Kate has this annoying habit of being right. I couldn’t hide. Not if I wanted to keep my job, and my pride. And let’s face it, those were the only two things I had going for myself right now.

So Monday morning, I girded my loins for battle, by which I mean I put on the latest set of lingerie Kate had brought me, plus a perfectly tailored Italian cut suit, and I headed back to work.

For a moment when the car rounded the corner and the Devlin Media Corp tower loomed in the distance, I felt exactly like a princess sent out to the lair of a dragon. Somehow the building seemed even taller and more imposing than usual, a black slash against the sky, ready to crush me beneath the weight of my inadequacies.

I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and went inside.

A sudden silence descended on the lobby as I entered, people openly staring at me as if I were the Loch Ness Monster. I stared straight ahead, not deigning to acknowledge their rudeness, trying not to hear the furious whispering that began the second my back was to them, little snippets of words just reaching my ears:

“—how she can show her face—”

“—five thousand on the reception alone, I read—”

“—no way she’s not fired, not after—”

I tried to brush it off until I got to my office, where I shut the door and let myself take a few deep breaths until I could fight off the need to sink to the floor, curl up in the fetal position, and start sobbing. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Sticks and stones—

Yeah, who was I kidding? I’d take the entire stick and stone supply of a national forest adjacent to a quarry over one more hurtful insult or insinuation.

But I didn’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for myself. I straightened, reminding myself that the best revenge would be a job well-done. And there was a lot to catch up on if I wanted my work to even remotely resemble success: there were meeting minutes to review, new meetings to be scheduled, allied companies to reassure, and merger possibilities to investigate. Not to mention the fact that I had to coordinate the final wrapping-up of the PR hatchet job on myself. How ironic.

A knock on the door caught me before I’d made it halfway to my desk.

Grant. For a second my heart stuck in my throat—what would I say? How should I act?—but then I saw that the silhouette through the frosted glass was distinctly feminine, and I felt the anxiety drain out of me. Well, some of it.

“Come in!” I called, trying to sound like I hadn’t been fighting off a panic attack seconds ago, and the door creaked open, revealing a timid young lady with mousy brown hair and thick black-rimmed glasses, wearing a plaid skirt, vest, and suit jacket. I felt myself relaxing more. Anyone wearing that amount of plaid couldn’t be dangerous to anything except possibly my retinas. “Can I help you?”

“Um…hi?” she said, edging into the room uncertainly, as if rattlesnakes might be hiding in the corners, ready to leap out at her. “I’m…supposed to help you? I’m your new assistant? I was just, um, hired?”

Normally that Valley Girl verbal tic where every single sentence turns into a question bugs the hell out of me, but this girl looked so terrified I found it impossible to be annoyed with her. It was have been like getting annoyed at a small bunny.

“Well, congratulations,” I said, trying to give a reassuring smile. “I’m pleased to meet you, and I’m sure we’ll work well together, uh…”

“Oh! Tina? I’m Tina, Ms. Newman. Tina Harper.” She thrust her hand out at me like she was surrendering herself into police custody, and trying to suppress my amusement, I shook it.

“It’s lovely to meet you, Tina,” I said. She smiled hesitantly back at me, and I vowed that I would make this job a pleasure for her. I wouldn’t torture her the way I’d been tortured by Jacinda. If I did nothing else of import for the rest of my time at Devlin Media Corp, I’d do this—make sure the cycle of verbal abuse and bullying didn’t continue in my office.

I led Tina over the pile of work I had been contemplating before her arrival.

“Now why don’t we get you started on tracking down time commitments for the department heads…”

* * *

Tina was a dream, and between the two of us, we managed to clear out most of the backlog before noon. I had just sent her out for a well-deserved lunch break when my cell phone rang. My heart, as it had each time my cell phone had rung that morning, sped up until it could have been a competitor in the Indy 500.

But when I checked the call display, it wasn’t Grant. It was my landlord.

“Laney—” His nasally voice buzzed in my ear like a bee with dyspepsia.

“Lacey,” I corrected automatically.

“Whatever you want to call yourself,” the bee masquerading as a human landlord snarled. “Do you know what a deadline is? Did they teach you that at your fancy-pants school? Did you not get it when we went over your lease, how the due date for your rent is—”

Oh, shit. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark, I forgot, I’ve been so—”

“Busy, busy, yeah, I’m sure you got a hectic schedule sucking your boss’ cock until the bank runs dry, tell me another one, sweetheart. Better yet, just get the goddamn cash in the mail!”

I gritted my teeth. “I’ll drop the check off this evening. I promise.”

“You better,” he said. “And don’t forget the late fee. That comes to a total of—”

“Yes, I know,” I interrupted. “It’ll be in full, I swear. I have to go now, I’m at work—”

“Working hard or hardly working?” he cracked, and cackled as though he were the first to toss off that oh-so-original bon mot. “And hey, that check better not bounce, or—”

“It won’t!” I snapped, and hung up.

Damn. Damn damn damn. Alright, I could do this. I crossed my fingers and typed the website address for my online banking system into my laptop. I might have enough in my bank account. Just enough. As long as I didn’t mind not eating for the rest of the month. Oh well, there was always lurking in Whole Foods, eating food samples, pretending to really consider buying that olive oil as I took another cherry tomato from the sample tray…

I typed in my password, and then a miracle happened.

There should have been less than a thousand dollars in my account. Instead there was a quarter million.

“What…the…hell…” I whispered, staring at the screen.

This had to be a mistake. Some kind of programming bug or computer virus. My hand moving as though I were in a dream, I clicked on the tab for more information. A single transfer one day ago. A two, followed by a five, followed by four zeroes. And then a decimal point, and two more zeroes.

A payment from Devlin Media Corp.

From Grant.

But I had told him not to—

I didn’t do this for the money. And he couldn’t write off what I did, or what we had, by sending a check. I could feel my heart beating faster. I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Mr. Devlin’s office,” his secretary’s brisk voice announced.

“This is Lacey Newman,” I said, trying to match her professional tone even though in my mind, I was dangling Grant over a pit of hungry tigers. “I would like an appointment to speak to Mr. Devlin at the earliest opportunity.” We had to talk this out.

“I’m afraid Mr. Devlin is rather busy at the moment, would two p.m. tomorrow afternoon do?”

“That would do nicely, thank you.” Come to think of it, the extra time would be good. I needed preparation in order to adequately explain to Grant exactly how far he’d crossed the line here.

Twenty-four hours might not be enough, but I’d have to make do.

* * *

I was putting the final touches on my presentation for the upcoming interdepartmental meeting, when a knock came at my door before it swung open. I looked up with an indulgent smile: “Tina, you don’t have to knock every single time—”

It wasn’t Tina.

Grant sauntered into my office looking like the cat who ate the proverbial canary. He grinned. “Miss me?”