Page 5 of Fierce

Surely asking me to call back was a good sign. They wouldn’t have asked me to call just to tell me no.

“April Winehouse,” Ms. Scary-Thin said.

I introduced myself, and she said, “Ah, yes. We’d like to offer you the Publicity Assistant job.” She named a salary that topped Vincent’s by a fair margin. Plus those wonderful benefits.

“Yes,” I said the moment she was done. I’ve read that you should negotiate, but negotiation is for people who hold some cards. “Yes. Please.”

“When can you start?” she asked.

“How does today sound?”

She laughed, sounding human for once. “How about Monday?”

“Monday’s good.”

We talked a little more, and I hung up. And then I walked out of the bathroom and quit.

Did it occur to me to wonder why Martine had chosen me, when she’d so clearly been dismissing me before Hemi had shown up? Sure it did. Especially when I was lying awake beside Karen at four the next morning, in that witching hour when the dark thoughts come. But, I told myself, it was always that way. It was who you knew, right? If the CEO had been impressed with me somehow, and they’d had an opening, and he’d mentioned me to Martine—well, lucky me.

It couldn’t have been anything else. Whatever kind of over-the-top reaction the man aroused in me, imagining that he’d felt anything similar would be ridiculous. Besides, if he’d liked me, he wouldn’t have had to rescue me from my horrible job and set me up in a new one like some kind of hot Fairy Godfather. He could’ve just asked me out for a drink like a normal guy.

And I could’ve screamed and run ten miles in the opposite direction, like a normal girl who knew she was way, way out of her league.

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