Page 70 of A Conflict of Interest

Lucy quirked an odd smile at him, and, as much as I didn’t want to give Anna credit, I had to admit she was damn good at some things. For example, the patronizing way she looked at Danielson like he was a child walking in on an important business meeting. “Nice to meet you, Danielson,” she said. “This is Michael Berg, Lakeshore president and CEO. Veronica knows her way around these things, so she’ll show you where to go.”

Danielson looked a little taken aback, glancing between me and Anna, and I smiled. “C’mon, let’s get drinks,” I reiterated, and he took a second catching himself before he smiled politely and nodded.

“Right—it’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Berg. We’ll talk later, Preston, Masters. Let’s go, Veronica.”

Luckily I was able to lose the guy for a bit once I’d taken him to the refreshments table, where—they weren’t serving any champagne yet, which was a shame, but I didn’t feel like marching into the back to ask for some this time. Ended up making polite small talk with a bunch of people in suits even though all I could really focus on was the glimpses I got of Kelcey moving perfectly through the crowd, handling an event like she was born to do it… she was clearly taking this as her opportunity to show everybody she knew how to navigate the scene, moving fluidly from one person to the next, talking to everyone like they were old friends. With that damn smile every step of the way, so radiant I couldn’t see anything else, even as we had to play it cool.

Well,shewas playing it cool. I was staring at her like a lovesick puppy, enough that I didn’t notice Anna next to me until she spoke, and I jumped, whirling on where she gave me a dry smile.

“I said to not make it look like you’re dating her. That should have implicitly includeddon’t make it look like you’d sell your soul to date her.”

“Psh… that’s some serious damaged goods,” I said. “I’d be lucky to get a half-finished bag of chips for my soul.”

She elbowed me. “Kelcey’s a fan. So don’t say things like that. I’ll tell her you said so, and then I assume she’ll be chewing you out. She’s very earnest like that.”

“She really is…” I said, with just a bit more dreaminess than I meant to. Maybe a lot more. Anna shook her head, laughing under her breath.

“Are you planning on telling Mom at any point about you two?”

“God, don’t tell me that means she’s here.”

“Thankfully not…” She closed her eyes with a tired sigh. “I gave her the wrong address for this place. Even if she decides to crash this party despite me telling her not to, I’ll get advance warning when she starts texting me about why the party isn’t going.”

“Communications director in action.”

“Answer the question,” she laughed. “You and Kelcey. Our parents are basically both waiting for it to happen.”

I shrugged, leaning back against the table, looking up at the gleaming lights of the chandeliers overhead. “Nothing to tell, honestly… it’s not like we’ve actually made this anything serious.”

“Uh-huh. Right. So you’re telling me you’re not sleeping with my employee after all.”

I swatted her. “Anna! Don’t be crude about Kelcey.”

She put her hands up. “Do youunderstandthen why it’s a little weird when you would go on about what Lucy and I were doing?”

“That’s different. You’re just Anna and Lucy. She’sKelcey.”

She rolled her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Right… have you considered it feels that way because you’re in love with Kelcey, and I feel that way about Lucy because I’m in love with her?”

“Apples to oranges. Luce is cool and all, but… I mean, for god’s sake, it’s Kelcey Huntington.” I paused. “And regardless of how intimate we may or may not be—”

“Save me.”

“The important part is that she’s still not sure if she’s able to commit to me, to, uh… trust me.” I shrugged, hunching my shoulders, looking away. “I’d gladly parade her around this place and saylook at my girlfriend,but I’m pretty sure it would get her in trouble anyway. Never minding the fact that she has to be the one to initiate that… I’ve already put it out there how I feel, so it’s really on her now.”

She smiled wryly. “Listen to you. You going to be okay once you actually get together? You’re not going to miss hookups, orgies…”

“Don’t even say that. You’ll get my hopes up.” I laughed suddenly. “Honestly, they’ve been boring to me for a minute now. The last few times were just trying to fill a void anyway.”

I was so caught up in the dreamy state of it all, thinking about what it could actually be like if I got to be together with Kelcey, if it could always be as perfect as it had been over the last week, that I didn’t even notice the subject of every happy dream coming towards me until I heard Kelcey’s sweet voice saying, “The lovely Preston sisters. It’s good to see you, Veronica.”

I turned with my heart missing a beat, and then it sank seeing Kelcey tag-teamed by the office’s resident black cloud Miranda, who scowled at me. “You again?” she said. “Aren’t you the one Kelcey threw into a tree and ruined the whole event last time?”

Kelcey gave her a flawless smile and, before I could respond, cut in with, “Veronica is the outreach coordinator for the videographers I was working with. We’d had an impassioned argument at the last event thatdidget a little out of hand, but—well, it led us to a good result with the videos, in the end, didn’t it?”

Oh, okay, we were lying. I could lie. “Kelcey drives a hard bargain,” I said. “Tried everything in our power to getahead in the negotiations, but… no slipping anything past Miss Huntington.”

Anna sighed, quietly, putting a hand to her forehead. As if I needed her commentary right now? Miranda scowled, looking between me and Kelcey. “That’s your idea of negotiations? I don’t think that’s in line with bargaining standards.”

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