Chapter 1

Cade

“I’m seriously fucked this time,” I said to my best friend Hunter as I checked my email for the thousandth time to see if any of the jobs I’d put in applications for had gotten back to me.

Nothing.

Hunter grabbed a fry from the basket in front of me and rolled her big blue eyes. “You always say that, and then somehow everything always works out.”

“I mean, sort of. I wish ‘working out’ led to actual consistent employment and not me patching jobs together here and there that are never long term. The stress is going to kill me.”

Hunter gave me a sympathetic look and squeezed my arm across the sticky table. She had treated me to lunch today, but I was having trouble choking down my fish and chips, even though it was normally one of my favorite things.

“I’m sorry, my love. I wish I could help more.” She opened her mouth to tell me, for what felt like the millionth time, that she could loan me some money, but I put my hand up to stop her. We’d done this little dance too many times before and I was never going to let her do it. Other than buying me lunch, and giving me leads on jobs, and just being my best friend, I couldn’t accept more. Even if she had money to spare from her parents. It was a line I refused to cross.

“Can we please talk about something other than the crushing weight of my life?” I asked.

She perked up and smiled. “Mmmm, maybe we can talk about going out to Sapph next week? I know it’s weird with you working there sometimes, but it’s the only place with so many hot queer people around.” She had me there.

Our other friend, Reid, had hooked me up bartending a few times at Sapph, the only bar in the entire state of Maine that catered to queer women.

I sighed. “Fine. We can go and pester Reid to make us annoyingly complicated drinks.”

Hunter snorted. “Yeah, she loves it when we do that.”

“What are friends for?”

I choked down the rest of my lunch and we took a walk down the pier. Summer had fully arrived, and the place was crawling with tourists who walked too slow and took up too much room. But that was the price you paid for living here. By mid-September, everyone cleared out and peace was restored until the next summer season.

“Let’s find some shade,” I said, looking at my arms. I’d put on my regular layer of sunscreen, but that had been a while ago. No matter what I did, my pale, freckled skin seemed determined to burn every year. The curse of being a natural redhead.

Hunter claimed a bench near the ice cream stand, and I thumped down next to her.

My phone went off and I read the notification, my heart beating with excitement and nervousness.

One of the jobs had responded.

“Oh shit,” I said, reading the email. “I have an interview.”

“For real? Which job?” Hunter stopped fiddling with her long hair and leaned over to read my phone.

“The weird one working for an author. I’m still not totally convinced it’s not a scam or a trap, but I couldn’t miss the chance that it might be real. My desperation is probably going to compromise my safety at some point.” Still, the job listing had intrigued me, and I couldn’t really say why. Light on details as to who I’d be working for, but with a very specific job description.

Normally I would have just kept scrolling, but I’d done the little dance of inputting my resume and then adding the same information. Instead of a cover letter, they’d asked for your five favorite books and why. That was the part that had really interested me. I loved to read, so actually narrowing down my favorite books to only five had been a challenge. In the end, I’d also listed several more. Maybe that was a mistake, but enthusiasm couldn’t hurt, right?

And now I had an interview.

“They want me to meet in a public place for the interview, so that’s good.” And it was in just a few days, which was also good. The faster I could get through a job process, the faster I could either get the job, or move on to another application. I couldn’t pay my rent with job interviews.

“When is it?” I told her the day and the time, and she nodded before getting out her phone and then fiddling with it.

“Yeah, I can do that. I’m going with you. Just in case.”

Hunter’s parents were rich, and she dabbled in a number of random jobs, including real estate, watercolor painting, teaching yoga, and making online hair tutorials. If she didn’t work as hard as she did, I probably wouldn’t have been friends with her. Our upbringings had been so opposite that it was a wonder we’d even bumped into each other at all a few years ago at Sapph. I’d actually met Reid first, and then we’d sort of adopted Hunter. Our rich-girl friend.

“You don’t have to, but I’m not going to turn it down,” I said. Better safe than wind up on a true crime podcast.

“Good. Plus, if it goes well, we can celebrate, and if it doesn’t go well, I can help you drown your feelings with our favorite fries and a mojito.” That sounded like perfection. One of the best local restaurants (and there were many) served french fries cooked in duck fat and served with truffle aioli and they were pure heaven. I’d eat my weight in those fries if I could afford it.

“You are the best,” I said, resting my head on her shoulder.

“I know,” she said, and I snorted.

