Page 36 of Lucky Star

Chapter Thirteen

Sarah

Only half paying attention to the conversation going on around me, I was missing important details left and right. Alas, Broderick would just have to deal with it since it was his fault for putting me in this frame of mine in the first place.

When Aerin Shandly, the head of PR, walked into the conference room bathed in a noxious cloud of perfume, I fought back tears. Her face was shiny and taut, and her nose was a bit more pinched than the last time I’d seen her. Trying not to choke on her Chanel, I wondered if her nose had finally quit working after all the surgeries she’d subjected it to. It was uncharitable of me, but since she was truly a horrible person I didn’t feel too badly.

When she breezed past Cameron, I glanced up from my laptop and saw him shift uncomfortably in his seat, his eyes fixed on a scrap of paper he was folding and refolding on the table in front of him. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. I knew he was still pissed, but taking his anger out on me wasn’t entirely fair. I was hurting just as bad as he was—if not more. After all, I’d been the one labeled unsatisfactory.

“Great, everyone’s here,” Aerin drawled as if she owned the room and everyone in it.

I lowered the lid on my computer, and Broderick rolled his eyes. Around me, my colleagues snickered and averted their gazes.No one liked Aerin.

“The meeting was supposed to start twenty minutes ago. Of course, we’re all here,” Broderick said, pointing out that we’d been waiting on her to get started.

Even though I was pissed at Broderick, I wanted to high five him for putting the snarly woman in her place. She had a habit of acting as if hers was the only opinion that mattered, and her schedule was the most important one in the room. If anyone did anything that could be (mis)construed as gainsaying her, she took great joy in proverbially squashing them like a bug beneath her Jimmy Choos.

“Yes, well, the line at Starbucks was out of control. I finally gave up and just came in. I figured I could send your assistant out for coffee.”

I slid my eyes to Broderick and waited for him to give me the go ahead. I wasn’t going to jump to her commands—not anymore. She might be the conductor of this orchestra of lies, but I had some power too. If I didn’t go along with their plan, all of her scheming would be for naught. Yes, it would mean giving up my job, but if I decided that was a price I was willing to pay, I could set fire to her house of cards.

Strangely, she hadn’t yet realized it.

When Broderick shook his head, I leaned back in my chair and folded my hands in front of me. “Sorry, no can do. We ordered coffee already. The early bird gets the worm and all that.” I smiled insincerely.

She blinked and put on her own false smile. Turning to face my boss, she spoke in a whiny voice meant to be playful and coaxing. “Broderick, can you please have your assistant run out and grab me a coffee? I was up all night putting together this emergency plan, and now I’m running on fumes.” She bared perfectly white, perfectly aligned teeth under puffy Restalyne lips that looked more like a grimace than a smile.

That confirmed it. She’d had her lips and her nose done.

Broderick punched a button on the intercom. “Cassie?”

“Yes, Broderick?” came the disembodied voice of my cube mate.

“Can you bring Ms. Shandly a coffee please?” He turned to Aerin. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Yes, both. Thank you.” She looked my direction, her eyes flicking between me and the door. Her eyebrows stayed rooted in place, the Botox not allowing her to frown with confusion.

Broderick’s eyebrows had no such trouble moving. He raised one as he said, “I hope what we’ve got brewed up in the kitchen will suffice.”

I lifted my special order, extra hot triple grande white mocha and took a long, glorious drink. In a moment of pure insolence, I winked at her over the lid of my cup, and her forehead almost twitched in surprise. I stifled my laugh.

Aerin recovered quickly enough. “Oh, I thought you’d just send … Stacy, is it?” Pointedly, she looked my way again. She damn well knew my name, but this was her way of making me appear unimportant.

“Sarah,” Cameron said out of nowhere. He’d been so focused on not meeting anyone’s eyes that I wasn’t aware he’d been paying attention. “Her name is Sarah.”

“Oh, right. Sarah.” She turned back to Broderick. “Stacy, Sandy, Sarah … whoever she is, I thought you’d send her. Isn’t she your assistant?”

Several people in the room glanced from Aerin to Broderick and then to me, wondering why she was behaving so overtly antagonistic. Broderick didn’t always play well in the sandbox with others, but the studio’s publicity group was the only one he’d ever openly defied. He didn’t like it when people he claimed didn’t understand movies told him how to run his set, and over the years that had led to him earning a bad reputation with the agencies the studio regularly worked with. He and Aerin had been butting heads long before I entered the picture, but she seemed to have taken an instant disliking of me, being openly hostile on more than one occasion. The only difference was that today she’d decided to do it publicly.

“Actually, she’s not my assistant,” Broderick said, causing every head in the room to swing his way.

Including mine. I had no idea what he was talking about. I’d done what he’d asked, hurting the man I loved in the process. If I wasn’t his assistant anymore, I’d be having a very long, very serious conversation with our human resources department. I gripped my coffee tight, hoping no one noticed my shaking hands. When the cup visibly trembled, I set it down and clasped my hands in my lap.

Across from me, Cameron shot up in his chair and stared at Broderick with a menacing glare. After a few quick seconds, his eyes darted to me for clarification.

Quickly, I shook my head to let him know that I was just as confused.

And by the look of things, we weren’t the only ones startled by Broderick’s pronouncement. My co-workers shot questioning glances between our boss and me. I shrugged and waited for him to continue, my heart racing. Either I still had a job, or I didn’t. One way or another, I was about to find out.

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