Page 3 of If The Shoe Fits

Helene

The elegant town car slowed to a crawl in front of the grim, gray TriBeCa building where Helene worked.

"Thanks for the lift," Helene said, beaming at the man seated by her side.

With his gray eyes and his dark wavy hair perfectly styled, her sister's husband gave off a serious Superman vibe, as Cassie often said.

He peeled his gaze away from his phone long enough to glance at her. "I can pick you up around six."

Helene rolled her eyes. "I feel like a six-year-old on my first school day. Thanks, Daddy, but I can find my way back."

Carter laughed. "All right. Play nice with the other children."

A taxi blew its horn impatiently. Helene opened the door, exchanging the warmth and comfort of the car for the light trickle of rain of a September night.

Helene didn't mind the rain. She was just glad to have escaped the heat of the summer in the city, finally. She stopped to ponder whether her apartment could have been saved if it had rained the previous night.

Probably not. The whole building had been destroyed in the span of mere minutes. Funny how she hadn't truly understood how destructive fire could be until then. It had seemed like a scene from a movie.

"Did you find yourself a sugar daddy?"

Shaken from her reverie, she noticed the woman standing next to her and snorted. "I wish. That's my sister's man, not mine."

Em, one of the girls down in admin, grinned knowingly, eyes still on the car that sped away in the distance. “Bald and twice her age?"

"Hot and in his thirties," she corrected. "He's kind, and treats her like a princess."

The admin woman grimaced. "Not fair. Some women have all the luck."

Any other day, Helene might have defended Cassie, pointing out that it wasn't just luck that had made her sister's life a modern fairy tale. Cassie was kind, and talented in her own right. Her ever-growing list of published novels could have afforded her a town car with a driver, too, if she'd been one for such status symbols. Left to her own devices, though, Cassie preferred catching a yellow cab, if she couldn't walk to her destination.

But after seeing her life reduced to ashes, and then squatting in her sister's luxurious townhouse for a weekend, she could only nod. Cassie truly had all the luck.

"Hey, do you want to go for drinks after work?" Em offered as they walked in the elevator.

They weren't close, but they'd gone to a bar once or twice before.

Em was one of these women who worked to live, not the other way around. She did what was demanded of her in her working hours, and left at five o'clock on the dot. Then she chilled with friends, attended concerts, watched plays on Broadway. Helene had always wondered how she managed that kind of lifestyle on an assistant’s salary. Assistants at Vandorf, Inc. earned even less than Bijoux Skin sales associates. But it wasn't her problem.

"That sounds great," she replied, not eager to go back to the house.

She'd give her sister as much privacy as she could during her stay.

Helene had spent the weekend researching and bookmarking apartments. She was going to need a roommate again, unless she suddenly won the lotto, or didn't mind commuting from New Jersey every morning. She had sent a few inquiries, but no one had gotten back to her yet.

"All right, see you after five!"

The doors opened on the second floor, in front of a handful of men in suits. Em didn't so much as give them a glance before getting out. Helene stepped aside to make room for them. She recognized Byron Vandorf at first glance. A still-handsome man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair, he was the older brother of their boss, Emily Vandorf.

It wasn't a secret that Bijoux Skin was funded by the rich entrepreneur, who'd wanted to help his sister out—hence why their office was in the dreary Vandorf tower, but Helene hadn't ever seen him anywhere other than at Christmas parties. If he ever came to the office, he stuck to the meeting rooms on the top floor, and she'd never gone higher than the fourth floor. Bijoux Skin had the entire fourth floor, and could call the admin assistants on the second floor, or the IT techs when the need arose.

The other guys must be execs, or investors. Helene stepped farther away, practically pressing herself against the steel walls.

The elevator moved again, and door pinged and opened on her floor shortly after. Now cornered behind a wall of suits, she cleared her throat. "Excuse me."

The man closest to her looked down, startled, as though he hadn't noticed her until then. His coal-black eyes bore into hers, and didn't let go. He was tall—hovering several inches over everyone else in the elevator—and definitely didn't look like the kind of man who should wear a suit. She could imagine him half naked, sweating, with a great, big sword in hand, like an actor from Vikings. His dark hair was longer than what was fashionable in the financial district. But although the air he gave off was closer to barbarian than businessman, he owned that fancy suit. It must have been tailor made, to fit a man as broad and muscular like it did.

The elevator doors started to close. Panicking, Helene started to move forward, despite being blocked by the giant and all his peers. "It's my floor."

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