* * *

It was trulysad how much of my wardrobe consisted of job-interview outfits. The kind of clothes that I hoped made me look adult and responsible and not like a chaotic person with ADHD who couldn’t seem to keep a job to save her life.

Twenty-six years old and I was still waiting to feel like a grown-up.

“Get your shit together,” I said to my reflection in the half-broken mirror that I had propped up next to my closet. My apartment was nothing to write home about, and I had to share it with my roommate, Danica. She was a college student who was barely ever home, but when she was, we got along well. The ideal roommate, in my opinion.

My jacket and matching pants fit me well, thanks to Hunter’s magical sewing skills, and I’d actually ironed the ivory blouse I wore underneath. I’d pulled my strawberry-blonde hair back into a smooth bun. It made me feel like I was wearing a costume, but what could you do? I checked the outfit from every angle, making sure my underwear wasn’t showing, and there were no rips or stains that I hadn’t noticed.

Since I didn’t want to take any kinds of chances with heels, I wore my black ankle boots that didn’t really work for summer but were better than anything else I owned.

“As good as it’s going to get,” I said, remembering at the last second to put in my pearl earrings. I’d inherited them from my grandmother and I only wore them for special occasions, which nowadays meant job interviews and not much else. Hunter’s elaborate birthday parties, sometimes.

Hunter met me downstairs with her car. The fact that she was willing to drive me around and pay for parking was truly one of the greatest gifts she could give me. I had a car, but it was in long-term parking and I only used it if I had to get a bunch of groceries or go visit my parents on holidays. They lived further up the coast and I didn’t get up to see them as much as I should. Having so many weird jobs with random hours and no vacation days, it was tough to make it happen, even for a weekend.

“You look great,” she said, appraising my outfit. She was always offering to let me borrow something of hers, but since she was shorter and a little curvier, we weren’t really the same size.

“Thanks. I’m crossing my fingers for this to either be a scam or be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Let’s hope for the second and prepare for the first?” she said, turning up the street that would take us to the café.

* * *

Hunter letme out so she could find a parking spot and I arrived five minutes early for the interview. When it came to being on time, I wasn’t the best, but this was important. I had Hunter to keep me on track so I’d managed to not fuck this part up. Now I just had to get through the rest of the interview without any mishaps.

I sent an email to the contact that I had arrived, since they hadn’t given me a phone number. Just as I was looking around, Hunter walked in and gave me a wink before she headed to the counter to order a coffee as if she wasn’t babysitting me.

Scanning the shop, I froze when I saw a woman sitting in the front by the window at a table by herself. Her back was to me, but there was something about her that made me stand up straight. Poise? Was that the word I was looking for? Her outfit was sleek and obviously designer without me needing to check the tags. She looked down at her phone and then stood up, looking around the café for someone or something.

The second her eyes locked on me, they narrowed. Fuck. I’d never seen eyes like hers. They were blue but almost…violet? Was that a thing? Did people have violet eyes? Maybe they were contacts.

I was so stunned by her unusual eye color that I didn’t realize that she was walking over to me.

“Cadence McCord?” she asked with a brisk efficiency that made me feel like I was about to be sent to the principal’s office for doing something bad.

“Uh, yes?” I said. Smooth.

“Excellent. I’m Eloise Roth,” she said, holding her hand out. Oh. Right. Handshake. I fumbled for a second but managed to give her a handshake that I hoped wasn’t too weak or too strong or too trembly or too sweaty. A tall order at the present moment.

Eloise Roth. I knew that name. Everyone knew that name. Holy shit. Eloise Roth was here, in this café, about to interview me for a job.

People like Eloise Roth didn’t interview assistants. They had underlings. And yet here I was, standing in front of her and wondering if any of this was real.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I managed to choke out. This was THE Eloise Roth. The bestselling writer of dozens of romance novels that were sold in airports and read at book clubs and were made into blockbuster movies that raked in millions. She might as well have introduced herself as the queen, that was how improbable this meeting was.

I’d seen her in interviews, and in person she was even more stunning. Taller than I thought.

Her dark hair fell perfectly to her shoulders, and she held herself with the confidence of a woman who was completely aware of her own power and worth.

Fuck. She was so hot that my knees were ready to buckle.

“Shall we?” she asked when I didn’t say anything and just kind of stared. She had definitely dealt with this kind of reaction before and knew how to handle it.

