Page 1 of Dead Set on You
FIVE YEARS BEFORE
The night of my thirteenth birthday, I wrote the first of now fifty-two items on my bucket list. Today, I planned on crossing off #17:Get my first big job by 22, which came right beforeBuy my first apartment by 25and somewhere afterKiss someone who makes my knees weak(still pending).
Most people my age were still figuring themselves out, but I didn’t have that kind of luxury. I had lists that needed checking and timelines to stick to, and nothing—not love, natural disasters or other catastrophic events—was going to stop me. But delays? Those were harder to avoid. For instance, the blizzard currently rolling through Chicago.
It’s why I was twelve minutes late to my first day at my “first big job”—half frozen and wholly mortified. This wasn’t how I’d imagined my first day as a marketing assistant in one of Chicago’s top marketing firms, working for the best in the business. I wasn’t entirely sure they hadn’t made a mistake hiring me to begin with. I hadn’t gone to a fancy school or been mentored byanyone with a corner office. I’d just … worked. Hard. Relentlessly. Like my life depended on it.
And today, it did.
This is it,I reminded myself as I shuffled across the lobby of Lakeview Towers. Despite the snowstorm, the building bustled with people—my kind of people. People with dreams and aspirations, who didn’t let a few snowflakes get in the way.
I deserve to be here.
I repeated the phrase the entire forty-seven seconds it took for an elevator to arrive, and then once more as I filed into the elevator after a group of people, most wrapped up in parkas and scarves. Me, though? I teetered on high heels and wore a Calvin Klein dress I’d gotten at Ross Dress for Less because not even snowmageddon was enough to keep me from making an impression. But it had been enough to make me late.
Stomach churning, I practiced my apology speech the entire way up to the thirty-eighth floor, and by the time I arrived at the entrance to Media Lab’s lobby, I was convinced I had a fighting chance. Maybe. I just needed to get in the same room as my new boss.
Briefly, I stalled outside the glass doors, my reflection frowning back at me. The brisk wind had tousled my light-brown hair, which I’d carefully styled that morning, and my olive eyes were bright against my newly wind-chapped cheeks. My tote—heavy with my snow boots and the three library books I was absolutely going to return tonight because I couldn’t afford late fees—made my body curve awkwardly to one side. I was servingunprepared assistantas opposed toboss bitch.
I’d have to change that.
I sucked in a deep breath, straightened my posture, and marched inside, shaking off my nerves like I hadn’t just spent the last hour in a spiral of doom. Fake it until you make it.
I approached a shiny receptionist desk with a shiny assistant tucked behind a shiny computer.
“Good morning! I’m here for Dana Casper. I’m Ev—”
“She’s with her nine o’clock.” The curly-haired assistant—iPhone dangling in her manicured hand—didn’t even glance up. “You can wait there.” She gestured to the sitting area in the lobby, her eyes never leaving her very important scrolling.
I blinked.
“Um … but can you tell her that I’m here? It’s my first day, and of course I didn’t mean to be late. I left an entire two hours early, but I forgot my—”
Liv Houston, per her nameplate, continued to scroll. I could have been invisible for all she cared.
I clamped my lips together, my pulse pounding with indecision.
I figured I had two choices: wait in the lobby to get fired or do something about it, like I’d always done. And if there was one thing I knew, it was that life loved throwing punches. I’d been dodging and countering them since birth, and I wasn’t backing down now, not when my job hung in the balance.
I was Evie flipping Pope.
I was going to—
“Evie?”
The male voice startled me so hard I yipped, snapping my head over my shoulder and clutching my twenty-pound tote to my chest.
“What in—” I stalled, and gawked.
A beautiful man stood—or rather, towered—a few feet away, looking the way you’d expect an executive at Media Lab to look, like they’d been plucked from the average masses because their DNA was superior in all ways: brains, bone structure, and boardroom swagger.
And him? He could have spawned them.
Dark hair, warm brown eyes, and sun-kissed skin that had no business existing in the terrible Chicago winter. A baby-blue dress shirt stretched over lean, toned muscles, broad enough towrap me snuggly against his chest and strong enough to hoist me up against a desk andoh God, no.
Heat flared up my chest, my neck, my face as my thoughts derailed into no-go territory because sure, I had my lists, but damn if I wasn’t lonely.
“YouareEvie?” He smiled politely as I stared like an idiot.
