CHAPTER 1
“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS, Gregg!” Jacyn felt herself sway a little. Maybe she was becoming a bit light-headed from shock. She put out her hand to touch Gregg’s desk, hoping to steady herself, but then snatched it away. She’d be damned if she allowed herself to show any weakness; especially in front ofhim.“You’refiringme?”
Still seated on his thickly padded, comfortable office chair, Gregg leaned back and steepled his fingers—a gesture she always hated, because it came across as pompous and pretentious. Which was unsurprising, because Gregory Dewittwaspompous and pretentious.
“Come now, Jacyn,” he said in tones that she figured were meant to be soothing, but only sounded patronizing. “I’m not firing you, exactly. You know that—”
“Am I still employed here at the gym? Am I still drawing a salary? Benefits? Paid vacation?” She struggled to keep her tone even.
He looked at her as if she was acting like a tiresome child. “No, but—”
“Then you’re firing me!” Perspiration had broken out all over her body the moment he’d called her into his office. Now, she could feel it grow cold, despite the warmth in the air that let everyone know that summer was coming to Serenity Cove. “You bastard! I ran this place with you for three years! As a matter of fact, you owe a lot of your success to me, to my ideas.I’mthe one who managed your social media campaigns.I’mthe one who got your numbers up—”
“And you did a great job,” he said, in that same annoying soothing voice that made her want to either grind her own teeth to powder or to reach out and claw him across his face. She refrained, because the first would only bring costly dental bills, and the other would land her in jail.
Gregg got up and hurried around the desk to face her, probably because he spotted the gleam in her eye and recognized it for the warning signal that it was. “Babe, look—”
“Don’t ‘babe’ me! I am not your little stupid trusting girlfriend anymore!”
He looked at her, pausing and flicking his eyes upwards as if asking the heavens for patience, and then said, “That’s why it’s not a good idea for you to keep working here.”
“Didyouthink it was a bad idea, or didDeliathink so?” she snapped. The name stuck in her throat, as it always did. Her stepsister, Delia, wasn’t anywhere near the top of her list of favorite people. Ever since Jacyn’s father had left her mom, and moved in with his girlfriend—Teresa, even before the ink on the divorce papers were dry—her new sibling had pitted herself against Jacyn in competition over everything. From arguing that she should have the perfectly round pancakes and not the wobbly ones when they were eleven, to trying to be better at cheerleading and Glee Club when they were fifteen, to brazenly sleeping with the man she’d thought she was in love with now that they were in their twenties. Half the time, Delia didn’t want anything on its own merit; she only wanted it because Jacyn had it.
The last thing Jacyn would ever allow her sister to steal from her stood before her now, in black track pants and a red polo shirt uniform emblazoned with the gym’s logo, opening and closing his mouth like a gasping trout. “Delia didn’t… Well, not exactly. She only suggested—”
But Jacyn wasn’t even listening. She stared at Gregg, noticing for the first time how stupid he looked with his soul patch, which had gone out of fashion ten years ago. Eyes that were too deep set and too close together, making him look perpetually sly. His overblown, beefy, bulked-up muscles that he fed on a steady diet of protein shakes and raw eggs.
And she shuddered.
How had she been attracted to this man? How had she convinced herself that she wasin lovewith him?
“You know what, Gregg? Fine. No… great. I’m fired. Here’s your stuff back.” She yanked the laminated ID card that hung from a lanyard around her neck and threw it at the desk. It bounced off and fell on the floor. “Take this, too.” She grabbed onto the tail of her company polo shirt, a smaller version of the one he was wearing, and pulled it over her head in a single fluid motion, then balled it up and threw it at his head. Now she was wearing just her black sweatpants, black gym shoes, and a white racer-back sports bra with the familiar swoosh logo on the front. Against skin the color of dark-roast coffee, the white bra gleamed.
His eyes bugged. “What are you—”
“I expect to see my severance pay andallaccumulated financial benefits in my account by the end of the week.” A dark, menacing gaze pinned him where he stood. “Every penny, Gregg, or I’m coming over here and putting my foot up your ass.”
Without waiting on a response, she spun around and walked out of his office, not even bothering to bring her hands up to cover her torso. Across the gym floor, past a spin class in session. Nobody noticed. Nobody cared. A handful of other women were there, working out in clothing even briefer than hers. So, whatever.
When she got to the locker rooms, she found her gym bag and donned a simple white T-shirt, pausing in the mirror only to make sure she had her game face on before she walked outside. She smoothed down her thick crown of fine braids, which had been dyed a deep, lusty red. They always clashed with the red of her work polo anyway, she reminded herself with a grin.
Out in the parking lot, headed for the nearby bus stop, she passed the fire-engine red of Gregg’s stupid fancy sports car, with its shiny chrome whatsits and gleaming tires. The second love of his life. This man scrubbed down the car’s tires and then glossed them up with silicone polish every weekend, getting into the grooves with a toothbrush. Who the hell did that?
She averted her eyes, trying not to re-conjure the memory of how she’d discovered that Gregg had been cheating on her with Delia—by finding a pair of the woman’s panties on the floor of the car.
Stupid, over-priced hunk of metal. Something should happen to it.
Jacyn pulled out her phone and hit #1 on her speed dial. Sienna answered on the third ring. “Sup, ho?”
Normally, Jacyn would laugh and return an equally salacious salutation, but today she wasn’t in the mood. “My place,” she said shortly. “I need you.”
***
“Let’s burn the gym down,” Sienna proposed, throwing herself onto the love seat next to Jacyn.
The suggestion was so ridiculous—but so much like Sienna—that Jacyn laughed out loud. She accepted the green mystery cocktail her best friend pressed into her hand and sipped on it, wincing at the sour taste of lemons, Midori, and whatever else Sienna had tossed in there on a whim. “We are not burning down the gym.”
“You sure? ‘Cause we can google how to make it look like an accident.” Her dark brown eyes glittered with excitement.