The Trouble with Love Read online

  “Speaking of that ice storm,” Riley whispered, as they filed into the conference room. “Brrrr.”

  It took Emma all of five seconds to know what Riley meant. She didn’t see Cassidy so much as felt him.

  But no matter.

  She didn’t know what the hell he was doing at their Stiletto staff meeting, and she didn’t really care.

  She’d quit caring about anything having to do with Alex Cassidy long ago.

  Say . . . right about the time he left her at the altar.

  Chapter 2

  It was hard not to stop and stare when the reigning queens of Stiletto entered the conference room. Or any room.

  Instead of sucking all of the air out of the space, as the cliché went, it was almost like the four stunning women brought air into the room.

  And Alex Cassidy didn’t think he was biased just because these women—most of them, anyway—were his friends.

  But they were his friends. Good ones. Just when he’d started to think Manhattan was the loneliest, most foul place on earth, he’d stumbled on the unexpected:

  Friendship.

  It had started when he’d clicked with Jake Malone. Jake was one of Alex’s employees, who’d fallen hard and fast for Grace Brighton when the two of them had done a story together.

  Then Jake and Grace had introduced him to Julie and Mitchell.

  Who’d then introduced him to Riley . . .

  And then Sam had entered the picture, and before he knew what was happening, Alex had found himself as part of a group.

  One he enjoyed very much. Even if it did mean coming face-to-face on a regular basis with his former fiancée.

  He deliberately did not look at Emma when she entered the room.

  He only ever looked at her when his guard was down—or when hers was—and neither scenario happened very often.

  Instead, he nodded in greeting at Julie, who gave him sassy little smile as she entered the room. Alex didn’t consider himself a smiley sort of guy, but it was hard not to smile at Julie Greene. There was something persistently likable about her.

  It didn’t hurt that Julie was gorgeous. Her hair was an intriguing mix of blond and brown, her brown eyes sparkling and friendly.

  Hell, for that matter, they were all gorgeous.

  Grace Brighton—no, Grace Malone—was all soft curves and class with dark brown hair and hazel eyes.

  And it was hard not to take a second look at Riley McKenna, the city’s closest thing to a real-life sex kitten. Tall, with long black hair and a sassy smile, Riley also had a rather exceptional figure, although if Sam Compton ever asked, Alex would swear up and down that he’d never noticed anything but her startling blue eyes.

  And then . . .

  And then there was Emma.

  Emma, whose every feature he knew by heart, even without glancing at her.

  Although not glancing at her was harder than usual today when she was wearing a sexy-as-sin pink dress that was completely unlike Emma’s usually conservative wardrobe.

  There was a story there, clearly.

  Not that he cared one way or the other. Not much, anyway.

  “Stop staring at my girls,” Camille said under her breath.

  Alex spun the conference room chair just slightly in the direction of Stiletto’s editor in chief.

  “You’ve told them, right?” he asked.

  Camille ignored him, continuing to tap out something on her iPad with the awkward, pointer-finger taps of someone only reluctantly familiar with touch screen technology. And touch screen was definitely new to her. Camille Bishop had been in the business longer than he’d been alive and tended to cling to old school methods whenever possible.

  “Told them what?” Camille asked innocently. Too innocently.

  He gave her a look, which she returned vacantly.

  She was wearing big, oversized glasses today. Everything about Camille seemed big. Even though she had a wiry figure, her voice was loud. Her hair was bright. Her personality was . . . massive.

  “No, I haven’t told them,” she hissed. “That’s what this meeting is for.”

  He groaned. “Come on, Camille. Not even a heads-up?”

  She pursed her lips and ignored him.

  Shit.

  As in, shit would definitely hit the fan when Camille dropped her little bomb on her team.

  “Okay, everyone, let’s get started,” Camille said, standing and waiting until the small talk around the table trickled off. “You’ve probably noticed that there’s an extra dose of testosterone in the room today.”

