Chapter 3

A man got up from under one of the umbrellas and came over with a drink in his hand. He put his other hand on Presley's waist.

He gave me a once-over and his eyes stayed on me a couple seconds too long. Presley pulled his hand in tighter.

"My fiancé," she said. "Grant Sayre. Harrow Capital's buying his company next month. Eight figures."

Grant lifted his chin. He didn't say anything.

"We were out looking at houses last month." Presley turned the phone on herself. "You guys remember the one with the infinity pool? We put money down on it."

[goals honestly]

[Presley your fiancé is gorgeous]

"So." She turned back to me. "What is it you do these days?"

"I work for somebody," I said.

"You work for somebody." She repeated it and laughed. "Doing what?"

"Little bit of everything."

"Making what a month?"

I didn't answer.

"See, that's what I mean. Ask about money and she goes quiet." She threw her hands up and turned to the crowd. "I'm not trying to compare. I'm worried about her. She's twenty-nine. No husband, no kids, a job she can't even describe, and a body she paid for. And how long is that body good for? Three years? Five? When you hit thirty-five and your face drops and the weight comes back, then what have you got?"

The girl with the towels nodded fast. "That's true."

"This is what I keep telling her." Presley patted my arm. "You need something to work toward. I know it stings to hear it, but that's the difference between us, and you've got to accept it."

She turned the camera back on her own face.

"I did two point three million in one stream last month. I post whatever I feel like and it gets eight hundred thousand likes."

"Views aren't really the point, though." She set the phone down. "The point is who you know. And I didn't just invite classmates today."

She paused and waited until everybody was looking at her.

"I've got somebody coming from Meridian."

Somebody actually gasped.

"Meridian? Lux Ferran's agency?"

"You got one of their people to fly out here?"

"I pulled a few strings." Presley was loving it. "Renner's coming. He's high up over there. Somebody whose word actually counts in this business."

She looked at me.

"And I invited him so you could get an education. What a real body looks like. What real connections look like. Maybe then you'll stop copying somebody else's walk and somebody else's face and doing a bad job of both."

The whole group laughed.

"When he gets here, stand off to the side." She gave my shoulder a pat. "I don't need him thinking our class produced people like you."

I moved her hand off my shoulder.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Good."

An engine rumbled at the far end of the boardwalk.

A black car pulled up at the resort entrance. The driver got out and went around to open the back door.

"He's here, he's here!" Presley shoved the person next to her out of the way, grabbed her phone and took off across the sand. Halfway there her ankle rolled and she caught herself on Grant.

"Watch this, you guys." She was breathing hard into the camera. "This is what I mean by connections."

She got to the car door, bent forward, and put on the biggest smile she had.

"Mr. Renner, I can't believe you came out here yourself, this is so—"

The person who stepped out of that car was a woman.

Late twenties, dark suit, not a hair out of place, a black umbrella in one hand and an unopened bottle of sunscreen in the other.

Presley stopped mid-sentence.

"I think you've got the wrong place." She frowned. "This is a private event."

The woman didn't even glance at her.

She walked around Presley, crossed the whole beach, came straight to me, and opened the umbrella over my head.

"Ms. Vance."

Odette Marsh put the sunscreen in my hand.

"The UV is brutal today and Mr. Whitlock noticed you didn't take any with you. He didn't want you burning, so he made sure I brought it out to you myself."

Not one person made a sound.

Presley stood where she was with the phone still up, aimed at an empty car door.

Then she spun around and came marching back.

"Who are you? I'm talking to you. Where's Renner?"

That's when Odette turned around.

She looked Presley over from head to toe. She took her time with it.

"Mr. Renner left the company this morning."

"Left?"

"He was fired," Odette said. "Internal audit caught him taking money from vendors."

Presley didn't lower the phone.

"Then who fired him?"

Odette glanced at me.

"She's standing right in front of you."