Chapter 2: An Explanation

I'm not normally a spaz, I promise. And I'm not normally the sort of girl who makes a fool out of herself trying to pick up guys at the local bar. Usually, I'm just Felicia Liddle, an all-around normal sort of person.

Except that I write for Celebrity Spark, one of the country's premier celebrity news publications. Working there has been my goal from the moment I graduated from college - where I doubled up in Journalism and Psychology - and my dream ever since I was old enough to read the tabloid covers at the supermarket.

Yeah, I'm that girl you've seen buying an armload of celeb magazines and frozen dinners at the checkout counter. And no, I'm not ashamed of it. I make no secret of the fact that I'm fascinated by celebrity culture (and fascinated by our culture's fascination with celebrity culture) even if it's not exactly something most people go around bragging about. But I worked my ass off to land this job. It took me five years of busting my butt at internship after internship (a.k.a. ferrying my weight in coffee to editors and making so many copies I'm probably personally responsible for the destruction of a couple of forests) but finally my hard work paid off. Six months ago, I was offered a position as a staff writer and junior editor for Celebrity Spark magazine. It was everything I'd ever dreamed.

And then, last week, everything came tumbling down. The sale of Celebrity Spark and its subsidiaries was finalized, and they started cutting jobs left and right. Even the Editor-in-Chief is on his way out, and in the meantime, Roman Everet, the CEO of the company that now owns us, has set himself up in the Celebrity Spark conference room to oversee the magazine's transition. Apparently he's the "hands on" type of mogul and likes to handle these things himself. In other words, he's a complete control freak.

I still remember the first time Roman Everet walked into the office. I'd heard his name a hundred times before - after all, it's my job to know all of the big names in entertainment, and his company has been hailed as one of the fastest-growing in the business - but I'd never seen the media mogul's face. People in my job see thousands of pictures of actors, musicians, heirs and heiresses, but we aren't typically clicking through photos of the people working "behind the scenes" in this town.

But naturally, I had a certain image in my head of Roman Everet: middle-aged, silver-haired, slightly wrinkled from a life spent beneath the California sun - you know, just your typical CEO of a media company. Instead, the man who walked into the Celebrity Spark offices could have easily held a place among the inhumanly attractive celebrities that grace the covers of our magazine. For one thing, he was much younger than I expected. Mid-thirties, tops. His hair was the rich brown of milk chocolate, and his broad shoulders rivaled those of all of the athletes in this month's "Quarterbacks & Supermodels" roundup. He was, in short, most definitely drool worthy.

But then he started firing writers and editors left and right, and the glow wore off pretty quickly.

And the worst part of all? The day he showed up, I'd just bagged the biggest interview of my career so far. I'd been on top of the world, imagining how I'd catapult the feature into a better position at the magazine. But that sort of excitement dies pretty quickly when you suspect you're about to be sacked. Because even though I'd managed to get an exclusive interview with Emilia Torres - yes, that Emilia Torres, the star of the upcoming Cataclysm: Earth and the on-again, off-again girlfriend of megastar Luca Fontaine - I was still the magazine's most recent hire. And in spite of my years of interning, I knew I didn't have nearly the number of "sources" as some of the other writers at the magazine. The Emilia thing was just luck. A fluke. My landlady's brother's boyfriend is friends with Emilia's driver. I'm not an idiot. I know I can't build a career on miraculous connections like that.

But fluke or not, I'd gotten something. Something big. Something that could be used as leverage. At least that's what I told myself when I was called to the conference room for my inevitable meeting with Roman Everet.

He didn't look up when I entered. His head was bent over a tablet, his mouth a hard line as he scrolled through the document on the screen. There was a laptop to his left, two cell phones on his right, and various files stacked across the table. A large coffee and an untouched bagel sat by his elbow. I'd seen one of his assistants - of which there were at least four, by my count - bring those to him that morning. He seemed to keep them endlessly running around on errands. I was only in the room for a couple of seconds before one of the phones buzzed, but he took one look at the screen and then ignored the call in favor of whatever he was reading on his tablet. He still didn't bother to glance at me at all.

His distraction meant I had a moment to study him from the door, to ogle him without being noticed. He was perfectly groomed - not a hair out of place, not a speck of lint on his suit, not even the whisper of stubble on his clean-shaven cheeks. The last part made it all the easier to notice the strong cut of his jaw, as well as the slight indentation on his chin - which wasn't quite a dimple, and was a little off center, but somehow all the sexier for it - and I found myself suppressing a sigh. Shame I was about to get sacked. I wouldn't have minded having a little longer to stare at this guy, heartless bastard though he was.

"Sit down," he said finally without bothering to look up. His round baritone of a voice was as sexy as the rest of him, even if he did sound completely disinterested in speaking with me. "Felicia Liddle, is it?"

"Yes." I settled myself in the seat across the table from him and tried not to fidget. I knew where this was going.

"As you know," he said, still focused on the device in front of him, "I've decided to make some changes around here."

"Yes, Mr. Everet," I replied.

"It's purely a business decision," he said, as if he'd recited this little spiel a hundred times before - which, frankly, he probably had. "It's time Celebrity Spark fully embraced the digital age. It's a miracle the magazine has sustained the sales it has for as long as it has. But that won't always be the case. We'll continue to publish the magazine for as long as it remains profitable to do so, but our focus will shift to the Celebrity Spark website and our other digital outlets." For the first time since I entered the room, he looked up at me. His eyes were a strange shade of hazel - almost green - and I probably would have found them intriguing if I hadn't felt like I was about to throw up. In that moment, the lack of emotion in their depths only made everything worse. By his own admission, this was merely another "business decision" for him.

"As you can imagine," he continued in his matter-of-fact tone, "these changes require some restructuring here. There's no reason we need to keep a fully-staffed office, not when most of these jobs can be done from anywhere and most communications done via email. Subsequently, we'll be downsizing significantly. I've looked through your work, and you're a talented writer, but - "

"I got an interview with Emilia Torres," I blurted.

It was a stupid thing to say. Of course he knew about that already. But I was watching my dream job slip away from me, and I was desperate to save myself.

Roman Everet sat back in his chair, his hazel eyes assessing. "I'm aware of that. I've seen your notes. It looks like a good interview, as far as these things go."

He didn't have to finish. "But you're still firing me."

"Laying someone off and firing them are not the same thing."

"It still means I'm losing my job."

One of his phones buzzed, and he looked away from me and down at the screen.

"I'll be happy to furnish a letter of recommendation for you," he said, as he scrolled through whatever message had just arrived in his inbox. "Even put in a couple of calls, if you'd like. The interview with Emilia is a nice addition to your portfolio. I'm sure another magazine will be thrilled to find someone with such connections."

"But this magazine isn't?" My tone was more accusatory than I intended. But I was scared and angry enough that I didn't even think about the fact that I'd just barked at the man who held the fate of my career in his hands.

Until I saw his expression, that is. Then I realized that I'd made a very, very big mistake.