Vivian was not sitting behind her desk or on the chic sofa by the corner windows. She appeared to be pacing the office, her brow furrowed, her lips pressed together. When she saw Jules, she straightened her shoulders and said, “Have a seat.”

Oh boy. This couldn’t be good. Jules sat on the sofa and tried not to think about how she’d had Christmas dinner with this woman, how Vivian’s shoulders had looked in her New Year’s Eve gown, or about anything else that would weaken her resolve not to let Vivian get to her.

“The article you mentioned,” Vivian said. “Salon is publishing it?”

She braced herself. “Yes. Simon told me this afternoon. I don’t know any more details yet.”

“Mm.” Vivian stuck her tongue in her cheek and looked out the window at the sea of city lights beyond. She’d turned off the fluorescent lighting in her office, gently illuminating the space with two white-shaded lamps. They made the city’s hundreds of lit windows and rooftops easier to see. Vivian seemed to be floating in space, untouchable.

“Let’s talk about this…article,” she said.

What was going on? Would Vivian actually try to stop Salon from publishing Jules’s work? She probably could with just one call.

“It’s only one article.” Jules hated the plea in her voice. “Vivian, I’ve been trying to get published forever. I’m really happy about it.”

“I’m sure you are,” Vivian said, still looking out the window. Her hands tensed behind her back.

“I thought—” Jules said, then stopped. What if she said, I thought you’d be proud of me or I thought you’d be happy too” and Vivian laughed at her? “I didn’t think it would bother you,” she said.

“Bother me?” Vivian asked, her voice neutral.

“You seem kind of upset.” She tried hard to remember that night in London when Vivian had sort of, more or less, told Jules to be honest with her. That night seemed long ago now. She gulped. “Um…if it’s about, I don’t know, my job, or—”

“Your job?” Vivian finally looked at her, frowning. “Didn’t you say you worked on it during your free time?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Then what does this have to do with your job?”

Would she ever in any lifetime be able to keep up with Vivian Carlisle? “I-I don’t know.”

“You asked Simon to help?”

Did Vivian think Jules had been sneaky about this, trying to go behind her back? “I just told…”

“You didn’t ask me.”

Jules froze. She snapped her mouth shut and found herself re-evaluating every single event in the last twenty-four hours.

“You didn’t ask me,” Vivian repeated. “Why not?”

Jules needed another couple of seconds to pull herself together. “I told you earlier. Simon knows someone at Salon, and—”