  At least two dozen pairs of eyes snapped to Alex. Half of those eyes had been staring even before Camille had mentioned him. There were nearly thirty people in the room, and there was only one other guy besides Alex.

  And from the way the one other guy—Oliver, if he remembered correctly—was giving him the once-over, Alex was fairly sure he was the only man in the room who liked women.

  He gave a weak smile at the group, wishing he could be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  Up on his floor, the Oxford guys were probably discussing last night’s game. Instead of joining them, Alex was surrounded by presentation boards covered in everything from lingerie to perfume ads.

  He liked to think of himself as relatively modern man. A little gruff and stoic at times, sure.

  But he didn’t grunt and drag women around by their hair, or brand them, or scream at them to make him homemade biscuits every morning. And he liked his nice suits and cologne and high-thread-count sheets. He was evolved.

  But Stiletto was too much woman. It was like girly stuff on steroids. It made even the most modern man long for beer and onion rings.

  “As most of you know, Alex Cassidy is the editor in chief for Oxford, our sometimes rival, sometimes partner. He’s the man version of me, so to speak.”

  God help him.

  “Anyway, he’s here because I have an important announcement to make.”

  Camille paused dramatically, clearly waiting for someone to beg her for more info. She frowned when everyone merely stared at her, half-bored, half-expectantly.

  Alex hid a smile. Clearly the Stiletto editor in chief had cried wolf one too many times. Her team didn’t expect this news to be earth-shattering.

  And he supposed it wasn’t. Not really. But it might be to one person in the room.

  A person he still refused to look at it.

  Camille finally snapped when the silence stretched on ten seconds past awkward. “I’m going on a sabbatical,” she said.

  “A what now?” Riley asked.

  “A sabbatical,” a snooty-looking blond woman on Alex’s right explained. “It’s when—”

  “I know what a sabbatical is, Kandice,” said Riley. “I just didn’t realize Stiletto offered them. How do I get one? Because there’s this sex camp—”

  Camille held up a hand. “No sabbaticals for you. You want one, wait until you’re editor in chief.”

  “Why would I want to be editor in chief?” Riley asked.

  “Exactly,” Camille said, looking pleased at the lead-in. “It’s a thankless, tiresome job, and one I didn’t want to wish on any of you while I’m gone for three months.”

  “Three months?” Julie asked. “We’re leaderless for three months?”

  “Not quite,” Camille said. “You need someone to steer the ship, of course. So . . .”

  She made a dramatic flourishing gesture in Alex’s direction.

  He waited patiently for everything to register with the Stiletto crew.

  “No. A boy?!” Riley said, scandalized.

  “I saw him without his shirt once,” Grace said, leaning over. “He’s not a boy.”

  Emma leaned in toward her friends, speaking up for the first time. “I saw him without his shirt once, too. Boy’s actually not so far off. He’s a little scrawny, and the lower half . . . eek.”

  Emma’s voice was little more than a whisper, but it reached his ears. It was meant to.


  Alex didn’t take the bait. Hell, back when Emma had seen him naked, they’d been young. He had been little more than a boy.

  And she little more than a girl.

  A girl who could take his breath away with little more than a smile.

  And when she’d taken her shirt off, he’d all but lost his mind.

  But that was a long time ago.

  “Mr. Cassidy has graciously agreed to oversee both Stiletto and Oxford for the next few months,” Camille said, jerking him back to the present.

  A present where he and Emma wouldn’t be seeing each other shirtless . . . . ever.

  “Starting next week,” Camille continued, “He will be the one you go to for story approval, PTO requests, relationship advice—”

  “Wait, what?” Alex said, speaking up for the first time.

  Camille patted him on the head like he was a child, and he caught Julie smirking at him.

  Alex gave into a sigh. It was going to be a very, very long three months.

  “Any questions?” Camille asked.

  Julie’s hand shot up. “Um, yes. Like a thousand questions. Starting with, where are you going? Is everything okay? Are your ovaries imploding? Are you having a crisis? Can I come?”

