Page 31

Are you ignoring me on purpose??

Are you even alive???

I take a deep breath and call my mother.

“Finally!” No hello. “I need you to help me pay the mortgage.”

My stomach drops. “Mom, I sent you money for the entryway on Saturday.”

“I already gave that to Maria’s son. I need twenty-five hundred.”

“That’s not help with the mortgage. That’s the whole mortgage.”

“I didn’t pay it all last month. Tony needed money for his business. His partner screwed him, Isabella, it’s not his fault⁠—”

“Mom.”

“After everything I did for you girls! Three jobs! And you have all this money now, Miss Hot-Shot PR Exec, and you can’t help your own mother?” Her voice cracks into sobs. “You’re selfish. You’ve always been selfish. Do you want me out on the street? Is that what you want?”

I close my eyes. The anger doesn’t come. Just exhaustion, heavy and familiar, settling into the same place in my chest where it’s lived since I was nine.

I already spent this month’s margin on the entryway. I have my own rent. My own firm might not make payroll.

“Okay,” I hear myself say. “Okay, Mom. I’ll send it tonight.”

The sobbing stops instantly. “Thank you, mija.” She hangs up.

I lower the phone and turn around.

Sebastian is standing in the doorway of his office.

I have no idea how long he’s been there. His face gives away nothing. But his eyes go from my phone to my face, and something in them shifts, something that isn’t ice at all.

10

SEBASTIAN

It’s 11:15 p.m., and she’s still here.

Thunder rolls over the city. Rain streaks the windows and turns Midtown into a blur of light. The rest of the executive floor went dark hours ago, and the only sounds are the hum of the HVAC and the click of Isabella’s keyboard at the conference table across my office.

She’s been here since seven this morning. She’s been working since she sent twenty-five hundred dollars she doesn’t have to a woman who called her selfish.

I heard every word.

I keep telling myself it isn’t my business. I’ve been telling myself that for nine hours.

“You’re still here,” I say.

“So are you.” She doesn’t look up.

“It’s my office.”

“Oh, I’m aware. You never let me forget it.” She finally turns in her chair. “I can’t use your couch. I can’t use your printer. I’m not allowed to walk past your desk to look out the window. If it bothers you that much, I’ll find the janitor and work in someone else’s office.”

“You’d be the first person in this building to voluntarily spend the night here.”

“Somebody has to save your company.”