Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106150 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 425(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
“Yeah, but they were the one with the shittiest ‘fuck off’ letter.”
“Well… true.”
“What if the invitation was for Sterling Chase, the founder of the company himself? Heh. Wouldn’t that be killer?” Joey straightened the cuffs of my jacket.
“Uh… no.” Low-key panic blossomed in my chest, making breathing tricky. “That would be a disaster. Is there even a person named Sterling Chase? I’ve never seen him mentioned in any articles.”
Joey shrugged. “Dude, I’m a cater-waiter. My boss didn’t exactly discuss the guest list with me. But I thought I heard somewhere that Sterling Chase was the guy who started the Sterling Chase company. You know, like Justin Hardy started Hardy Development, and Grey Blackwood founded Blackwood Holdings, and Walt Disney created Disney World, and Chef Boyardee invented ravioli?”
I blinked. At least one of those things was factually inaccurate, but that didn’t mean Joey was entirely wrong.
Before I’d sent out my meeting request, I’d done some research on Sterling Chase. The company was owned by a bunch of smaller businesses, which was pretty common, fronted by a CEO named Clarissa Comfrey and a head of development named Austin Purcell, and overseen by a five-person board of directors. Their first major deal had been packaging and selling a piece of software with the unassuming name of ETC—Emergency Traffic Control—which Sterling Chase had sold for multiple billions of dollars. As a company, they were committed to diversity and philanthropy. Their headquarters was praised by environmental groups for being a green space. Their projects consistently won awards for technological innovation. Blah, blah, blah.
I hadn’t seen a single thing about who’d founded the business, though… and in retrospect, that seemed odd. Was it possible there was a reclusive billionaire out there pulling the strings?
“Why would someone hide their involvement in a hugely successful company, though?” I wondered out loud. “That would be weird. Wouldn’t there be some reference to the guy on the internet? A picture or a bio—”
“Shit, Rowe, who knows why rich people do the wacky things they do, especially if they’re genius types? Maybe Mr. Chase just doesn’t want his picture to be public, so he flies under the radar. Maybe he’s like Batman. Or the Wizard of Oz.”
Huh. “I guess,” I said slowly. But if that was the case, then… “Joey,” I demanded, high-key panicked now. “You stole me Sterling Chase’s invitation?”
“Guess so?” Joey appeared utterly unconcerned. “Dude, chill. If you’ve never seen a picture of Sterling Chase, these bozos haven’t, either,” he said reasonably. “Besides, this shindig is invite-only, and if you’ve got Sterling’s, you know you’re not gonna run into the man himself in there.”
“Oh, shit.” I clutched my stomach. “I’m gonna be sick.”
Joey gave my tie a final tweak. “You’re not. Just lay low, find Justin Hardy, make your pitch, get your meeting, and leave before anyone realizes who you really are so neither of us gets in trouble.” He grabbed my chin firmly. “No freaking out.”
I whimpered slightly, and Joey shook his head. “You’re so freaking out.”
I spread my hands helplessly. “It’s just… It’s hard enough for me to walk in there and pretend to belong among a bunch of rich people. It’s another thing if I have to impersonate an actual billionaire. What if someone asks me a question? I’m the worst liar ever, Joey. You know this. Remember your mom’s fiftieth birthday? She asked me point-blank if there was going to be a surprise party, and of course I said no… then I got so stressed about lying I broke out in hives and ended up in the ER.”
“Shit, yeah.” Joey winced. “Never knew a person’s entire face could swell like that.”
“And the summer we all vacationed on the lake, remember how you told me to pretend I couldn’t swim so the cute lifeguard would save me… but I got so flustered I actually forgot how to swim?”
Joey scratched the back of his neck. “Now that you mention it, that ended in the ER, too, didn’t it?”
“Yes! In fact, the Venn diagram of Rowe Prince’s Lies and Rowe Prince’s Injuries is practically a circle. It ends in misery every time.”
“Okay, so don’t think of it as lying,” Joey said firmly. He smoothed down my curly hair, which was probably getting unruly, thanks to the humidity. “Think of it as… upcycling. Like what you did with that old-as-fuck dresser you got your mom at Goodwill. Underneath, you’re still Rowe with, like, good bones and shit. But for tonight, you’re sanded and painted and with better hardware.” He tweaked my tie. “Or go for the fairy-tale thing—you’re like Cinderella getting all dressed up for the ball, and I’m your fairy godmother. For tonight, you’re not Rowe Prince. You’re Sterling Chase, a quirky rich guy. And betcha you’ll be more charming than the real Sterling ever could be.”
A warm breeze blew trash-scented air across the alley, and it seemed like a heck of a stretch to apply interior design concepts or fairy tales to this scenario.