* *
Kendall Ross’s shoulders drooped when she scanned that morning’s headlines. “Of course Sawyer Locke is in the paper. The man is everywhere.” She put her phone on her dresser and scrolled, reading while she zipped up her dress. One more flick of the screen and she saw the picture—Sawyer crossing the street in front of his Grand Legacy Hotel, sunglasses on, in an expensive suit, looking like he was the King of Manhattan. How could one man wield that much sexiness? It wasn’t fair.
She plopped down on the bed and worked her feet into her pumps, which had been cast aside last night after she dragged her exhausted self home from work. She shouldn’t let a photograph get to her, just like she should’ve ignored every random reminder of Sawyer that had cropped up over the last six weeks. There was the guy who rode the same morning train she did, a man she’d hardly noticed before Sawyer. Now she knew they wore the same cologne. There was the locksmith who’d worked in her office building a few weeks ago—his van parked out front. Locke and Key. Clever. Then there was the construction project that had just started down the street from her apartment. The vinyl banner for Locke and Locke went up right after the chain link fence. She walked past it every day on her way to the subway. And back.
She caught the time on her alarm clock. Five more minutes and she’d miss her train. She had to stop thinking about Sawyer, but keeping her mind off her huge mistake was not going well.
Thanks to the romantic comedy she’d watched on TV last night, she might have a fix.
She opened her closet and pulled a dusty shoe box down from the top shelf, plunked it on top of her dresser and lifted the lid. Under a stack of old photos of her mom, she found the black velvet box. Most women might keep their mother’s jewelry in a place of higher importance, but Kendall had very mixed feelings about this ring.
She opened the clamshell box and there it sat—a square setting of platinum with large diamonds surrounding a blue amethyst. Kendall would never forget her mother’s initial excitement at receiving it from one of her suitors, and her disappointment when she realized the lavish ring was only a gift, an expensive means of keeping her content. It had not come with a proposal.
When Kendall was a little girl, every new boyfriend her mother brought home was a new chance at having a dad. By the time she was a teenager, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. Her mom had a real talent for finding men with money and power, men who wined and dined her, took her to bed, never bothering to marry her. It meant that the rent was always on time and the fridge was stocked, but they otherwise treated her mother as a pretty bauble.
Since Kendall had devoted so much energy over the years to not repeating her mom’s mistakes, it made the one-night stand with Sawyer Locke that much harder to forget. Kendall made a point of being strong when it came to men. She could dismiss them with aplomb when needed.
Sawyer, however, had been the one guy for whom she had no defense. She’d let him sweet-talk her, even when she was sure it was all a line. He’d told her she was beautiful and sexy and she’d lapped up every word like she’d never had a decent compliment. And then there was their ultimate destination that night—bed. A one-night stand was not her style, but it had felt like an inevitability only a few moments into their first dance. He was commanding and powerful and even though Kendall had always sworn she’d never fall for that, she’d practically jumped at the chance with Sawyer.
The champagne hadn’t helped. The first glass gave way to flirtatious glances. The second brought an answer of “yes” when he asked her to dance. It had also made her pretend that she didn’t know he was from a wealthy and powerful New York family. In fact, she’d ignored all the damning knowledge she had of him—the playboy reputation, the money—even though men like Sawyer Locke had broken her mother’s heart more times than she could remember.
In the weeks since the wedding, Sawyer had proven her every assumption about him to be true. He might have asked for her number and said he would call her, but he hadn’t. Oldest trick in the book, a real blow to the ego, and probably for the best. Sawyer had been a mistake.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the clock. No time to waste, she slipped the ring onto her left hand. “Men of Manhattan, back off. I’m engaged.”
Kendall made record time down her block and around the corner to the subway stop. Thundering down the stairs, she swiped her pass and clunked through the turnstile, narrowly making her train. She sat next to a gray-haired woman who was clutching her purse to her chest. Shielding her hand with her laptop bag, Kendall eyed the ring and reminded herself what she wanted it to symbolize. She didn’t need anyone. She made her own future, no man required.
The heroine in the movie with the ring had been just like her—single, making stupid mistakes with men. Creating the illusion of being a taken woman served two purposes—it would be an ever-present reminder to stay on track with her career, the one thing she could truly count on, and it kept men away. That last part was a very good thing for Kendall. Men only ever approached her because she was, as her grandmother often pointed out, buxom and curvy. Sawyer Locke had undoubtedly only approached her for those reasons. It wasn’t like he’d had asked her to dance because she looked smart or like she might have a sparkling personality.
She probably never should’ve gone to her old college roommate’s wedding in the first place. That entire dream weekend in Maine was a magnifying glass on Kendall’s singleness. It normally didn’t bother her, but it was different being crammed into a banquet hall with her old friends, all married or in a serious relationship. Many had kids. One was already on her second husband. They had all moved forward with their lives. Kendall had, too, in her own way—building the one thing her mom had never managed to put together—a career. She needed to get back on track. Worrying about men was going to keep her running in circles.
The train arrived at her station, and she hurried along to the office of Sloan Public Relations. She’d been with the firm for nearly two years now, and was making strides. Her boss, Jillian Sloan, had said as much.
When she walked through the door, the normally bustling office was eerily quiet. Her coworkers spoke in hushed tones, ducking behind cubicles. Maureen, the receptionist, looked as though she’d seen a ghost.
“Did somebody die?” It wasn’t an outlandish question. Several people had looked a little green around the gills after Jillian had lunch brought in yesterday. Never trust potato salad, or any questionable picnic foods—that was one of the many rules Kendall lived by.
“Wanda was fired.”
Kendall clasped her hand over her mouth. Wanda was supposed to get the VP job. “Fired? Why? When did this happen?”
“About ten minutes ago.” Maureen leaned closer and dropped her chin while casting her eyes up at Kendall. “Supposedly she had something going on with one of her clients. You know how Jillian is.”
Oh, Kendall knew. Jillian was all about appearances. Sloan PR was a tight ship.
“If you’d been on time, you would’ve been here for it,” Maureen continued. “Wanda’s packing up her office right now. Oh, and Jillian wants to see you right away.”
“Right away?” Kendall grimaced. Had she done something?
“Yes. Go.”
Racing down the hall from reception, dodging a few of her coworkers, she dropped her things onto her desk. She took a deep breath, straightened her skirt and headed back to the executive wing of their floor—two corner offices with a large, central waiting area and private conference room between. Jillian’s was the larger of the two offices, but they were both impressive. The second, the one that everyone had thought would become Wanda’s, was empty. The door had been left open for the three months since the last VP left to start her own company, a constant reminder to everyone that the job was up for grabs, if you dazzled Jillian. Wanda’s office was closed, but a long string of profanity came from behind the door. Apparently someone was not happy about having been fired, but anyone could’ve told her Jillian wouldn’t put up with anything fishy with a client.
Jillian’s