LOS ANGELES, CA

Carly sat back and took a deep breath. It was over. Almost. One last thing and then she could go home and figure out exactly what to do with the rest of her life.

She could sell the car. It was the only viable asset she had. The house would go back to the bank. That hurt. She’d turned that little town house into something beautiful. She would be lucky to find an apartment building that would rent to her. Very likely she would end up working retail or at some fast food restaurant. Everything she’d worked for was one big steaming pile of crap.

That’s what happened when a girl fell for a slick con artist.

She’d lost her husband. She was about to lose her job, the domino that would send all the others falling—house, status, car. No more nice shoes for Carly. She would be lucky to have the money to buy secondhand, much less the Manolos and Prada she’d worn for the last few years because her boss insisted she look the part of Patricia Cain’s right arm. She’d learned really fast that Patricia Cain’s right arm wore some expensive shit. But then so did her left arm, ankle, knee, and every other part of her.

She was about to lose a job millions of women would kill for.

Thank God.

She tidied up her desk and prepared for the confrontation. Ever since that moment when the police had hauled Roger off in handcuffs, she’d known this was coming. Carly glanced down the hallway. She wished it could have happened while they were in Saint Augustine, where she wouldn’t have to find a way back home, but Los Angeles was as good a place as any to make her final stand.

The door to the office opened and Emily’s eyes flared as she took in the sight of Carly at her desk. “Kyle from accounting said you were here. I didn’t believe him. What are you doing?”

She was being brave for once. “I’m waiting to speak with Patricia.”

“Because you’re going to murder her?” Emily let the door slam behind her. “Oh God, you’re going to do it, aren’t you? Everyone’s always said one day her assistant would shoot her. I knew you would be the one to do it. You’re not an evil sheep like the rest of them.”

“I’m not going to shoot her.” Though she’d often thought about it.

Emily shot her a sympathetic look. “She had your husband arrested. No one would blame you.”

“The police would. Also the DA. Probably a jury of my peers, too. Roger embezzled a million dollars from Cain Corp. He deserves to go to jail.” She believed every single accusation leveled at her soon-to-be ex-husband. She would throw in a couple more. Cheating. Lying. Gambling. Running up her credit cards, which she soon would have no way to pay for. And she’d bought it all for two years. She’d been the one to get him the job here, where he’d managed to embezzle all that lovely money he’d spent on God knew what.

Now it was time to pay the piper. Or the righteous bitch, in this case. Patricia Cain would never pipe. Far below her dignity.

Emily worked on the magazine side of the business as a copy editor. She was a nice girl, one Carly always had lunch with when they were in LA. “Seriously, you should walk out. She’s going to be so mean to you.”

And that was different how? “I’m going to give her my letter of resignation and leave with some dignity.”

She had the cheapest ticket she could find in her purse. She left LAX for Jacksonville at eight tonight. She would find the cheapest wine she could and drown her sorrows.

And celebrate a little because she never had to see Patricia Cain’s cosmetically enhanced face again. She never had to deal with another of that woman’s issues. She was getting out right as the Queen of Domestic Bliss was planning her own wedding to a disgusting billionaire whose greatest talent seemed to be his ability to leer at women half his age and younger without a single ounce of shame.

Freedom. This was the one good thing Roger had done for her. She was going to be free.

What she’d never worked up the nerve to do was finally out of her hands. She’d worked for Patricia Cain for three hellish years, all the while telling herself it was only a matter of time before she was rewarded for all the ridiculously late nights and degrading tasks. She would do her time, make her connections, and then move on in the world. Everyone knew Patricia never kept an assistant for more than five years, and then she moved them out into the vast network of TV and publishing and home goods businesses that paid her considerable rent. A shiny new assistant would be brought in and the old one put to happier pastures.

She couldn’t hold out that long. Two more years of working for that bitch would kill her no matter what was waiting at the end of the rainbow. Some things weren’t worth the price she had to pay.

