Page 13 of Midnight Kisses

She snarled and I briefly considered taking it back because I needed her help finding my mystery girl. But an apology was unnecessary, firstly because insults never had any effect on Sadie, they only made her stronger, and secondly because she tugged my phone out of my hands.

“What was the event company called?” she asked.

“How would I know? You bought the table.”

Sadie pursed her lips for a moment, thinking, before snapping her fingers. “Momentum Events.”

She unlocked my phone—she was right, she’d have no trouble stealing my identity and robbing me blind, should the temptation one day overcome her—and was neck deep in my social media before I could protest. Crossing to the bar cart and fridge stocked with some of Aotearoa, New Zealand’s best wines, I fetched her a can of the cold brew coffee she liked. She accepted this without thanks, huffing at something on the phone.

“What?”

“I didn’t know looking like a Calvin Klein model was a requirement for passing out puff pastry.”

I shrugged. I’d prefer we only hire hotties at Elysian too, but that crypt keeper in Human Resources, Suzanne Callaghan, would have my balls if I suggested it.

Sadie let out a whoop of triumph and spun the phone around to show me the screen. “Is she in this photo?”

I squinted at the group selfie of a bunch of people in company branded t-shirts. Disappointment sunk my shoulders. “No.”

“Damn. Maybe you’re out of luck. Maybe next time you’ll have to get a woman’s name before you suck face with her in the bathroom.”

“Itried.”

“Try harder, slutbag.”

Sadie and I spent another twenty minutes combing the images posted online by the event company, but my girl—ratherthegirl—wasn’t in any of them. And calling her a girl was probably another thing Sadie would call ‘out the gate’. My mystery woman was older than Sadie, definitely. Not older than me, although her skin glowed like she was fucking immortal, which was unhelpful in determining her age. At a guess, I’d say she was in her late twenties, early thirties? She carried herselflike she had known both disappointment and joy, but believed her future held more of the latter. Wise asses like me knew things only got worse with time, and we wore that knowledge on our faces.

Sadie grumbled and stopped scrolling so she could type something into my phone.

“Sadie,” I warned.

“I’m just drafting, cool your jets. I’ll show you before I send anything.”

I held out my hand.

With a roll of her eyes, she handed it over. On the screen was the chat window she’d opened with the event company, which was a good idea. Into the window I typed:

Who was the woman you had working as a bathroom attendant at the Purkiss Media New Year’s Eve party?

As an afterthought, I tapped out a second message.

This is Miles Lawrence.

Like I’d said to Sadie, between my face, name, and bank account, I always got what I wanted.

“They already know who you are, dingus.” Sadie had been reading over my shoulder. “It comes up as a message fromyourname. How did you become the CEO of a million dollar export company?”

“Nepotism.”

“Literally,” she agreed.

“And because I don’t take shit from my employees. Back to work, slacker.”

Sadie went back to her desk and I reluctantly called Paul so he could bore me shitless about his acquisition strategy fortwenty minutes. All his ideas had already been had, and better executed too.Sadiecould do a better job than Paul, if she wanted. I emailed her asking her to work with HR to create a Strategic Business Advisor role reporting directly to me. Perhaps Paul would improve when faced with a bit of competition. If not, his future lay outside Elysian. Sadie had the role in the system and the vacancy drafted within the hour—and considering Suzanne in HR usually took a whole day to reply to one email, this was impressive.

It was deep into the afternoon when my phone dinged with a response from the event company. It showed as a read message even before I saw it, which confused me until I looked through the glass wall of my office and saw Sadie waving at me from behind her monitor. She must have been logged into my social media account on her desktop.

I really did need to change my passwords.

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