  Alex hid a laugh behind a cough. From the resigned look on Camille’s face, and the lack of shock on everyone else’s, it was clear this group was used to Julie’s unabashed prying.

  “Perfectly healthy. It’s a personal matter,” Camille said, in a tone that indicated the conversation was over.

  Julie made a grunting noise that indicated the conversation was not over.

  “Now, I’m sure you’re all itching with theories you’d like to share with your colleagues, and I have plenty to catch Mr. Cassidy up on, so if there are no other inappropriate questions—”

  “Wait,” a tiny blond woman next to Grace said. “That’s it? We haven’t talked about the next issue, or story assignments, and there are about a million letters to the editor thanks to that story we did about Botox, and—”

  Camille held up a hand. “Mr. Cassidy will be holding a meeting on Monday morning to go over all of that, Dana.”

  Alex didn’t react, although inside he cringed. He’d agreed to this only because he’d assumed it was a figurehead position—a way of making the higher-ups feel comfortable with Camille’s absence. Surely she didn’t expect him to actually run this estrogen nightmare? He had his own magazine to take care of, a girlfriend that might actually last longer than two months, and—

  “Cassidy,” Camille snapped.

  He realized in dismay that the meeting was indeed over. And that everyone was looking at him with a mixture of resentment and curiosity. And, of course, a certain ice queen wasn’t looking at him at all.

  That was fine. Just fine.

  Alex had been through worse.

  Starting with the night his beloved fiancée had told him she didn’t want to marry him after all.

  Chapter 3

  “Emma, a moment?”

  Emma looked up from her monitor. She and the other Love & Romance girls had been in their usual pre-lunch “zone.” It was one of the few times of day when they put chatting and gossip aside long enough to get work done.

  She pulled off her headphones and looked at Camille. “Um, sure. Now?”

  Camille made it a point to meet regularly with all of her senior columnists on a one-on-one basis, but Emma’s scheduled time was Monday afternoon; today was Wednesday. It was never a good sign when their boss went off book.

  “It’ll be fast,” Camille said, before her head disappeared from the door.

  Emma pulled off the glasses she used when working on the computer and rubbed her eyes. “It won’t be fast. It’s never fast.”

  “That’s what she said,” Riley muttered.

  “That phrase doesn’t really work in this context, Ri,” Julie said distractedly.

  “That phrase always works in any context,” Riley responded.

  “Hey, Ems, see if you can get the inside scoop,” Grace said, leaning back in her chair as Emma stood and stretched. “I’m dying to know what the heck this sabbatical is about. Three months?”

  “I can’t ask,” Emma said, moving toward the door. “She said it was personal.”

  “Right. Which translates to interesting,” Julie said, pulling her hair into a pony.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Emma jabbed a finger toward her laptop. “And don’t touch my edits. I know it was one of you that tried to sneak the word penis into my last headline.”

  “Um, yeah. Because you need some penis in your life,” Riley said.

  “I’ll have you know that I had some penis in my life . . . last week,” Emma said. “No, last month. Maybe . . .”

  Her three friends looked at one another, and although the shared glance was more good-natured than it was poor Emma, it didn’t stop the irritation from rippling through her.

  Emma was happy that her friends were all blissed out with their painfully good-looking men. Really. Good for them.

  But that didn’t mean they had to lure her into their little club. Emma had tried the happily-ever-after route, and knew that for every woman who rode off into the sunset on a white stallion, another one got kicked in the face by that very same horse.

  She’d been there. Done that. Moved on.

  Emma wiggled her fingers at her friends and then headed toward Camille’s office. The Stiletto office was energetic even on the dullest of days, but today it was downright buzzy. Camille Bishop was practically an institution, not only at Stiletto, but in New York.

  The change in leadership, even temporary, had people chirping with theories and predictions.

  One noisy whisper in particular caught her attention. “I mean, can you imagine reporting to Alex Cassidy every week? He’s gorgeous. I wonder if he’s single.”

