Page 57 of State of Ruin

“Hey, sweetheart. Is everything okay?”

“Kind of. I dunno. I’m sorry to bother you.” I feel about twelve years old.

“You know it’s no bother. What’s wrong? Where are you? Want me to come find you?”

“I’m downtown—NoLIta. Are you at work?”

“Yeah, but I can get Andrew to give me a ride down there.” Andrew is his driver.

That makes me roll my eyes. It would take forever in a car. “I’ll come to you. It’s quicker on the subway.”

“Come to my office,” he says, and I hesitate.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. We can chat privately there. I’ll text you the address.”

I don’t tell him that I’ve been there before.

Last time I set foot in Voss, Inc.’s headquarters, I was full of hope.

Now, I’m full of dread.

Even so, the Elyse who attended the casting call a few weeks back could not have foreseen me walking up to the front desk, pulling off my beanie, and telling the sparkly, perfect woman there that I’m here to see the freaking CEO.

Clearly, the sparkly, perfect woman couldn’t have foreseen it either, because she gives me an openly skeptical once-over before tapping on her keyboard. Her face visibly falls when she presumably sees my name.

“Take the express elevator to the fortieth floor,” she says flatly, dumping a lanyard in front of me.

A security guard swipes me in, and I ride the elevator alone. It really is an express: the only button is the fortieth floor. It spits me out in a huge, white, shiny space that’s filled with sunlight, and I look around, disoriented. This is the exact opposite of the floor where I did my test shoot. No cameras or clutter or exposed pipes along the ceiling: just polished floor for miles and white couches and huge windows. I look around, past the people at their sleek white desks—assistants, maybe?—and see Sinclair coming out of an office at the far end of the floor. He hurries toward me, looking concerned and affectionate and downright gorgeous, and it feels like my entire body heaves a giant sigh of relief. He’s here, and he’s looking at me like that, and everything is going to be okay.

I start walking toward him. We meet in the middle, and he cups my face and kisses me full on the lips in front of all the assistants. He does not smell or taste like a monster. He smells and tastes like the man I’ve been falling hopelessly in love with. Like my Sinclair. And that has to stand for something, surely?

He pulls away, ignoring the people who are definitely staring at us.

“You okay? You worried me.”

“Yeah.” I sound breathless. “Can we… go somewhere?”

He leads me by the hand into his office and shuts the door behind us.

“Wow,” I say in spite of myself. This room is huge and gorgeous. One whole wall is floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on Park Avenue. A bigger, sleeker version of the desks outside stands at one end, while a white leather couch and matching armchairs surround a low glass table at the other. On the glass stands an arrangement of flawless white lilies, and I can’t help but wonder what it must be like to work somewhere that always has fresh flowers.

“Come.” He points to the couch. “Sit.” He sits down beside me and clasps my hand, and it makes me feel a little better. “What’s going on, darling?”

I take a deep breath. “We got photographed last night. I saw it on Page Six.”

Surprise flickers over his face, and there’s a beat before he speaks. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that. You okay about it?”

“Yeah, I mean, you warned me it might happen,” I say weakly.

“Hey. It’ll be fine. I told you I was ready to move forward with this. How come you saw the photo?”

“My agent showed it to me,” I say. “I saw her for coffee. She recognized me.” I’m not quite sure where I’m going with this; all I know is I want to play my cards close to my chest for now. Instinct is telling me not to mention Vanessa just yet.

“Ahh,” he says. “Makes sense.”

“She wanted me to spill some tea,” I say, playing for time. “But I didn’t know if I could tell her anything… because of the NDA.”