Courtney Bradford Novels & Stories

Every carefully timed strike against the Savage name. Courtney closed the laptop gently. She did not reach for her phone this time. Instead, she stood, smoothing her dress with a calm that felt almost unnatural considering the magnitude of what she had just learned. She walked toward the window, looking out at the quiet stretch of darkness beyond the glass. Freya Woods. A girl with no real power. No name that carried weight. And yet she had shaken an empire. Courtney’s lips curved slightly again. Interesting. She turned away from the window and walked back to her desk, picking up her phone at last. Her thumb hovered over the screen, then lowered. She did not dial.

She pushes the door to the ladies bathroom. "Out! " She snaps her fingers to the two girls inside. They scram away frightened. Like a supermodel on a runway, she magically turns to face me. This is the closest I have been to Courtney Emerson, an heiress to a multinational empire. I can't deny, she is beautiful and she knows it and owns it. Her pair of arched eyebrows incline slightly as she assesses me. I also do the same, one feature I find myself obsessing over is her button nose, too cute.

"Sure thing, Courtney. What's up?" "Um, it's kind of..." Courtney said. Courtney sat stiff-backed across from me, like she was trying to keep more than her posture under control. Yet there was a vulnerability in her that I couldn't quite place. Her raven-black hair was pulled tight, her skin was smooth and even, and her slight frame fit neatly into tidy clothes that smelled faintly of detergent and fabric softener. "Hey, just let it out," I said, leaning in. "Well, Kellie has been..." she trailed off. "Well, kind of fucking up lately..."