Charlotte sat in her office, wrapped in a gray sweater, gazing out at the rain that had begun to patter across Seattle. Long gone were the gorgeous, sun-drenched days of summer, and autumn was revving toward them all like a semi-truck. She couldn’t do anything to stop it.

She pushed her phone to her ear, listening to it ring and ring. Finally, she heard the familiar voicemail recording.

“Hello, this is Sean of Lawson Technologies. I am unable to receive your call at this time. Go ahead and leave a message and I’ll get back to you soon.”

Charlotte groaned inwardly as it beeped. But when she spoke, her voice was smooth, cordial.

“Hi, Sean,” she began. “It’s Charlotte Waters. Again. I know I keep calling you, but we need to go over the details of this case. Things are ramping up on our end, and Evan Greene is growing rowdy. His attorneys are all over us.”

She swallowed, hating that she longed to end the message with something like “I think about you often.”

She hung up after a quick goodbye, and went back to staring out the window, thinking about the passage of time and how it always seemed to stomp on her heart, no matter how hard she worked to escape it.

Out of nowhere, there came a knock at her door, breaking Charlotte’s reverie. Thinking it was probably Katrina, who’d been a constant annoyance in her life recently, she spewed a disgruntled: “Come in.”

Charlotte didn’t spin around as she heard the clacking of heels. But the moment the familiar, playful voice said her name, her muscles lost their tension, and her smile stretched from ear to ear.

“Chelsea,” she whispered, turning round.

She ran toward her friend, wrapping her arms around her and smooching her on the cheek like a cartoon character. Chelsea had been in Europe for the previous two weeks, on business, and she’d hardly been able to call—the nine-hour time difference was killer. “Oh my God, I hate to say how much I’ve missed you. But it nearly killed me not to see you for so long.”

Chelsea giggled. “Girl, you should have gone with me! Called in sick to this place. How many hours have you been putting in recently?”

Charlotte thought for a moment, adding the numbers in her head; once she got to 60, she quit counting. “You know, I don’t want to think about it,” she smiled. “Too many, or not enough. It’s one or the other.”

Chelsea sat at the seat across from her, slipping her fingers into her bag and grasping what looked to be a chocolate bar. She handed it to Charlotte, grinning. “Look. I got you some Swiss chocolate to take your troubles away.”

“From Zurich?” Charlotte squealed, taking it. She yearned to eat the entire thing in one bite. “Thank you so much. I’m going to make it last. Well. At least, till the end of the day.” She winked at her friend.

“Eat it however you please,” Chelsea laughed. “Seriously. I gained like five pounds in Europe.”

“But you look better than ever. You’ve got the travel glow,” Charlotte affirmed. She paused for a moment, trying to think of a single update on her life.

“You haven’t heard from him lately, have you?” Chelsea guessed, tilting her head. “You seem down, honey, your face has sadness in it.”

“Sadness ages you,” Charlotte said sternly, rubbing her eyes. “And so does Katrina. Ugh.”

Chelsea laughed. “Well, I think you deserve a night out with me. Drinks next week? I have loads of work to get caught up on, but we both need to cut loose. What do you say?”

“I say absolutely,” Charlotte agreed. “And you need to help me get over this dumb Sean thing. I need to meet people. I need to put myself out there. It’s finally time.”

“I’m glad you’re feeling up to it, really,” Chelsea said, eyeing her. “But I can tell you’re not really over that guy. You fell for him hard, didn’t you?”

Charlotte opened her mouth, feeling her breath come in staggers, just from the mention of Sean. She began to tell Chelsea that she really didn’t want to talk about it—that she’d really rather leave it alone, when someone rapped at the door. The knock was impatient, angry.

“That’ll be Katrina,” Charlotte sighed, rising to her feet. “She’s been in and out of here all morning. She has a million ideas about the Sean Lawson case—none of which align with what I actually practice, with regards to law.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course, Lyle’s humming and hawing, wanting to side with her because of her father.” She paused for a moment, sighing. “Anyway. Maybe we can catch up properly soon? I’m sorry you came all the way over here.”

