MasukJosephine
I sit cross-legged on the bed, still in my gala dress, the satin cool against my overheated skin. My heels are abandoned somewhere across the room, I kicked them off the second the door shut behind me, shedding a night I want to forget but can’t stop reliving.Alexander 's been holed up in his room since we got back, quiet. No cocky remarks, no flirtatious smirks echoing down the hall. Just silence.It’s unnerving. He’s different, wound tight in a way I don’t know how to read.And the worst part? I keep listening for him.My phone won’t stop buzzing. Notifications, press alerts, team updates. Everyone has something to say. Everyone but him.And that silence? It’s louder than anything else. It’s not like him to disappear into himself. Not like this. Not when everything’s falling apart. And the fact that he hasn’t said a word, not even to me, crawls under my skin, makes my heart twist in ways I wish I could ignore.But it’s that woman's voiceConstance’s smile when I FaceTimed her from my bathroom could have powered the entire East Coast. Cheshire Cat had nothing on her level of smug satisfaction.“Wear the red dress,” she commanded before I could even finish explaining the impromptu brunch situation. “Have fun, make a good impression, and for God’s sake, don’t let him figure out you’re not me.”Right. No pressure.She hung up before I could ask what the hell I was supposed to talk about with a man who probably ate small businesses for breakfast and used corporate acquisitions as foreplay.Victor materialized at my door thirty minutes later like some kind of well-dressed grim reaper, the trunk of his car loaded with enough designer clothes to fund a small nation’s economy. Including the red skater dress Constance had deemed “too casual and too short” for last night’s corporate theater performance.Too short was an understatement. The dress barely kissed my thighs and made me look like I was playing dr
The memo hit my inbox three days after our phone conversation, forwarded by Constance’s assistant with the kind of bureaucratic efficiency that screamed I hate my job but need the health insurance. Page was apparently still useful enough to keep around, though her days were numbered once the Montana-Xenos merger went through. Trust was a luxury in this business, and she clearly didn’t have it.The memo itself was corporate bullshit poetry – three paragraphs of meaningless buzzwords about “synergistic opportunities” and “stakeholder engagement” before cutting to the actual point. Constance Montana would grace the grand reopening of the Boston Montana Hotel with her presence, snipping ribbons and kissing babies like some kind of hospitality industry princess. Nine months of renovations, millions of dollars in updates, and now daddy’s little girl got to play CEO for the cameras.Perfect photo op material. Perfect hunting ground for my purposes.The hotel’s transformation wa
Three days of radio silence. Three days of Peter skulking around his own apartment like I’d personally offended his entire bloodline. Three days of my inbox mocking me with automated rejection emails that didn’t even bother with my actual name.But at least Tatiana’s Instagram followers had money to burn. The Elie Saab dress sold within hours to some tech wife in Silicon Valley who probably had a closet bigger than my entire studio. Rent secured. Dignity intact. Sort of.Which meant I could walk into Constance Montana’s pink palace and tell her to shove her job offer somewhere the sun didn’t shine, even though her PowerPoint presentation had been disturbingly thorough. Color-coded spreadsheets detailing eight weeks of high-society theater. Charts breaking down her father’s multi-billion-dollar empire currently trapped in legal purgatory while nervous investors questioned whether daddy’s little princess could actually run a company without destroying it.The whole thing reeked of despe
“Jesus Christ, did Pepto-Bismol explode in here?”The words tumbled out before I could stop them. Victor—mountain of muscle masquerading as a driver—shot me a look that could have flash-frozen hell itself. His green eyes were the exact shade of antifreeze, and just as toxic.“Miss Montana appreciates… bold design choices,” he said, his voice flatter than week-old champagne.Bold. Right. More like Marie Antoinette’s fever dream had been filtered through a cotton candy machine and then dunked in rose water. The entire foyer screamed old money trying way too hard to prove it was still relevant. Pink marble floors reflected an absolutely obscene crystal chanAllieier that probably cost more than my entire student loan debt.“She’s waiting for you,” Victor added, gesturing toward a door that was—surprise—also pink.My stomach performed an Olympic-level gymnastics routine. “Look, about what happened at the gala—”“Save it for the boss lady.” He opened the door with
Peter was already snoring by the time I crept into the apartment last night, and gone again by the time I dragged myself out of bed. Thank God for early retirement-home shifts. If he hadn’t had to serve oatmeal at dawn, I’d have had to explain… all of it. And I didn’t have an explanation that made sense even to me.At least I could shove the dress into the back of my closet before he ever saw it.Unfortunately, my best friends weren’t as easily avoided. By nine a.m., Tatiana and Daphne had plopped themselves on my bed, surrounded by throw pillows, eyes fixed on the glittering heap of sequins and pearls that probably cost more than everything else I owned combined.“Jesus Christ,” Tatiana muttered, tilting her phone for better light. “That thing is worth more than my car and your car put together.”“Your car barely starts,” I reminded her.She snapped a picture anyway.Daphne gasped, clasping her hands like a Disney heroine. “Allie, this could be your old, b
Alonzo By the time I finished catching Julian up on last night’s half-victory, the rest of the day blurred into endless negotiations. Summer usually meant quiet numbers—tourism season already in full swing, projections stable until September when the reports rolled in. But “quiet” in my world never meant calm. It just meant I got to leave the office at seven instead of nine.Across the street, my second home waited. Fourtex. The gym I’d bought years ago for convenience and then couldn’t resist turning into something more. What had started as a place to burn frustration had turned into a thriving side project. Even now, as I pushed through the doors, the air vibrated with the thump of gloves against bags, the smack of leather, the grunts of men chasing discipline.Ivanis was already waiting, bouncing on the balls of his feet. His gloves looked worn, but the cocky gleam in his eye was fresh as ever.“You ready?” he asked, rolling his shoulders.“Are you?” I shot b







