The Edge of Us Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  ONE - Mila

  TWO - Mila

  THREE - Andrew

  FOUR - Mila

  FIVE - Mila

  SIX - Mila

  SEVEN - Mila

  EIGHT - Mila

  NINE - Andrew

  TEN - Mila

  ELEVEN - Andrew

  TWELVE - Mila

  THIRTEEN - Mila

  FOURTEEN - Andrew

  FIFTEEN - Mila

  SIXTEEN - Cole

  SEVENTEEN - Mila

  EIGHTEEN - Cole

  NINETEEN - Andrew

  TWENTY - Andrew

  TWENTY-ONE - Mila

  TWENTY-TWO - Mila

  TWENTY-THREE - Cole

  TWENTY-FOUR - Mila

  TWENTY-FIVE - Cole

  TWENTY-SIX - Mila

  TWENTY-SEVEN - Andrew

  TWENTY-EIGHT - Cole

  TWENTY-NINE - Mila

  THIRTY - Andrew

  THIRTY-ONE - Cole

  THIRTY-TWO - Cole

  THIRTY-THREE - Mila

  THIRTY-FOUR - Cole

  THIRTY-FIVE - Andrew

  THIRTY-SIX - Mila

  THIRTY-SEVEN - Cole

  THIRTY-EIGHT - Mila

  THIRTY-NINE - Cole

  FORTY - Mila

  FORTY-ONE - Cole

  FORTY-TWO - Mila

  FORTY-THREE - Mila

  FORTY-FOUR - Cole

  FORTY-FIVE - Mila

  FORTY-SIX - Cole

  FORTY-SEVEN - Mila

  FORTY-EIGHT - Mila

  FORTY-NINE - Mila

  FIFTY - Mila

  FIFTY-ONE - Mila

  Q&A with Early Readers

  Preview of Enamor

  Before You Go

  Acknowledgements

  © 2017 by Veronica Larsen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email the publisher. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Editing by Lea Burn, Burn Before Reading

  Published by Veronica Larsen

  Cover design and interior formatting by author

  Publication Date: August 1st, 2017

  For Andrea,

  One of the most whole-hearted women I've ever met.

  ONE

  MILA

  THE SPOTLIGHT OVERHEAD SHOWERS me with prickling awareness. I'm exposed on this stage, in this backless gown, with every nuance of my expression open to the silent scrutiny of the faces peering up at me.

  The audience is filled with women I admire, trailblazers who are fearless in the pursuit of their ambitions. Women who never worry about ruffling feathers. Politicians, actresses, media gurus, and entrepreneurs. Their applause dies out in scattered spurts. All that's left are faint murmurs and the rustling of fabric against seats.

  I clutch the award tighter, stealing a glance at the stainless-steel cutout of an abstract female figure. Bold words are engraved on the front.

  Mila Zelenko

  Female Entrepreneur of the Year

  Adrenaline courses through me, and the trapped breath I release into the microphone echoes around the room.

  "Thank you so much for this," I say, my voice blaring from the surrounding speakers. "I am honored to be standing here in front of such awe-inspiring women."

  I cannot control the breathless way the words leave my lips. I pause to glance down at my notes on the podium, willing myself toward calm. This may be the most important speech I've ever given in my career. When I wrote it, I was objective and careful in the message I wanted the words to convey. But I'd underestimated the effect this day would have on me. A day marking an anniversary I want nothing more than to forget.

  I search the crowd for the only person who could anchor me in this moment. Someone who's been there for me through everything. The faces in the crowd blur together as I scan them, and I can't tell if he's among them.

  I swallow, and begin again.

  "When I was a little girl, I'd sneak down the stairs of our dingy little house in Long Island to spy on my mother's Tarot card readings. By day, she worked at a hair salon, but by night, she'd have visits from all sorts of people seeking her wisdom. One man came to see my mother every Sunday, without fail. He dressed in a sharp black suit and looked too important to be sitting on our tacky, plastic-covered furniture."

  I pause to offer a tentative smile to Tobias Kreisler, sitting in the audience. I hadn't expected him to be here to witness this speech. But the man who's unwittingly been my mentor in many ways offers me a small nod of encouragement to tell the story he knows well.

  "I'll never forget the intensity of those sessions and how this man hung on to my mother's every word as she explained his fate in her thick Ukrainian accent. I didn't know who he was. I didn't realize he was the most successful real estate tycoon in the country. So there he was—arguably the richest man in the city—asking my mother a stunning question: 'What should I do?' He'd wait with bated breath to be dealt advice from a woman who hadn't even finished primary school. It would be years before I understood the impact these moments had on me."

  I swallow, fighting away the unrelated memory flashing before my eyes. Me in my wedding gown, storming over to my mother and snatching her beloved Tarot cards from her hands as my bridal party watched in silence. I'd been hurt at her insistence to taint the most important day of my life with ominous warnings.

  "My mother, though by all appearances an uneducated immigrant, possessed one of the sharpest intellects of anyone I've ever known," I continue. "She had a gift. Not of card reading, but of reading people, of understanding their motivations and of seeing connections in their lives and relationships they themselves couldn't."