  He’s not, Emma silently answered. She knew he was seeing someone, even though the Stiletto girls were weird about mentioning Cassidy’s relationships to her under some misplaced girl code. Granted, Emma had never actually told her friends what happened between her and Cassidy—not the full story.

  In fact, if Emma had had it her way, she’d have gone to her grave without anyone knowing their history. But she supposed secrets that big weren’t meant to stay secrets. It had taken only a few short months for the group to realize that she and Cassidy had once been engaged.

  Still, even Riley, Grace, and Julie didn’t know everything. Not just yet. Maybe not ever.

  Emma had found the only thing worse than thinking about heartbreak was talking about it. Did that make her a little lonely?

  Maybe.

  But lonely was better than hurt.

  New York should have been the one city big enough for both her and Cassidy to coexist without interacting, and yet somehow they’d found themselves not only working for the same company but in the same friend group.

  They avoided each other as much as possible, but with Julie’s wedding right around the corner and Riley’s coming up right after that, she knew they’d have a couple face-to-face moments.

  And that was before she knew she’d be reporting to him as her supervisor.

  God help her.

  Emma knocked on Camille’s door. “Boss?”

  Camille glanced up from her cellphone and motioned Emma in. “Come. Sit.”

  Emma sat in the seat across from Camille’s, her gaze briefly taking in the panoramic view of Central Park and the city’s skyline. For a girl from the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina, glimpses of Manhattan never got old. Not yet, anyway.

  “You’re looking . . . glamorous,” Camille said, as Emma crossed her legs and carefully made sure her short satin dress didn’t ride up.

  “Long story,” Emma said. Though her friends had an easy relationship with Camille, Emma was newer to the group—newer to Stiletto—and she wasn’t quite secure enough in her position at the company to run her mouth.

  Not that Emma was ever one to run her mouth. She
was more the live-and-let-live type.

  It was a natural evolution for someone who’d grown up with a twin sister who’d had more than enough personality for the both of them. And speaking of her twin, Emma had no doubt that Daisy’s southern belle sensibilities would probably be all why, I never! if she could see Emma’s current state of dishevelment.

  Emma’s perfectly coiffed sister would have found a way to emerge from a flooded apartment looking every bit as darling as she had at the daffodil parades. All the daffodil parades.

  It hadn’t been easy being Daisy Sinclair’s quiet, boring sister. When they were growing up, Daisy had been the quintessential little princess. She always wore dresses, and the dresses would never have lemonade spilled down the front like Emma’s. Daisy knew exactly what to say to boys to make them fall all over themselves, whereas Emma had been horribly shy around the opposite sex.

  When Emma had gotten engaged first, she’d been braced for Daisy’s resentment. Not because Daisy was generally resentful, but because everyone—Emma included—had assumed that Daisy would be the first sister down the aisle. But nobody had been happier for Emma and Cassidy than Daisy. Because as if it weren’t enough that Daisy were the charming one, she was also good. Emma would be annoyed if she didn’t love her sister so damned much.

  And as it turned out, Daisy had been the first—and only—twin to walk down the aisle after all. Of course, she’d also been the only sister to get divorced. Daisy always joked that the twins had two unshakable things in common: a face and a shit-ton of heartache.

  Except Daisy hadn’t actually said the “shit-ton” part. That was Emma’s special profane spin on the situation.

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” Camille said.

  “Sorry?”

  Camille pointed a coral fingernail at Emma’s still-damp hair. “You tell me why you’re rocking the fresh-outta-the-shower look, and I’ll tell you while I’m leaving my darling magazine in the hands of one of the Oxford buffoons.”

  Emma pursed her lips. Couldn’t argue about the buffoon part. Although she was pretty sure that, despite her boss’s words, there was plenty of mutual respect between Cassidy and Camille. Still, Camille always saw Oxford as a bit of an enemy. The competition, so to speak.