“I can’t promise you the moon or stars. Not yet. But I need an assistant too. Someone who knows what she’s doing, who knows the ropes beyond getting coffee and running menial errands—someone who can help me get this thing off the ground.” His face was alight with enthusiasm. “I mean it. Inside a year or two, you can move up into anything you want, probably. Want to be in acquisitions? Head into management? Get into public relations? This is the time to do it.”

I want to write, she wanted to say. Then her snide inner voice reminded her: Don’t quit your day job. “I—”

“I know it’s a lot to take in, especially after what Mark just pulled. But, Jules—now you’ve got no reason to say no. It’s like destiny, if I believed in destiny. Fate. Karma. Kismet!”

“I guess so. Simon, I really should talk to Vivian first.”

He sat back with a heavy sigh. “How did I know you’d say that?”

“I have to,” she protested. “Mr. Tavio fired me. I have to talk to her about that at least.”

“I know,” he said. “And I know you feel like you owe her something too. You don’t. She owes you. She owes you big time for everything you’ve done for her. And it’s time for her to pay you back.”

“It’s not like that!” Why was her stomach cramping up?

“Of course it is,” he said. “It always is. Besides”—he regarded Jules seriously—“this isn’t the last move Mark will make, Jules. He’s out for her blood, and he’s the chairman of the company. He will beat her eventually.”

“No,” she whispered.

“Yes. Believe me, I don’t like it either. I care about Vivian too.”

It didn’t sound like it. Jules gave him a dubious look.

“I do,” he said firmly. “She’s remarkable. An icon. But she’s also taken everything I’ve had to give for years. It’s finally time for me to look out for myself—you should do the same.”

“I—”

“Mark firing you is like sending up a great big firecracker, and everybody will know what it means. Just picture rats fleeing a sinking ship. That’s what it’s going to be like around here.”

“No,” Jules repeated, wondering if she was going to cry again. All the denials in the world wouldn’t change the fact that Simon was only speaking the truth.

Mark Tavio had somehow found a crack in Vivian’s defenses. She was under fire, and nobody would want to weather it with her. Except for Jules, who’d already been thrown off the battlefield without being given the choice.

“Keisha’s coming too.” He interrupted Jules’s train of thought.

“K-Keisha?”