Chapter2

Funerals aren't cheap.

I checked every account I had. Checking, savings, the credit card I'd just paid off. All together, I could scrape up about two hundred bucks.

From day one at Cross, everything I did was just my job as the future Mrs. Cross. Damien had put me on the lowest pay grade in the building. "Why would my wife need a big paycheck?"

I'd been living off what I saved in New York. Now there was nothing left.

But Mom deserved a real goodbye. So I called payroll and asked for an advance: six months against my salary.

The payroll manager hemmed and hawed. "Mr. Cross gave us a heads-up. He said no special favors for you..."

Cross had a hardship policy. Every employee who'd ever lost someone got help, no questions asked. Apparently I was the only one who didn't count.

I took a cab to Cross Tower and waited outside his meeting. Through the glass wall, I watched Chloe walk straight in without knocking, laptop in her arms. All the frost in Damien's face melted the second he saw her. He held up one hand, a room full of executives went quiet, and he pulled up a chair to fix the formatting on her document.

People outside the glass started looking at me. Some smirked. Some felt sorry for me.

"Remember that weekend Wren was cleaning up the whole team's mess? He took Chloe to some tasting menu downtown. Forty grand, one night."

He could drop forty thousand on her dinner. I couldn't come up with a few hundred to bury my mother.

When the meeting broke up, I planted myself in front of him. "I need an advance on my salary."

He nodded, the window light catching the sharp line of his jaw. "Sure. One condition. There's a pitch due Friday. You and Chloe are doing it together."

Nothing Damien gave me was ever free.

I said okay. The pitch was two days of work, tops. The funeral home had promised to hold Mom until next week.

What I hadn't counted on was Chloe.

On the first morning, she knocked her iced latte across my laptop, and every file died with it. I rebuilt the whole thing from the first slide, alone, in four nights without sleep.

When I finally handed it in, the deposit alert popped up on my phone. Six months, I'd asked for. Two thousand dollars, I'd gotten.

Payroll swore it wasn't a mistake. "Mr. Cross only approved two pay periods. He said the pitch came in late."

That's when Chloe wandered in, and the manager lit up like Christmas morning. "Chloe! Your fifty-thousand-dollar project bonus just cleared. Mr. Cross fast-tracked it himself."

"Damien's way too generous." Chloe ducked her head, all shy. Then her eyes slid to me. "Thanks to you too, Wren. The client gave it a perfect score."

Sugar on top. Knife underneath.

I called Damien. Five times. The sixth went straight to voicemail. He'd blocked me.

Right on cue, Chloe called him on her phone. He picked up before the first ring finished. "Chloe? You okay?"

I leaned into her phone. "Why is my pitch under Chloe's name?"

The second he heard my voice, his went flat. "She's an intern, Wren. She needs real work on her résumé. You're about to be Mrs. Cross, and you're fighting an intern over credit? Aren't you embarrassed?"

A pause. Then, to someone off the phone: "Marcus. Send Wren a bonus too. Whatever gets her to drop it."

Even through the speaker, I could hear the boredom. Like he was tossing a quarter at a beggar and waiting for a thank-you.

The money landed an hour later. I didn't say thank you.

In the cab to the funeral home, I opened the airline app and bought one ticket out of Chicago. One way. For the day before the wedding.

I stared at the screen until the confirmation came through.

[Booking confirmed. One way. One passenger.]