Did that qualify as thinking? Maybe it was more like shoving her head underwater and shaking it around rapidly. Vivian had no patience for fools. That remark probably qualified as foolish.

Vivian raised an eyebrow.

Jules suppressed the urge to inform her that sometimes prison cells were painted pink to keep the prisoners happy. It might be taken the wrong way.

Instead of calling her foolish, Vivian looked back down at the spread on her desk.

Jules braced herself.

“Mallory,” Vivian said.

Jules already had her message app pulled up, and she fired off a summons. This wouldn’t be pleasant. Mallory had worked at Du Jour for two years now as a photography director. She’d come up with cool, innovative spreads that had put her first on Simon’s radar, then Vivian’s. Her last project had lacked that flair, though—Vivian had called it “vapid.” This was strike two, and Vivian would make sure Mallory felt the whiff of the baseball as it barely missed her face.

Mallory seemed to sense this as she hurried in, glancing around at the sleek, midcentury furniture and the huge windows that offered amazing views of Manhattan. Mallory fit right in with it, as tall and slim as a skyscraper, clad head to toe in the latest designer fashions.

She was elegant and gorgeous, and she tried so hard. She wanted it so much. Too much. Radiating that kind of attitude in front of Vivian Carlisle was like throwing chum to a shark.

“You wanted me?” she asked breathlessly with that mixture of adoration and terror that Vivian seemed to inspire in everyone.

“Hmm.” Vivian didn’t look up from the spread on her desk. Her eyes traveled over the A3 paper with its photos, captions, and copy. “There’s a lot of yellow in this spread, Mallory.”

She went pale. “Er. Well, yes.”

Have to do better than that.

Vivian continued as if she hadn’t heard. “Studies have shown that yellow is a color that causes anxiety. Isn’t that right, Julia?”

Jules’s stomach dropped. She’d never liked Mallory much, but she hadn’t meant to trip her up. “Uh,” she said feebly, “that’s what I…I mean, somewhere, I read…”

“I’ve never read that,” Mallory snapped.

That made Vivian look up at last, in time to see Mallory toss her chestnut hair back over her shoulder.

“My job is to care about style, not pop psychology.” Mallory finally deigned to glance at Jules. “Are you researching a paper for school or something?”

The hell? Mallory had been at Du Jour for less time than Jules! “I graduated three years ago from—”

“Okay.” Mallory turned back to Vivian. “The truth is, I’m trying to provoke a reaction in readers. I, um, want to make them anxious.”

Bullshit. Jules pressed her lips together to silence a scoff.

“You do?” Vivian asked neutrally.