  The way she did when she predicted there would be no wedding. She was right, of course. She was always right and I sometimes hated her for it.

  I push past the smallest of knots forming in my throat and continue speaking.

  "You see, my mother had much to offer the world, but she understood that without money, a title, or education, her words would be dismissed, her voice muted and overridden. And so, the Tarot cards became her proxy. They became the way through which she could assert herself. Not only did people come from all over to seek her wisdom, they marveled at it. As a child, I saw my mother's confidence in her own abilities, her fearlessness in showing them to the world. The unapologetic way she expressed her views and opinions, and the power she manifested when those opinions emboldened the actions of powerful people. It drove a need in me to do important work, to turn my thoughts into actions, and actions into change. But despite graduating top of my class from one of the most prestigious business programs in the country, I found myself underestimated at every turn. As a young woman, I was taken less seriously than my male counterparts. And though I was, by the estimation of my superiors, both sharper and better prepared than many of my peers, I was repeatedly passed up for promotions and overlooked for opportunities. Until the day I'd finally had enough. I realized that, like my mother, I too would need a proxy in order to be taken seriously. I decided the proxy would be a title, Chief Executive Officer. A title I would give to myself if no one else would—"

  The audience
cuts me off, erupting in cheers. A smile creeps onto my face as the nerves finally melt away. All that's left is the electrical current running through the room. The thread of the experience I've shared. The buzz of excitement brings on a sort of high, giving me the ability to take in the details of the crowd.

  I begin speaking again over the remnants of applause.

  "I founded The Zelenko Agency, a PR and consulting firm, which—" movement near the back row of tables catches my eye "—would grow into a formidable force in—"

  The figure's body language registers in my brain before any features do.

  "A firm that would go on to become a force in…"

  The words fumble from my lips again, but the rest of my speech slips from my head. I glance down at my notes but cannot decipher what's written there.

  "A force in…"

  My pulse pounds in my ears, picking up speed, and the award slips just enough to knock against the microphone bar, which emits an earsplitting squeal. My mouth remains open but words fail to come out. A low murmur builds as the crowd realizes something is wrong. They look from each other to me, to their surroundings, trying to figure out what my eyes are fixed on.

  The entire room blurs at the edges and the only thing that comes into focus is the man leaning on the frame of the wide entrance archway. Black dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal tattoos etched along both forearms. His lips are turned downward, but an air of confidence and trouble swirls around him like a vortex. The sight of him hits me square in the chest.

  Cole Van Buren.

  I haven't seen him in eight years, since the day he turned my life upside down and left me broken and humiliated. And now he's back, crashing into my world just as cruelly as he abandoned it.

  TWO

  MILA

  Three weeks earlier...

  TO SAY I DON'T like surprises would be a massive understatement. I hate surprises. And yet, I've sought out a career where they are an inevitable part of my day. I've learned to compensate by making sure my mornings are the perfect symphony of routine, a small reprieve before I dive into the chaos of crisis management.

  The town car picks me up at seven sharp, and drops me off in front of the striking Seagram Building in Midtown Manhattan. I smooth down my suit and step under the shadow of the skyscraper. At the plaza just outside of the building, I buy a cup of coffee and drown out the hectic sounds of the city with the up-tempo beat of music in my ears. My playlist is filled with rap and hip-hop tracks. If the people around me heard they might be mortified at the profanities spewing in my ears. The rapid-fire threats and proclamations of greatness. But to me, it's like an aural shot of adrenaline as I walk through a sea of corporate sharks.

  I take my first sips of coffee as I ride the elevator up to the twenty-fifth floor. The newspaper I read on the commute to work is folded inside out in one of my hands. And when I glance down to adjust my footing, a bold headline in the entertainment section catches my attention. I couldn't care less about celebrity gossip, but this is a name I recognize outside of the tabloids.

  Pulling my earbuds from my ear, I rush to read the article. But before I can take in the words, I stare at the picture under the headline. The gorgeous blonde walks alone along a NYC street. She stands tall but her gaze is cast downward, her face illuminated by the paparazzi cameras. One of her hands is up by her head, as though she was just about to tuck her hair behind her ear. The camera's flash reflects off the dazzling engagement ring on her finger.

  "Shit," I mutter under my breath. One of the people waiting in the elevator shoots me a look.

  I skim the short article then tuck the paper under my arm, frowning. The pages now seem heavier than they were before.

  I make it just two steps out of the elevator before the office doors spring open. Two men rush out into the hall, carrying a large shard of thick glass. I recognize them as part of the cleaning crew, but the tense concentration on their faces makes any question of what they are doing die in my throat. Their urgency suggests the glass is heavier than it appears and might slip from their grasp at any moment. I edge sideways and out of the way, holding up the contents of my hands to avoid blocking their trajectory.

  Much of our office furniture is made of glass, part of the aesthetic, part of the brand, and so it's difficult to guess where that particular piece came from.