“Oh, uh, sure,” I said, and it took me a second to remember how you were supposed to sit in a chair. I kind of fell onto it and banged my elbow on the table, rattling the cup with her espresso in it. Of course she drank espresso. Like a classy adult. No macchiatos for Eloise Roth.

Eloise stared at me for a second and then sighed. “Go ahead.”

I’d missed something. “Go ahead with what?”

She pressed her lips together. “Get the shock out of your system. Tell me how much your mother, grandmother, sister, friend loves my books, ask me for an autograph, ask me what my next book is about, ask me if I can give you feedback on your manuscript, or get cast in the next movie, etc.”

She waved an elegant hand as she spoke. This was a speech she’d given many, many times before.

“Oh,” I said, flummoxed for a second. “My mom does like your books. I haven’t read them. Sorry.” I winced and realized I should have at least pretended that I had.

Eloise Roth’s lips twitched for a second. “No need to apologize. Anything else you need to get out of the way?”

I shook my head, wiping my sweaty hands on my pants.

“No, I’d like to start the interview, if we could,” I said. There. That was professional-ish. Sort of.

Eloise nodded, and then the interview started, and I wish I could scroll back to the beginning. Her questions were standard, but they were said with that clipped tone that did something to me. I didn’t want her to think I was completely incompetent, and not just because of the job. I would never survive having Eloise Roth meeting me once and me making an absolute fool of myself.

There was no question that I wasn’t getting the job. I had no idea what I was even saying half the time, as if my brain had disconnected from my mouth. I was giving her answers, but were they any good? Who the hell knew.

“Now, there is just the small matter of signing an NDA, should you move forward and be offered this position,” Eloise said, pulling some documents out of her bag and sliding them over to me.

“Understood,” I said, taking the paper and trying to figure out how to get it into my very small bag without folding or rolling it up like a commoner.

Eloise watched me struggle for a few seconds. “I can send you an electronic copy, if that would be better.”

Feeling my entire face (including my ears) go red, I set the papers back on the table. “That would be great.”

She nodded and sat back in her chair, studying me again. I had no choice but to let her. No doubt she was doing the math and realizing that I had wasted her time. I was about to thank her for her time when she spoke.

“What was the best book you read recently?” she asked, completely throwing me off.

“Oh,” I said, my brain freezing for a second and then refusing to give me a single title. Answering questions like this under extreme pressure wasn’t one of my skills. “Give me two seconds and I’ll tell you.”

I got out my phone and navigated to the reading app that I used to keep track of everything, and as a backup in case I forgot to charge my ereader, which happened a lot.

“That’s right. It was the first book in this alien romance series that my friend Reid recommended. And by recommended, she basically forced me to read. So these women have been kidnapped from earth by aliens, but they end up crashing on this planet covered in ice and it just so happens there are a bunch of these big hot alien dudes with blue skin that need help repopulating the planet and you can imagine where things go from there,” I said, realizing I’d done that thing where I said too much, too fast and now I was definitely not getting this job.

Eloise opened her mouth and then closed it. “Blue aliens?”

“Yeah, they’re blue, but they’re all ripped, of course, and they’re really into pleasing the women, so after the initial shock, they end up falling in love. Oh, and there’s parasites involved that match them up.”

Eloise blinked those beautiful eyes at me.

“It was really compelling,” I added, wishing that I could pull a rope and fall through an escape hatch to get out of this situation. At least I hadn’t mentioned the unusual blue alien anatomy.

She shocked the hell out of me by pulling a pen and a little notebook out of her bag and asking, “what was the title and author?”

Shocked as hell, I told her and watched her write it down and then snap the notebook closed and set it on the table.

“I’m sorry I’ve never read your books,” I said again. “I don’t tend to read non-queer romance. With the exception of the alien books. Those were an experiment that paid off.”

Why? Why was my brain doing this to me?

“I’m not offended that you haven’t read my books, Cadence,” she said, and it was a good thing I was sitting down because the way she said my full name? Yeah, that worked for me. I closed my eyes for a second.

“That’s good to know. And thank you for your time. I really hope you find someone who meets your needs.” It was time to extricate myself from this interview and go and find Hunter so I could tell her all about my celebrity encounter and make her buy me something sweet.

Eloise nodded. “Of course. I’ll send over the NDA for you to look over. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be in touch about the position.”

We both got to our feet (her more gracefully than I) and shook hands again.

“Have a good rest of your day,” I said, instantly cringing inside.

Her lips twitched with a suppressed smile. “You too.”