Chapter 1 Don't Ask Me That Again!

• The chime sounded above the glass entrance door, piercing the soft hiss of the espresso machine.
• In the Tom roastery on 5th, the smell of roasted chicory and scorched sugar filled the air. The barista, a sleepy boy with ink creeping up his knuckles, gaped at the stainless counter as if it had personally offended him.
• “Hi Clara.”
• He knew my name, I am Clara James, an assistant to a devil and that probably makes me an assistant devil, right?
• "Double shot, ninety-two degrees, three drops of oat milk,shaken, not stirred,and if there's the slightest bit of foam at the rim, he'll pour it all over the potted fern," I quoted automatically, without lifting my phone from my lap.
• The barista gave an exasperated sigh. "You're working for that hedge fund psycho from the forty-second floor, aren't you?"
• "Just make it," I muttered. "I like my job."
• My screen flashed in front of me.
• D. Vance: Deliver white lilies to Florence Sterling. Don't forget the card. It must be tasteful. Tell her that she deserves the world and that my schedule makes emotional reciprocity impossible. Have it done by noon.
• My finger hovers over the screen. A sarcastic cynical breath catches in my throat.
• Emotional reciprocity. Lord, he really believed that a fancy wording made him civilized.
• Or that it made him less of the Devil he truly was.
• No need to wonder what had happened. Florence was the curator of an art gallery with aristocratic cheekbones and a fabulous collection of vintage Cartier. Three weeks ago, they met at the Met gala. In that same hour, I sighted them sneaking in the back of his limousine with entwined fingers, since then, they had been almost inseparable.
• Now, it seemed that her thirty-day trial run had expired.
• Without even making it to the thirtieth day.
• Daxton Vance never kept a woman longer than four weeks. As soon as the novelty of the physical intimacy had run its course and the sheets had cooled, he was handing over the mop.
• I was the undertaker of his bed chamber. Fifty-two breakup bouquets since January, and it was only the second week of October.
• I stashed my phone in the pocket, grabbed the cardboard holder with the paper cup, and dashed through the chill of the autumn air toward the imposing glass of Vance Capital.
• I swept through the turnstiles with a swish of my badge, boarded the elevator to the office, and entered the stuffy silence of the corner office.
• The huge panes of glass framed Manhattan as a captured kingdom. Behind the gigantic table of smoked oak sat Daxton.
• The charcoal bespoke of wool, the crisp white shirt was partially undone at the neck, dark hair brushed back with lazy precision. He didn't seem like a monster; he seemed like Michelangelo's sculpture of malice and sheer force of will.
• I placed the cup on the marble coaster next to his papers. "Your coffee, Mr. Vance."
• Daxton didn't raise his eyes from his tablet. He reached out, his long fingers wrapping themselves around the cup. He brought it to his mouth, drank a sip, and froze.
• He clenched his jaw. He put the cup down with a sharp, hollow sound, clinking against the stone.
• "What day is it, Clara James?" His voice was low, flat, devoid of any inflection. Much worse than the scream.
• I felt the air going thin in my lungs. "Today… it's… Tuesday, sir."
• "Tuesday." Daxton finally raised his eyes. His icy gray stare was dissecting me with merciless precision. "And on Tuesdays, the market opens in Tokyo under an inverted yield. Which means that I drink a long black with half an ounce of Colombian single-origin cold drip. Did you hit your head over the weekend, or did you just believe that my time was worthless?"
• The heat rushed into my cheeks, a vicious combination of humiliation and fury. "I'm sorry, Mr. Vance, the roastery was backed up, and I…"
• "Take it away," he said, looking back at his screen as if I was nothing but a glitching monitor. "Bring the right one. And deliver those lilies. I don't want Florence staging an operatic scene in the lobby because she notices that my private number has been re-assigned. I want hand delivery."
• "Hand delivery?" My voice pitched an octave. "Sir, the messenger…"
• "The bouquets are not delivered by messengers," he cut in, coldly. "They're delivered by you. Personally. Don’t ask me that again!”
• I picked up the offending cup, pressing my fingers into the cardboard so hard that the hot liquid burned my thumb. "At once, Mr. Vance."
• An hour later, I was standing in the perfect foyer of Florence Sterling's brownstone in the Upper East Side, holding the huge vase of Casablanca lilies. The card was nestled among them, penned in my practiced handwriting: Some paths cross only to reveal to us what we're missing within us. You deserve devotion that I'm incapable of.
• I already have different messages for different times.
• The heavy door creaked open, revealing Florence, a perfect size 6 exactly his type, unlike my own soft size 16 frame
• She stood there in an ivory silk robe, her hair loose and her dark eyes waiting.
• Until they fell on the flowers and my company lanyard.
• The anticipation dropped off of her face, replaced with nasty revelation.
• "From Daxton?" Florence's voice cracked with disgust.
• "I'm only here…" I tried to say.
• But Florence didn't give me a chance. She snatched the card, tore the envelope apart, and read it in three seconds. Her chest started moving rapidly, her tears appeared on her eyelashes, but then instantly morphed into rage.
• "He couldn't even call me?" Florence screamed. "He sent his little office pet with sympathy weeds?"
• "Miss Sterling, I'm only…”
• Florence didn't let me finish. She grabbed the vase by its thick neck and yanked it out of my hands, smashing it into my chest.
• Water,freezing and musty,splashed on my silk blouse. The thick smell of the lilies slapped against my collarbone and dropped on the ground in a disheveled mess. The petal got stuck on my cheek.
• The exact reason I hated delivery those flowers, the ladies are always pathetic when they see it coming.
• I shouldn’t be the one bearing the brunt of their misjudgment.
• Or why were they involved with a devil like him in the first place?
• "Tell him to burn in hell," Florence spit out, slamming the door so hard that the brass knocker shook.
• I stood on the stone stairs, feeling like a corpse, smelling like a funeral home, brushing crushed pollen off my ruined slacks. I didn't cry. I had survived the wine thrown in my face in July, and a platinum bracelet whirled at my forehead in March.
• By the time I finally unlocked my tiny studio apartment in Queens, it was already ten at night.
• My muscles were burning with exhaustion. I threw off my drenched shoes, stripped of my soaked blouse, and tossed it in the trash bin. I pulled on the oversized t-shirt, flopped on the mattress, and lay there staring at the cracked plaster ceiling.
• I despised him. I loathed everything about his arrogant breathing and impossible demands shouted from behind that table of smoked oak. Yet, the icy eyes, boring into mine across the desk, and the sick treachery of the pulse in my belly had betrayed me once again. He was poisonous. And I was an addict.
• On the nightstand, my phone was vibrating. A slow, heavy buzz.
• I turned over, and my heart leaped into my throat.
• The phone's screen was glowing in the dark bedroom.
• D. Vance [10:48 PM]