My heart is pounding in my throat and I’m having difficulty breathing like a normal person. I feel like I’m sucking in air through a straw, unable to get enough air in to fill my lungs.

Get yourself together, Williams.

Poppy is standing just a few feet away, cradling an empty champagne flute to her chest. Her red hair is piled up in a messy bun on top of her hair, showing off the light yellow gauzy chiffon ruffled halter dress she’s wearing. It’s an absolutely gorgeous dress that I haven’t seen before, similar to something she released in her spring collection.

I steel myself and go in.

“Hi, Poppy?”

She swings her body in my direction, her eyebrows knit together in annoyance.

“Do you know where to get another drink? I’ve been standing here forever waiting for someone to bring one by and nothing.”

Well, that catches me off guard.

“No, um…” I look around, seeing if there are any servers in our general vicinity. There’s an open bar at the back of the room, but something tells me she doesn’t want to make the trek. “I can probably find one for you?”

She rolls her eyes, looks totally put out. “Some benefit this is. Fifteen-hundred a plate and they can’t even keep you in booze.”

Something in me tells me to take this opportunity to get the hell out of here, but no. I’ve spent months dreaming of a situation just like this one, weeks planning it, and hours trying to work up the nerve to go through with it. I’m seeing this thing through til the end.

“What they save on liquor they can donate to the children’s center,” I supply stupidly. I mean, it’s true, but that’s definitely not what she wants to hear.

She drops her head back and laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. I’m not sure if she’s drunk or just kind of an asshole. I’m not sure which option I’d prefer.

When she finishes laughing, she narrows her eyes at me. “I know you.” She points her empty champagne flute in my direction.

“I think you must be mistaking me for someone else.” She dropped by Marisa’s office once a little over a year ago when I was styling her clothes for a shoot for our site. She didn’t spare me more than a brief hello, although she was generally quiet that day and didn’t seem to have even half the attitude she’s showing tonight. I’d be really surprised if she remembered me from that day; she mostly chatted with Marisa. I was too in awe of her talent to engage her much.

“No,” she says, even though she’s nodding her head. She points her glass at me again. “What’s your name?”

“Felicity.”

“Felicity, Felicity, Felicity…” she says over and over again. “You work on that little blog, don’t you?”

Okay, that pisses me off. There was a very brief period of time when Marisa was an upstart that her site could’ve been considered a little blog, but that time is long gone now, and it certainly was by the time Poppy had been invited on for a spotlight. That she’s acting like Marisa wasn’t one of the first people to give her a platform infuriates me.

“It’s not a little blog anymore,” I argue. “Marisa’s written for Vogue. We have a line of housewares coming out soon.” I regret that last comment the second it comes out of my mouth.

“Housewares?” she says with a snide laugh. “How quaint.”

She’s distracted by a server who walks by with a fresh tray of drinks. She plucks one off the tray and says, “Finally. Don’t take so long to come back around next time.”

Poppy knocks her drink back in two long gulps.

She’s steady on her feet, not slurring her words, and pretty coherent. Seems like the answer to my earlier question is: not drunk, just an asshole.

My stomach drops. I couldn’t possibly be more disappointed. None of my dreams featured me toiling away under the mentorship of someone who lacks basic decency toward strangers.

Poppy takes a long look at me. “Your dress is fabulous,” she says. “Who’s the designer?” She reaches out and takes the fabric of the skirt between her fingers.

I’ve always thought I’d be willing to pay whatever price I had to in order to make my dreams come true. Now I’m beginning to realize just how wrong I was.

“I don’t know,” I lie. “I bought it off the rack.”

With a shrug, I walk away.