Page 11 of One Wrong Move

Nate had helped me impress my coworkers.

It feels unearned, but I try to ignore the impostor syndrome that loves to rear its ugly head. Nate had said that their impressions can’t be false, since they are technically true. He had bought art on my recommendation, therefore…

I suppose he is my client, in a roundabout, white lie kind of way.

The work is fun, at least, and every single morning, I walk into the gallery with a feeling of this is exactly where I should be. I haven’t felt that in a very long time.

“What were you doing before this?” Aadhya asks. It’s Friday afternoon, and we’re both sitting in the back office, working on our laptops. Sorting through the orders and the deliveries coming in next week.

I look at her over my screen. Her hair is in a beautiful sleek bun today, the kind of style I can never get my curls into. “I was a research assistant at a museum in New York.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Wow, that sounds amazing.”

“It was interesting, yeah,” I say. But I shrug a little. “It did get tiring after a while. It was a small museum, with almost no visitors, and the exhibition coordinator wasn’t interested in any kind of innovation.”

Aadhya’s eyes soften. “Oh, no.”

“Yeah.”

“So, what were you researching?”

“I put together all kinds of suggested purchases, and each one was rejected.”

“Goodness,” she says matter-of-factly. “That sounds like a nightmare. I’m glad you got out of there.”

That makes me smile. Thank you, I think. It’s a throwaway comment for her, but it’s the first time someone has validated my decision to leave the job I’d been tied to for years, and all the rest that came with it.

“So am I,” I say.

She wiggles her eyebrows. “And is that little museum where you bumped into the billionaire clients?”

Oh no. I thought we were done talking about Nate. I lift a single shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “He was a friend of a friend when we were introduced.”

This makes her nod, and I see interest flash in her eyes. “I love that. You must have some great friends.”

“Thanks. But I’m sure you do, too, right? How long have you been working at Sterling Gallery?” She’s also infinitely more glamorous than me and hasn’t been sitting in the equivalent of a dusty broom closet for the past four years, focusing on research tasks that went nowhere.

At 5 p.m., I head into the restroom to freshen up. There’s considerably better water pressure here than in the hovel I’m renting, and I take the opportunity to quickly wash up.

I leave my hair down, but add a headband to keep it from being too unruly. Swipe on a touch of lip gloss and add dramatic eyeliner. It’s not ideal as far as touch-ups go, but at least I’m in a great outfit—a long, blue silk dress and an oversized men’s blazer thrown over it.

Aadhya is packing up her bag when I return to the office. She throws me a knowing smile. “Off to a night on the town?”

I grab my own bag. “Yeah, kinda.”

“Of course you are.” She grabs her own lipstick and applies it carefully while looking in the small mirror she keeps at her desk. “Where are you headed?”

I hate lying. I avoid it as much as I can.

But saying where I’m going, and who I’m going with, would spark the wrong kind of assumptions. False impressions and all that be damned.

“He’s picking me up,” I say instead.

Now Aadhya nods. “So, you’re going on a date, and you’ve been in London less than a fortnight?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” she says, nodding once again. “I might have underestimated you, Harper from New York.”

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