Todos los capítulos de He Called Me His Wife’s Cousin : Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 7

"We can't offer the position at this time."The recruiter slid my resume back across the desk before I'd even sat all the way down. I already knew what she was looking at. Six years. The gap between my last job and this one sat right there on the page like a stain that wouldn't lift."Thank you for your time," I said, and I kept my spine straight until the elevator doors shut behind me.Outside, the heat off the sidewalk made my blouse stick to my back. I checked my phone. Two missed calls from the clinic. A text from Ethan's school nurse: *Please confirm payment before Thursday's appointment. We can't push the date again.*Under it, another text. *Vince: Short a girl tonight. You in?*I looked at that one longer than I meant to, then put the phone away without answering either message.Four hundred dollars in my checking account. Eleven hundred owed by Thursday. I turned toward the pharmacy two blocks down, the one that filled Ethan's prescription at a discount if I asked in person,

"Can I skip Friday?"I kept my voice low, phone pressed hard against my ear, the stairwell door shut behind me so nobody at my new desk could hear.Vince laughed like I'd told a joke. "Skip it? You're the one they asked for. You don't skip the good bookings, that's how you stop getting good bookings.""I have a conflict.""Everybody's got a conflict. Show up, do two hours, walk out with more than you'd make in a week anywhere else." His voice dropped, almost kind. "I know your situation. Just show up."He hung up before I could argue, which was fair, because I didn't have an argument that didn't sound like a confession.I splashed water on my face in the stairwell bathroom and went back to my desk like nothing had happened, because that was the only version of me anyone at Doyle Group was allowed to see."Ms. Whitfield." Marcus stopped by, a folder in his hand. "Mr. Doyle needs the Friday details confirmed before noon. Client dinner, downtown, off the usual venue rotation. Some place

"Sit down, Claire."Adrian didn't look up from the folder on his desk when I walked in Monday morning. I'd barely slept the whole weekend, running the conversation in my head a hundred different ways, and none of them had started with him this calm.I sat."I spent the weekend deciding what to do about Friday." He closed the folder and finally looked at me. "I still don't like the timing of it. But I checked with the club. Called the manager myself, asked him straight out whether you'd requested that booking or been assigned it."My stomach dropped. "You called Vince?""I called Vince." He said the name like it tasted bad in his mouth. "He confirmed what you told me. You tried to get out of Friday. He wouldn't let you."I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing."That doesn't fix the fact that you're dancing in a club four nights a week while working for me during the day," he said. "That's not a small thing, Claire. That's a lot of hours for one person.""I know how many h

"You're early."Rachel was already at the small table in the corner cafe two blocks from Doyle Group when I walked in, two coffees in front of her, one already pushed toward the empty chair."You said before Adrian gets in. I wasn't sure how literal to take that.""Very literal. He doesn't know I asked you here." She wrapped both hands around her own cup without drinking from it. "I didn't want an audience for this."I sat down across from her, my pulse doing something uneven under my ribs. "Okay.""I've been up most of the night thinking about how to start this conversation." She finally looked up. "So I'm just going to ask you directly, and I need you to give me a real answer. Is there anything else, Claire? Anything else about you I don't know, that's going to land on my desk sideways one day the way that invoice did?"I thought about the shoebox in my hallway closet. The divorce papers still sitting on my kitchen table. Nathan's voice on the phone the night before, calm and certai