“I’m just playing hooky, love,” Chelsea said, kissing her friend on the cheek. “Good luck with the monster.”

Chelsea whirled past Katrina as Charlotte opened the door, giving her a once-over.

Katrina eyed her icily before passing her gaze to Charlotte. “Do you have a moment?” she asked, trotting in on her Louboutins without waiting for a response.

Charlotte sat in her chair, her hands in her lap. She waited as Katrina fluffed her hair, gazing around the room. The door was closed behind them, and Charlotte had half a mind to run and retrieve Lyle, if only to keep things friendly, but she didn’t move toward the door.

“Have you heard from Sean recently?” Katrina asked her, her eyes dark. “Because he called me just now. Said he wouldn’t be back from New York for another two weeks.”

Charlotte frowned, feeling her insides fold into themselves. He’d called Katrina? Why hadn’t he returned her phone call? She worked hard to push down her hurt feelings.

“A great guy, really,” Katrina said, her eyes flashing. “You can tell he truly cares about his business. That he wouldn’t do anything to run its name through the muck.”

“Sure,” Charlotte said. She didn’t know where this was going. She sensed something menacing in Katrina’s words, but reminded herself that nobody knew about her night with Sean. Nobody in the world, apart from the two of them.

“Which is why I really think we should follow my strategy for the case,” Katrina said. “Your plan—no offense, but it’s too risky. If we lose, it would tell the world that Sean is a liar, that he uses people. But with my plan, they won’t think poorly of him. They’ll only think highly of Evan Greene—which is a chance we’ll have to take. It’s better this way.”

Charlotte scoffed. She longed to ask Katrina if she’d ever spent a single day in law school. The route she’d planned didn’t even take the massive selection of documents that Sean had sent them into account. But Charlotte had to play cool.

She leaned back, nodding. “I’ll have to talk to Lyle a bit more. But it definitely could work.”

Nope, she said in the back of her mind. She most certainly would not do that. Her career was on the line, and if she lost this, she’d be mortified.

“Well,” Charlotte said, tapping her hands on her legs. “I think I’m going to head to lunch, if you think we’re done here. I really don’t see anything else we can cover.”

“Lunch?” Katrina scoffed, looking Charlotte’s body up and down. “Be careful, Charlotte. We don’t want to be seen as sloppy here.”

Charlotte’s eyes grew wide as the insult smacked her in the face. She stared at Katrina, deadpan, wishing her to leave.

“I’m just saying. Try to lay off the bagels, if you can,” Katrina smirked. She tapped from the office, her small, perfect butt swaying behind her.

As soon as the door closed, Charlotte burst from her seat, staring down at her stomach. Sure, she’d felt a little bloated recently—but fat?

She touched at the slight bulge in her pencil skirt, aware that it had been a great deal easier to zip up a few weeks before. But she had hardly changed her diet. Sure, the stress fallout from her night with Sean had caused her to order takeout a few more times than normal, but that didn’t warrant this much weight gain. She still went running every morning. She still worked hard, and ensured she didn’t overdo it on carbohydrates.

What was it, then? She studied her hands, conscious that she was approaching 30. Perhaps the rules had changed for her. Perhaps she couldn’t even look at a piece of pizza without the weight stockpiling on her stomach, on her thighs. She forced herself to create a plan, then and there, writing out the words on her notepad: ‘zucchini, chicken, NO BREAD, buy a scale!’ hating herself for listening to Katrina.

But she couldn’t help it; she wasn’t immune to that wretched woman. And now that Sean had been ignoring her—and was, apparently, contacting Katrina for information about the case—her self-esteem was at an all-time low.

Charlotte skipped lunch and worked deep into the night; her tongue sandy from lack of eating, her body seeming to creak with fatigue. As long as she was building a solid strategy for the Lawson vs. Greene case, she felt she didn’t need sustenance.

When she arrived back at her Capitol Hill apartment that night and curled up on her couch, she was exhausted. She didn’t even look in the refrigerator. She longed to waste away. How would she meet the man of her dreams—the one somewhere out there that wasn’t the billionaire heartthrob she was working with—if she wasn’t a slim, beautiful blonde anymore?