Now it was over, and she could find a life free of Patricia Cain and Roger. She was going to be broke with zero prospects, and that suddenly seemed pretty damn fine to her.

The door opened again and Patricia entered. She was dressed in a Chanel business suit, her icy blond hair in a bun. When she filmed her highly rated television show, Patricia’s Paradise, she wore denim and even T-shirts, her hair down and flowing, her makeup understated. She was the face of new American domesticity. Elegant, but casual. Inviting.

This was the real Patricia. A shark in a designer suit. She turned her cold eyes Emily’s way. “Out.”

Without another word, Emily scurried away and Carly was left alone.

There was nothing to do but get this over with. She’d been terrified of this woman for long enough.

“Ms. Cain, I waited because I wanted to give this to you personally.” She held up her well thought-out resignation letter.

Patricia looked at it like it was something diseased. “No, thank you. I think we should have this discussion in my office. Where is my coffee?”

She started her day with a triple-shot vanilla latte, no foam, no sugar. Every day without fail for the last three years, Carly had it waiting for her. Not today.

“This is my resignation letter, Ms. Cain. I’m no longer your assistant. You’ll have to find someone else to get your coffee. I’ll leave this here for you, but I’ve also sent you an e-copy of the letter as well. Good luck finding someone new.”

She wouldn’t need it. There would be a line of applicants a mile long once word got out Carly had quit. After the news from last night, there might already be one forming. Roger’s arrest had been all over the news, so there was no doubt people would be talking.

The never-ending backbiting and gossip—one more thing she wouldn’t miss.

Patricia stared at her, cold snakelike eyes assessing. “I think you should come to my office, Carly. I have a few things I need to say to you. Legal things.”

She thought about running out the door and not looking back. It would be easy since Patricia had turned and strode into her office, her heels thudding along the tasteful hardwood floors. Something about the way her boss had said the word “legal” made her follow.

She’d signed a contract when she’d first become Patricia’s assistant. Carly’s brain worked overtime thinking about what all she’d agreed to in exchange for a halfway decent salary, clothing allowance, and travel budget. All she’d had to sign away was her soul.

There had been a ton of nondisclosure stuff, which, given some of her boss’s proclivities, was a damn fine idea. No tell-all books would be written about Patricia Cain by one of her assistants without a nice long legal battle. She’d been required to live within fifteen minutes of her boss’s Saint Augustine mansion. There had been a ton of blah blah legal stuff, but she couldn’t remember anything about a requirement that she stay for a certain length of time or there would be penalties. She was fairly certain that wasn’t even legal. Patricia couldn’t keep her here, so she followed along.

One last battle.

“Close the door behind you,” Patricia said without turning around.

Carly shut it and faced Patricia as she lowered herself into her antique chair behind a desk Carly was fairly certain had once had a place at Versailles. “Did you need more than the resignation? I could give you a week or two, but after last night I thought you would want me gone.”

Patricia settled back, crossing her long legs one over the other. “Last night was about your husband. Not you. I certainly don’t think you were either smart enough or ballsy enough to try to steal from me.”

Yes, there was the wit she’d come to love so much. “Still, I was dumb enough to marry him and bring him into the company. I think it’s best we sever ties. I’m in the middle of divorcing him, but I’ll still likely have to spend time dealing with the fallout of his arrest.”

“Yes, timing is a problem, is it not? I’ve got the fall TV launch and there’s the issue of my wedding to Kenneth. Having to break in a new assistant would be difficult.”

Her stomach dropped. “I’m sure you can find one who will work.”

“But I think you’ll work nicely. You see, there’s something you don’t know, dear. Something I’ve kept from my legal team and will continue to keep from them. Your husband stole two million dollars. Not one. He was quite intelligent but I’m smarter. Well, the people I pay for these types of things are smarter. Would you like to know whose name the second account was in?”

