He’s her friend. Just like Jenni, I have to let Honey find herself, and make friends.
I pocket the phone. “It’s fine. I’ll deal with it.”
“Alone?” Sebi asks, pouting out his bottom lip.
“Alone,” I confirm, grabbing my bag and standing. “He might be out on the ice, but I’m the one in her bed.”
“Ooh, that’s fighting talk from our QB.” Dax laughs, throwing an arm over my shoulder and pulling me in to rub his knuckles in my hair. “I like this guy. All bite and no bark.”
I push him off me and shunt the bag further up my shoulder. Reese studies me like he wants to ask more questions but finally nods.
Tomorrow isn’t about making a show. It’s about reminding Honey who she came with—and who she’s going home with.
The elevator dings like a bell tolling my doom, sliding open to reveal a glass-and-marble hellscape that smells like wealth, litigation, and expensive lies.
Sanderson & Nicks, Indianapolis.
A palace built on billable hours and bloodlust.
Sighing, I step out, tugging my pencil skirt down my thighs for the fourth, or maybe four-hundredth, time today. It doesn’t matter. It still feels like I’m walking around in someone else’s skin. I don’t belong here, and I don’t know if I want to belong here.
“Good morning, Ms. Sanderson,” Cynthia says without looking up. Her voice is as crisp and dead as the red lipstick across her too-tight smile.
“Morning,” I murmur, forcing myself to sound pleasant so she doesn’t know I’m debating leaving this place and never coming back.
The second I step on the floor with all the desks, the whispers start.
“No. I couldn’t find the résumé on file. She just showed up and got the internship.”
“...I heard she doesn’t evenwantto be a lawyer…”
“Daddy’s little princess. What she wants, she gets…”
They don’t bother whispering softly. No. They want me to hear it, thinking that I didn’t earn it, but they didn’t grow up in my home. They weren’t judged against an impossible standard the minute they were born.
Being here—doing this—was beaten into me since I can remember. Hell, the only reason I’m here is because I was kind of blackmailed into it.
But if I’m going to do this, I’m going to make the most of it.
Squaring my shoulders, I lift my head up and smile because I can’t let them see that I agree with them.
When I get to my workspace, I pull the chair out and sit. No photos. No decorations. I don’t want anything on this desk to identify me as Honey. After the last year, I’ve learned how important it is to keep myself to myself. If I try anything else, I end up as gossip.
“Honey! Perfect timing.” Gary Weiss stalks toward me, waving a stack of papers in my direction. He’s one of my father’s pets and won’t let me forget it.
“These need to be reviewed for inconsistencies by noon,” he says, dropping the papers on top of the stack already on my desk. “The Robertson case is heating up.”
I take in the files, hiding my fatigue behind a polite nod. “Of course. I'll get right on it.”
“That's why we love having you here,” Gary says with a wink and an overly friendly smile. “Always so…willing to please.”
I refuse to let my lip curl and hide it through a fake grin. The idiot asked me to do something on “Daddy’s orders” last week and I wanted to sink in a hole and die. Unsurprisingly, no one in the room cared because they all believe it.
I straighten the stack of papers and settle into my seat when my phone buzzes.
Father:Need you in the executive conference room at 11. Important client meeting.
No “please.” No “good morning.” Just a command. Typical.