Chapter One
Trina
“We’ve met, haven’t we?”
I turn at the sound of the unfamiliar voice to my left. It’s a dark-haired woman, at least twice my age, with frown lines near the corners of her mouth and a sparkle in her green eyes.
I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?” She leans closer. The smell of peppermint mixed with a citrus-scented perfume emanates from her. “I swear that I know you.”
Her gaze slides over me from head to toe, taking in the white blouse and black skirt I’m wearing.
“I have one of those faces.” I smile.
It’s the same line I always use when a stranger approaches me to ask if we know each other. I’ve been mistaken countless times for a salesperson at Macy’s or a first-grade elementary teacher. Once, a man was convinced that I was his server at a diner in the Theater District.
“You work at the library, don’t you?” She tilts her head. “The main branch. I was in there last week. You were behind the counter.”
A blonde with blue eyes and hair styled in a tight bun might have been, but I haven’t been to the New York Public Library in years. The last time was with my mom when I was ten or eleven years old.
My guess is that she’s been to my family’s bakery in Brooklyn. The walls are covered with framed photographs of my twelve siblings and me.
A man sprinting to catch the light to cross the street knocks my elbow in his rush to get past me. I stumble forward on the sidewalk, but I manage to stay upright with quick work of my feet.
“Watch it, asshole!” The woman I’ve been talking to yells after him. “It’s illegal to hurt a librarian.”
It’s wrong to run into anyone and not apologize.
I don’t have time to debate that. I need to get to work before my boss does, and since I’ve only made it a block from my apartment, I have to sprint to the subway so I won’t be late.
I turn to the woman who defends librarians. “I should go.”
“I’ll be at the library again soon.” She glances at her watch. “I’ll be sure to stop by and say hello.”
I’ll be behind my desk in an office far from there.
Correcting this woman would be the right thing to do, but I don’t want to embarrass her, and I don’t have an extra minute to spare.
“I’m Beth, by the way.” She offers her hand.
I take it in mine. “My name is Trina.”
That sets her back a step. “Trina. That suits you.”
I like that she thinks so, so I smile. “Thank you.”
Beth glances over my shoulder. “There’s the friend I’m meeting. I’ll see you again, Trina.”
I watch as she subtly slips the gold band from the ring finger on her left hand before she deposits it in the pocket of her jacket. Her smile widens as she lifts her now bare hand to wave at the man approaching us.
I doubt I’ll ever see Beth again, but I have to wonder if the man who put that ring on her finger knows what she’s doing this Tuesday morning. It’s just one of the many secrets the millions of people in New York City hold close.
My thoughts are interrupted when my phone starts ringing. I hunt through my purse before I pull it out.
Cringing, I see my boss’s name flash across the screen.
I answer immediately. “Good morning, Mr. Locke. How are you today, sir?”
“Busy,” he says brusquely in that toe-curling deep voice of his. “I’m stopping by the office to pick up my notes for my meeting with Mr. Tillery this morning. I expect those to be on my desk when I arrive in thirty minutes, Miss Shaw.”
Well, shit.
Hurrying to the corner, I wave my hand in the air, frantically searching for an available taxi.
“I’ll have that ready for you,” I say, hoping that I’m predicting the future.
“Fine.” He ends the call just like that because that’s how Graham Locke rolls. He’s all business, no politeness.
I silently fist pump the air when a taxi slows. I’ll beat Mr. Locke to the office with time to spare.
Opening the back passenger door of the taxi, I catch one last glimpse of Beth in the arms of the man she’s hiding her wedding ring from. I glance at my left hand. It’s void of any jewelry. One day I hope a man will slide a ring on my finger, and if our love is true and strong, it will stay there until I take my very last breath on this earth.
“What is this?”
Those three little words hold so much punch in my world.
Mr. Locke likes to fire them at me whenever I do something that isn’t up to his standards.
Case in point:
I ordered lunch for him one day last week. The mustard on the rye bread was of the regular yellow variety because the restaurant ran out of the gourmet whole grain type. Most people would be fine with that, but not my boss. Mr. Locke took one bite of the stacked ham and cheese overpriced monstrosity and spat it out into a napkin.
“What is this?” he barked at me.
I didn’t bother to reply because it was a sandwich with the wrong mustard, not the end of civilization as we know it.
Today, the question is coming at me while he’s holding the typed minutes of yesterday’s staff meeting in his hands.
I look up at where he’s standing in front of my desk.
Good looking is a subjective term except when it comes to Graham Locke. Everyone thinks he’s firecracker hot. He’s handsome in that I-didn’t-bother-trying way some men are. Maybe it’s his blue eyes and dark brown hair. I have no idea if his custom-tailored suits add to the allure, but I do know that if I didn’t know him, I’d rate him a twelve out of ten.
When he opens his mouth, and his rudeness shines through, he drops a couple of notches on my attraction meter.
I clear my throat and speak the truth, “Those are the minutes from yesterday’s meeting, sir.”
Wrong answer.
I see that immediately in the way he tosses his ‘what the fuck?’ look in my direction. It’s a combination of a scowl and a shake of his head.
“I don’t need to reread the mundane details of what everyone did last weekend.” He throws the papers on my desk with a flick of his wrist. “I heard it once and didn’t care enough to remember any of it, including your date on Friday night.”
Well boo.
I paste a sweet smile on my face and look up at him. “All of that was part of the meeting.”
“All of that is frivolous and unnecessary,” he counters. “Rewrite the minutes without any of that included.”
I thought the details of my date were compelling. My co-workers seemed to think so too. It was a second date, so they’re invested in what’s happening between Kyle, my kind of almost-boyfriend, and me.
“I’ll work on that now,” I say, going for another overly forced smile.
“Complete it within the hour.”
I’m up for the challenge, so I put the pedal to the metal, or in my case, my fingers to the keyboard, and get to work cutting out the best parts of yesterday’s meeting so that I can hand the boring document over to the worst boss in New York City.