Page 1 of One Small Secret

CHAPTER ONE

“Which floor?”

The well-dressed older man near the elevator keypad probably thinks he’s asking a totally benign question. It would be if this was a normal day and I was an even slightly normal person.

I eye the button with a big fat 15 plastered on it at the very top of all the others. The executive floor. My floor. I give the man a tight smile. “Eleven.”

By next Christmas my answer will be different. I didn’t spend the last three years busting my butt in Vietnam to stay on the 11th floor.

I shift to the side to allow a few more people to shuffle in, and only then do I see him. There, on the elevator wall, is Ruben Palmer, encased in glass and looking like he owns the world in his latest People magazine cover. He’s wearing a suit and tie, but he’s pulling at the tie and his dark hair is mussed. He looks like he just got home from work and is ready to take whatever woman is waiting at home in his arms and ravish her.

That can’t be office appropriate.

The woman next to me doesn’t seem to mind, though. I glance around at the rest of the elevator, and sure enough, most of the women are taking in his cover like it’s a perk of the job. A 401k match, fifty-percent discount on all Palmer Hotel stays, and some eye candy every day on your way to work.

Who wouldn’t want to work at Palmer Hotels?

If only the lady next to me could have seen him in high school. He wasn’t even that cool—at least not until his first magazine cover, anyway. But I’d always liked him. Our families have been close friends for generations, and I love his grandfather, but we live in different worlds now. Even when our families do get together for dinner, Ruben is usually in New York with a supermodel or handbag designer, the handbag designer being the most current trend.

I look away from Ruben’s picture. So we used to be friends. We aren’t anymore and it doesn’t matter.

Isolation in Vietnam was supposed to break me—send me packing far away from Ruben so he could…I don’t know…feel comfortable on the 15th floor without worry of his poor little schoolmate bringing up his less-than-glamorous beginnings? Whatever his reasons were, it didn’t work. I spent the past three years managing the building and opening of the first ultra-luxury boutique hotel on Tuyen Lam Lake, and I didn’t quit.

Take that, Ruben freaking Palmer. You and your 15th floor can suck it.

The elevator dings. “Excuse me.” I push my way between two briefcases with an apologetic nod and step into the development office.

I paste on a professional, no-nonsense business face and take a deep breath. A woman I don’t recognize looks up from the reception desk. “May I help you?” she asks.

“I’m Cadence Crane.”

She blinks.

“I’ve just transferred from Da Lat.” Her face is still cloudy. “The city near Tuyen Lam Lake in Vietnam.”

Her face brightens. “Ah, yes, it’s your first day. Welcome to Rosco. We're excited to have you. I’m Sylvia Harcourt. I’ll get your paperwork and show you to your desk.”

I smile, but seriously? I’ve been part of the development team at Palmer Hotels for longer than this woman, and Rosco is my hometown. Together we walk through the door that leads to the office space. I almost stumble as I take in what used to be the development floor.

Everything has changed. The cubicles are gone, and so are the offices. Or rather, the office walls. They’ve been replaced with glass, letting the sunlight shine into the large, open space. Desks are scattered about with nothing separating one person’s space from another’s.

What happened here?

Sylvia leads me past several desks occupied by men and women I don’t recognize. Only a few of them glance up as we walk by. I scan the room more intently. One man two rows away looks familiar—Christian Rasmussen. He’d asked me to dinner once, but I’d been too busy with work to accept. I try to catch his eye, but he doesn’t look up.

Emily emailed me a year ago when she’d taken a job in Los Angeles, so I knew she would be gone. We’d known each other since middle school, and went to college in Spokane together for four years before returning to work at Palmer Hotels. The two of us had been inseparable, which, perhaps, accounted for the fact that no one here seemed more than vaguely familiar.

I squint my eyes and look again. Ah, Rebecca! She’d come to coffee with Emily and me a few times. She's busy typing away with headphones in her ears. Whoever came up with the crazy idea to have open offices probably thought it would lead to more talking and working together, but it only took me two minutes to realize that all it had done was force coworkers to erect their own invisible walls.

So, I know two people. Two people. I stuck it out for three years alone in a distant country with city officials who had considered it their life’s mission to make erecting a hotel impossible just so I could impress Christian and Rebecca with my return?

Well, them and Mom. I will never be able to convince Mom that working anywhere except Palmer Hotels isn't a demotion. I could become president of an oil conglomerate or a partner at a huge law firm, and she would shake her head and say something like, Oh, wasn’t Palmer Hotels hiring? Mom is the type of Rosco native that still thinks the sun rises on Palmer Hotels and no one in their right mind would want to work anywhere else.

So here I am, a glutton for punishment.

Sylvia points to an empty desk. It sits right next to one of the glass-walled offices. “Here you go. I hope you love living in Rosco. Small town, huge corporation. It really is the best of both worlds.” She smiles as if she has just said the most brilliant thing in the world, and not a sentence I've heard on repeat since I was born. “Tomorrow at 10 am we’ll introduce you to everyone at our team planning meeting.” She gives me a friendly wave, then turns and heads toward her desk.

I sit, take a breath, pull my company laptop out of my bag, and snap it into the docking station. Time to get to work. I’m not going to get to the 15th floor by sitting around wishing Emily was still here.

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