  The men set the shard down inside the elevator to catch their breaths. One of them wipes at his brow and grumbles something to the other as the doors close.

  Locked in place from their sudden opening, the office doors remain parted wide. Four of my employees are huddled behind the front desk, visible from where I stand at the landing. I brace myself for bad news before striding toward them. The carpet muffles the clicks of my heels and my staff is so engrossed in their conversation that not one of them notices my approach until I set my newspaper and cup of coffee down on the desk in front of them.

  Janet, my assistant, notices me first and straightens. She clears her throat pointedly, but not before I hear Andrew's name slip from someone's lips. Everyone goes silent at once, guilty faces meeting my eyes only briefly, before they sputter out nonsense about work and walk off to their respective spaces.

  Janet raises her eyebrows at me in apology. Her gaze darts toward Andrew's office, from which another member of the cleaning crew exits with an industrial vacuum cleaner and a black plastic bag. I wait until he passes through the front doors and out to the hall.

  "Is everyone okay?"

  Janet's mouth does an awkward twitch of silent words as she tries to find a way to tell me.

  "Is anyone hurt?"

  "No. Everyone's fine. No one else was here when it happened. Just me."

  "And what exactly happened?"

  Janet bites her lip. "I…I'm not sure. I just heard a crash from Andrew's office. I didn't even know he was in there. I rushed over. He's fine, but…I don't know what happened. He told me to call the cleaning crew and wouldn't say anything else."

  "Thanks, Janet. Push my meetings back an hour, will you? Andrew's too."

  She scribbles down notes. "Will do."

  "And, Janet? Direct the gossip to the staff break-room next time. It's hard to sell the concept of a judgment-free zone when there's a judgment party at the front desk."

  "Of course," she says, giving me a small, apologetic smile.

  I grab the newspaper and coffee from the desk and head to Andrew's office. At his doorway, I find him standing in front of the windows staring out into the city, the way he does when he's strategizing.

  The room looks half empty. His desk chair seems out of place with no other furniture around it and the carpet has lines from where it was just vacuumed. The contents of his desk are stacked in a neat pile against the far wall. His laptop, his notebooks, the stupid silver panda cup he keeps his pens in.

  His glass desk is missing.

  "Well, that explains the broken glass," I say from behind my cup of coffee then take a sip.

  He stiffens for a split second before relaxing again, but doesn't turn to face me.

  "Good morning, Mila."

  His baritone voice seems relaxed and unassuming. I keep mine the same as I respond.

  "I don't know about that. Seems like you're off to a rough start." I wait, but he offers nothing. "Drew, are you going to tell me what happened, or are you going to make me guess?"

  He knows when I call him Drew, I'm not asking as his boss but as his friend. I've known Andrew a long time. Long enough to know it takes a hell of a lot for him to lose his temper. Not to mention, it would take a hell of a lot of deliberate force to break one of our desks.

  The newspaper is a brick under my arm now. The second I saw that headline, I knew I should be the one to break the news to him before it caught him off-guard. But judging from the current state of his office, it already has.

  I let silence fill the space between us until he has no choice but to acknowledge it. He turns from the window to face me. To anyone else, his tall, imposi
ng figure would be intimidating in his navy suit. Perfect posture, hands in his pockets, dark hair smoothed back. Unreadable to most, but I can see everything he's trying to hide.

  "The desk was an accident."

  "An accident?" I ask. "You double-clicked your mouse so hard the glass cracked beneath it?"

  "I should lay off the gym for a while."

  I stare at him, deadpan. He arches a dark brow at me in a clear attempt at playfulness, but the expression in his blue eyes is too guarded to pull it off.

  Two interns walk past the door rather slowly and peer into the room at us. There's too much intrigue surrounding Andrew in the office. I'm still not sure how to quell it. The dynamic we had before him of transparency and comfortable chemistry was disrupted by the deliberate aloof energy he gives off to everyone else. I thought he'd shake things up for the better. Comfort is stagnation, and stagnation is death in business. But now I worry the preoccupation with him might be more distracting than anything else.

  I shut the door and step farther into the room.

  "You want to know my guess on what's really going on with you?"

  "Well, Mila, you're the expert at reading people. Go ahead, tell me about my feelings."

  He's bluffing, of course. Every part of his body language is poised in careful contradiction. He doesn't want me in his head.

  There's only one way to get him to drop the act and admit what's really going on. I hate to do it, but nothing but the blunt approach works with Andrew. Taking the newspaper from under my arm, I shake it open and find the article I read on the elevator ride. I walk over to him and hand him the page.

  "This. This is my guess."

  He stares at the image of the blonde woman for several long seconds before dragging his eyes back to me.

  "You really think I care about some gossip column? Let's get back to the desk. Look, I'll pay for it—"

  "Forget the damn desk," I snap. "The same morning the news breaks of Amber's engagement I come in to find your desk in pieces. Are you really trying to tell me the two aren't related?"

  Tension works up his sharp jawline and his blue eyes grow cold as they search mine with small traces of surprise.