Page 1 of Drunk on You

chapter one

ANASTASIA

“Thank you, Annabella. That will be all,” Victoria says, closing the file folder we were just going over and sitting back in her seat.

With her half-black, half-silver hair, she reminds me of Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, and I briefly wonder if she has a stash of puppies she’s holding hostage somewhere.

“It’s Anastasia,” I correct, not for the first time, as I pick up the reports off the table. “If there’s anything else you?—”

“Nope. I think we have everything we need.” She plasters on a fake smile, silently indicating I’ve been dismissed.

I stuff the files into my Bottega Veneta briefcase that my father sent me for my birthday last year and then stand, feeling completely rejected. I spent hours upon hours working on those reports and projections, only for Cruella to barely give them a glance. When I’d brought up the idea at a meeting last month and she said I was welcome to pitch it, I should’ve known she was full of shit.

When I get back to my office, Paige—my best friend and colleague—is waiting for me. Between her slim figure, stunning looks, and the fact that, with heels on, she towers over most men, she looks more like a runway model than a marketing executive for Benson Liquor. The second she sees my facial expression, her pouty lips turn down.

“Such a damn waste,” I hiss once my door is closed.

I fish the files out of my bag and toss them into the garbage can, annoyed that I wasted so much of my time working on them when I knew Victoria didn’t care about anyone’s opinions or ideas but her own. I round my desk and slump back into my seat while Paige takes a seat in the visitor chair across from me.

“It’s not you,” she says, blowing wisps of her blonde hair out of her eyes. “Victoria is a controlling know-it-all, and if she keeps it up, she’s going to run this company straight into the ground.”

She’s not lying. The numbers are down thirty percent for the quarter—an all-time low for the company. Victoria is blaming it on the economy, but when you compare our numbers to our competitors’, theirs have gone up. The economy might be on shaky ground right now, but that isn’t stopping people from drinking.

“And the last thing I want is to be here when it happens.” I clasp my hands over my stomach and cross my legs. “I’ll never understand why her father thought it was a good idea to let his socialite daughter, who knows nothing about the liquor industry, take over the company when he retired.”

“Because she’s a daddy’s girl,” Paige mocks and then gags, making me choke out a laugh despite not being in a laughing mood.

“Must be nice,” I mutter just as my phone rings with Dad on my screen. “And speak of the devil …”

I turn my phone so Paige can see, and she flinches.

“You sure you want to answer that? You’ve already had a bad enough morning.”

“Better to get the conversation over with.”

She nods in understanding and stands. “Lunch?”

“You’re not meeting John?” Since Paige and her boyfriend work near each other, they usually meet for lunch.

“Nope, he has a lunch meeting.”

“Okay, then let’s do lunch.”

“Sounds good.”

Since I missed my dad’s call, I call him back once Paige has closed the door behind her.

“Anastasia, have I caught you at a bad time?” he asks when he answers.

“I’m at work, but I have a few minutes.”

Dad sighs at my curtness, and I close my eyes, hating what’s become of us.

I would give anything to have a relationship with the only parent I have left, but it’s hard to do when that parent is partially responsible for the death of my other parent.

When I was little, I was close to my dad—well, as close as I could be as the daughter of a workaholic—but the bigger his business grew, the more he put it above his family. I tried everything to get his attention, including acting out and getting into some trouble in my teens, but my mom and I just couldn’t compete with his company.

After I graduated from high school and left for college, things between my parents only got worse, especially when I continued to lash out and damn near failed out of college my freshman year. Luckily, I turned it around and got my life together before it was too late.

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