Chapter one

TANISHA

I hate my life.

I hate my job.

I most especially hate my boss.

But the thing I hated most, was her. His clingy, pastel-pink-obsessed, half-influencer-half-parasite girlfriend who’d somehow fused herself to his hip like a decorative piece.

I wiped a bead of sweat from my temple, my blouse sticking to my spine after an hour of power-walking through Manhattan’s humid afternoon. All for a stupid cup of “Ceremonial Grade Moon-Whisk Matcha.” The only kind Pepa would drink, apparently. Because Pepa was special, Pepa was sensitive. Pepa had “a delicate wellness constitution.” My curls were frizzing into a halo of misery, and my feet felt like they had aged twenty years.

 I held out the ice-cold bottle toward her, arm trembling from the heat and my own irritation. “Here,” I  managed, breath uneven. She accepted the drink with a sour-sweet smile, the kind that said you’re beneath me, but thanks for trying. Her glossy lips curved, her bleached-blonde ponytail bouncing like it had its own personality.

“Oh my gosh, you actually found it,” Pepa cooed, blinking innocently. “I didn’t think you’d manage. It’s like… extremely rare.”

I forced a smile back, even though what I really wanted to do was pour the damn drink over her perfectly highlighted head, and watch it ruin her white designer sundress.

Pepa turned the bottle in her hand delicately, like she was examining a questionable piece of jewelry from a street vendor. Her nose wrinkled, God forbid anything in the world fail to meet her curated aesthetic.

Then she sighed. Loudly, dramatically, pretentiously.

“Ugh… I’m really sorry Tanisha. But I can’t drink this,” she said, her voice sliding into that airy, condescending tone she saves specifically for me.

My eye twitched. “Why not?”

She leaned over the reception chair, where she sat with her legs crossed. “Well, sweetheart… you’re sweating.” She gestured vaguely at my face like I’m emitting radioactive particles. “And I just can’t be one hundred percent certain none of it, you know… got in there.”

I blinked rapidly at her. “My sweat… got inside a sealed bottle?”

Pepa shrugged, all innocent and clueless. “Stranger things have happened. And with the way you were breathing when you handed it to me—” she mimicked a panting sound under her breath, “—I’m pretty sure it, like, sloshed around? I don’t like it when the matcha gets disturbed. The energy changes.”

“The… energy,” I repeated.

She nodded with all the confidence of someone who has never worked a real job a day in her life. “Exactly. So I’m really, really sorry, but I can’t drink this. My body is a temple.”

I stared at her, wondering if it was possible to get arrested for thinking very violent thoughts. One more second of this and I’m going to punch her in the mouth. Before I could decide on which crime to commit, the office door swung open.

Christof Gustavo walked in like he owned the air in the room. Which, technically, he probably does. Manhattan’s golden boy. CEO of a tech empire big enough to buy and sell entire zip codes. The kind of man who trends on business blogs for breathing near a microphone.

And me? I’m his personal assistant. The highest-paying job I’ve ever landed. The kind of salary that makes you look your pride in the eye, apologize, and shove it in a drawer. So yes, I’ve put up with the bullshit since I was twenty-two, now I’m twenty-four. One would think I’d have gotten used to it by now, but hell no. Christof generates different kinds and levels of bullshit every single day. Just when I think I’m getting the hang of it, he rips me a new one from the darkest pit of hell.

He doesn’t spare me a glance. Not even a flicker of acknowledgement. His attention was locked on Pepa, his shining star.

“Baby,” he murmured, sitting beside her and slipping a hand around her waist, “did Tanisha manage to find your matcha?”

Tanisha. Not me. Tanisha the concept. Tanisha the task-doing machine. Tanisha the office Roomba with a pulse.

Pepa held the bottle up between two fingers like it was a piece of used gum. Her lower lip trembled in a pout. “She found it, Christof, but I can’t drink it.”

Christof’s gaze sharpened, not at me, but at the bottle. “What’s wrong with it?”

Pepa sighs as if she’s delivering tragic medical news. “I just… can’t be sure it’s clean. She was sweating a lot—“ she gestures vaguely in my direction like I’m a farm animal “—and breathing so hard. The energy inside is all… shaken.”

He actually nodded. He nodded. I watched a billionaire validate nonsense in real time.

My left knee wobbled. My soul files a formal exit request. And still…still, I swallowed it down. Because the job paid more annually than everyone in my family combined. Because the rent in this city is a crime. Because I needed this.

But God… if Pepa asks for one more thing, I’m going to spontaneously combust.

I opened my mouth because, no. No. I wasn’t going to stand there and let them imply I somehow infused a sealed bottle with my bodily fluids through sheer exhaustion.

“Mr. Gustavo, the bottle was sealed—”

Christof’s eyes sliced to me.

Just one look.

Sharp, icy, glacier-blue. The kind of stare that could stop a riot or start one. It hits me with the force of a thrown dagger, and the rest of my sentence shrivels in my throat.

“Tanisha.” His voice is quiet, clipped, a warning wrapped in silk. “That’s enough.”