“Liam O’Sullivan. The place was buzzing all afternoon that you two are an item.”

I make a face and am about to ask how anyone around here would know or care about who Liam O’Sullivan is, but the elevator bell rings as its doors open. Ashton lets me on first, then presses the button to the main floor. I’m not sure I want to know, but curiosity’s killing me.

I can’t stop myself. “Not that it’s anyone’s business, but how do people know his name?”

“You didn’t see the article?” I shake my head. “Wealth Magazine? It’s been out for at least a month.” He pulls his phone out, and after unlocking his screen and keying in God knows what, he turns it around to show me.

The headline is, ‘New York’s Former Mob Royalty makes Top Forty Under Forty,’ and there’s a picture of Liam underneath, wearing a well-tailored yet comfortable business suit. My hands can’t move fast enough, but I manage to snag Ashton’s phone and scan the content.

What the hell?

To be fair, aside from the headline, there’s barely any mention of his mob connections. The magazine editors were probably just reaching for a sexy title. They refer to Liam as a man ahead of his time, the best of the best technology leaders all rolled into one incarnation. They make him sound like the God of software entrepreneurship. He runs a software tech incubator. That set of facts makes him one of the most influential people of the year. Not that I’m jealous, but I never knew he was this successful.

I read a bit further through his accomplishments. Okay, I didn’t know he had three teams of postgraduate software developers reporting to him. We spend more time in bed than anywhere else, and our pillow talk, if any, has never been about either of our jobs. I also had no idea that seventeen of their forty-eight most recent startups were acquired by some of the big names in Silicon Valley for as much as nine figures each, making Liam what they dubbed the Incu-Billionaire of Manhattan.

Wow. Liam’s been busy.

“Wait, you didn’t know?”

I’m new to this fake girlfriend thing, and so busy gawking and furrowing my brows with each new piece of information I learn in the article, that I forget all about Ashton.

“Huh? Of course, I knew.” I can tell Ashton isn’t buying it. “I just assumed you were referring to him making some other list…you know? Another list I didn’t see yet.”

“Yes, but come on. Your man made the list. You can sneak in the occasional social media surf, and Google alerts can do the rest for relevant news.” He cocks his head to one side and studies my face. “Are you sure you’re even dating for real?”

“What are you getting at?”

I blurt out the question way too abruptly. I sound defensive. Or is it just that obvious? And why the hell am I perpetuating a lie that I had no part in sharing?

“I mean, people date for the optics all the time. The idea of him, with his flashy new title and badass street cred, and you, heiress of both a legal empire and your dad’s old robber baron money.” He must notice the less than subtle slight against my father because he adds, “No offense, but details of the Worthington’s ill-gotten fortunes are all over Wikipedia. But you see my point?”

“Not really.”

“What I’m trying to say is, if it’s just for show, it kinda makes sense.”

I’m not going to confirm or deny anything until I talk to Liam and get him to see that his goofball announcement to my mother and his uncle was a dick move.

Except now the whole office knows?

And I’ll have to stay even-keeled for God knows how many more conversations like this with the rest of the staff at work? Well, fuck me. I’ll need to avoid the water cooler for at least a few weeks until the rumors die down.

The elevator arrives at the main floor, and I can’t get out fast enough.

But Liam’s standing in the middle of the lobby.