Staring at herself in the mirror-paneled wall of the elevator as it made its journey to the top of the skyscraper, she tried to summon anger to replace the tears. Anger would be better than this gutting sadness, this utter humiliation. But it wouldn’t come. Normally, Amy was not a woman who took bullshit from anyone. She was usually really good at summoning righteous rage when a situation called for it.
But apparently Mason took that, too, when he snatched away everything she’d planned for, everything she had to hold on to, ruining the perfect future she’d been meticulously constructing, with those five evil little words: I don’t love you anymore.
She swallowed hard and swiped a hand across her face. With any luck, the suite would be empty, but sometimes the cleaners were here on Saturday afternoons. She just had to pull it together enough to make it to her office without running into any of the custodial staff.
Because God forbid someone see her looking anything less than perfect.
…
Goddamn, the office was quiet. It was Saturday, yes, but normally Cherry Beach Software’s offices were populated with at least a programmer or two on the weekends. The tech geniuses Dax Harris employed generally didn’t observe the whole nine-to-five thing, which was fine with him, on account of the whole genius thing. If they wanted to play ping-pong all week and then go on coding binges on the weekend, who was he to judge? The company had been successful beyond his wildest dreams in the decade since he founded it, so he must be doing something right.
But today, as he locked his office and made his way to the elevators, you could have shot a missile through the empty corridors. It was Canada Day, but still, the programmers didn’t normally notice, much less observe, holidays. And he would have expected Jack Winter, the CEO of one of the other two companies that shared the forty-ninth floor, to be in. The two of them often went for a drink on Saturday afternoons after catching up on paperwork in their respective companies.
The elevator dinged. Given the fact that the forty-ninth floor was apparently a ghost town today, he didn’t bother looking up from his phone as he stepped on—or rather, as he crashed into—someone stepping off. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t—”
“Eff off, Dax.”
Dax had never thought blood pressure was something you could actually feel. Until he met Amy Morrison, the vice president of Winter Enterprises. When she was around, he turned into a cartoon—there was probably steam coming out of his ears. He tamped down his irritation and smirked at her. “I am rubber and you are glue, everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”
She tilted her head. “There’s not a day that doesn’t go by that I don’t marvel how someone so immature and dim-witted managed to become a multimillionaire CEO.” Not waiting for a reply, she curled her lip and brushed past him.
He lunged for the elevator doors, which were starting to close, but missed. Her laughter rang out as she sashayed in the direction of Winter Enterprises. He watched her hips, encased in some kind of shiny silver material, sway. She sure got dressed up for working on the weekend. But that was Amy for you, always dressed and coiffed like she’d stepped from the pages of a fashion magazine.
Wait. Suddenly he realized why the office was so empty. Everyone was at Amy Morrison’s wedding.
Everyone except, apparently, Amy.
He and Amy Morrison were like oil and water. Cats and dogs. Whatever cliché you wanted to throw at them, they were it. When his company had moved into the building three years ago, he’d tried to be civil at first. But somehow things degenerated so that before he knew it, she was refusing to share elevators with him and he was locking her out of the men’s room when the ladies’ had flooded. It had gotten so they didn’t even try to pretend they didn’t hate each other. But the one thing he could respect about his nemesis was that she had a hell of a work ethic. It wasn’t unusual to see her on the weekends.
But her wedding day? Wasn’t that a little much? Had she forgotten something she needed for the ceremony? The unlucky groom’s ring, perhaps?
He shrugged. Whatever. Not his problem.
It did, however, explain where all his staff was. Dax’s employees and Jack Winter’s were all friends, sharing a common kitchen, socializing after work, and doing typical office things like placing bets on when Amy’s boring boyfriend was finally going to pop the question. The Cherry Beach programmers were all a little bit in love with her, so of course they were at the wedding, falling in line like panting, besotted puppies.