“Not a lot to understand,” he said. “I just fired you.”

She stared at him. He stared right back.

“But,” Jules whispered, “you can’t just…”

“Oh yes, I can.” Now his eyes were hard. “I think you’ll find, Julia, that I can hire and fire anybody in this building, regardless of what Vivian Carlisle has to say about it. Make sure she understands that before you go. You can stay until the end of the business day. After that, you’re done.”

He looked back at the doors.

Jules couldn’t respond. Surely none of this was real. Surely this wasn’t actually happening.

They reached Du Jour’s floor. The doors slid open.

He glanced back at her, and this time his gaze was not without pity. “First-class flights to London cost a pretty penny, especially on the company card. Tell her to find a less expensive accessory next time.”

Jules gaped at him.

He pressed the Door Open button and said, “I believe this is your stop. Goodbye.”

Jules stood alone in the hallway that led to the Du Jour offices, dizzy and with a ringing in her ears. She might be about to pass out. Or maybe she was just having a terrible dream, imagining the whole thing.

But no. She hadn’t imagined that: not the cold, hard purpose in Mark Tavio’s eyes as he made Jules the first casualty in his war with Vivian Carlisle. Because that’s what it was. After months of tension, he was taking aim at last. And Jules had been the first one caught in the crossfire.

What the hell was she going to do?

At some point, she made it to her desk—oh, but it wasn’t hers anymore, was it?—and sat down, staring at nothing.

Suddenly, Allie’s voice trilled out, “Oh, Jules! Happy birthday!”

Jules’s head jerked around to see Allie hurrying forward, still in her coat and with her face flushed from the cold. She balanced a tray of La Colombe in one hand with a small bouquet of flowers in the other. A bouncy yellow balloon was tied to the slender green vase.

“Happy birthday,” Allie repeated, setting the gift down on Jules’s desk with an air of triumph. “I picked these up on the way. Do you like them? Whoops—let me just put Vivian’s coffee out before I spill it—” She looked around, frowning. “Isn’t she here yet?”

“Her car broke down,” Jules heard herself say. “She won’t be here until eight thirty or something.”

Allie pouted. “I didn’t have to rush this morning, then. I guess it was good to get the exercise.”

“Yeah.” Jules’s entire body felt like it had been shot full of lidocaine: immobile and numb. She stared at the flowers. “Um. These are pretty.”