Her belly was now in complete free fall. “He wouldn’t.”

A laugh came from Patricia’s mouth, but it was somehow sinister. “Not you, dear. That would have been far too easy. No. He asked your sweet sister to open an account. I believe he told her it was so he could buy you an anniversary present without you knowing about it.”

Anger flared through her. She would kill Roger. She could actually see herself doing it. Meri was in college. She had her whole life ahead of her. There was nothing on the planet Carly loved more than her little sister, and she could easily see Meri getting scammed into thinking she was doing something good. “She didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Oh, but she did. That money was in her name before your husband withdrew it,” Patricia said slowly. She sighed and sat back. “I’ve thought long and hard about this. You see, I realize I’m a difficult woman to work for. I like things certain ways, and you’re quite good at following orders. I let the other assistants go because I needed them in other areas of the business. They form a network of sorts.”

“They feed you information.” What did any of this have to do with her sister? She would have to find a lawyer. She would fight this. There was no way she was letting her sister take the fall for Roger’s greed.

“Yes, they spy for me. They tell me who’s screwing who and who’s meeting with my competitors. They take care of people I need taken care of. I realized about six months into your employment that you would never be good at that type of work. You have an air of innocence about you that’s quite cloying.”

No, she wouldn’t spy on her fellow employees. It was easy to see she’d been incredibly naive. “All very good reasons to let me go. But Meredith didn’t touch that money, Ms. Cain.”

“Yes, as I said, I know that. But it does make very good leverage. I’m tired of training new assistants. I want one who is completely loyal to me. If I can’t have that then I’ll have one who is so afraid of what I can do to her that she’ll fall in line. I decided long ago that it’s better to be feared than loved. You’ve read Machiavelli, I presume.”

It made complete sense to her that Patricia would quote Renaissance philosophy about how to rule the peasants to her. After all, this woman truly believed she was a queen, the type who took her crown by force. “Of course.”

“Well then you understand where I’m coming from. I have plenty of spies. I need a mouse who’ll do anything I say. I’ve got all the documentation, and your husband was more than willing to sign a statement saying your sister was involved. Eventually the statute of limitations on prosecution will run out, but I think until then, you and I will get along fine.”

“What is this really about?” It couldn’t be about having an employee who was certain to hate her.

The slightest smile curved her lips up. “You’ll also go on public record as being deeply grateful to me for allowing you to keep your job after the horrible thing your husband did. I will pay for the lawyer and your divorce. You’ll discuss how kind I am and how you were certain you would be out in the cold.”

Shit. It all fell into place. Three weeks before, the New York Times had run a story on Cain Corp using Third World sweatshops to make cheap home goods. They’d found she’d paid pennies to young women who worked in the most terrible of conditions. “The network thinks your image is ruined and you’re trying to rehab it.”

“They think I could use a shine, and you’re going to do it for me. Like I said, you have an air of innocence. It’s what attracted that man to you in the first place. He knew he could use you. Now I’m going to use you. We’re doing a special with one of the morning shows. We’ll be flying to Cambodia and visiting the women who were horribly taken advantage of. Naturally I knew nothing about the conditions. It’s certainly my responsibility, but I am horrified. After all, I do everything I can to lift other women up.”

And drop them off the roof. “I won’t do it. You knew exactly what was happening in those factories. You signed the papers authorizing a pay cut and longer hours.”

“Did I? I doubt you’ll be able to find that. No, I was foolish and taken advantage of as well. Now, you should decide if you’re going to stay and do your job or if you would prefer for your sister to go to jail.”

Her hands were shaking. Actually shaking. There was zero doubt in her mind that Patricia would do it. She never bluffed. The devil didn’t have to. The devil always won. “I’ll go get your coffee.”

“And Carly?”

She turned. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Drop some weight before we go to Cambodia. I can’t have you looking like a cow on screen.”

Carly walked out, wondering if she’d ever feel whole again.