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  “Aye,” he said in his brogue. “Can I call you a cab?”

  I shook my head. “I’m going to Uber it.”

  He stared at me for a moment as if thinking then he nodded. “Too bad I can’t convince you to let your hair down, if just for the night.”

  I gave him a look, my fingers clenching the empty wine glass. “Letting your hair down isn’t always an option for a single mom.”

  “Right,” he said. “Let me at least take you back to the party.” He held out his arm for me, and after a moment’s hesitation, I took it. I have to say it felt nice as he led me out of the garden and into the reception area as if he were my date for the night.

  But as soon as we got close to people, he dropped his arm and gave me a quick smile. “Get home safe, sweetheart.”

  So, that was it.

  I watched as he slid into the crowd of lingering people and headed for the bar. The party was still going, though he was right that Stephanie and Linden must have left because I didn’t see them anywhere. I did see the fathers and mothers of both bride and groom, as well as Aaron, Kayla, Penny, James and a few other of our mutual friends. Most were dancing and having a fun time, drunk as hell, while in the background the boats in the marina swayed lightly with the waves.

  Sometimes being Cinderella really sucked.

  Sighing, I fished out my phone and ordered an Uber cab. It was a busy Saturday night, so the driver was fifteen minutes away. I headed toward the gates to the yacht club and sat on an iron bench beside a marble anchor, giving my feet another rest. I tried to keep watching the road to see if my Uber was pulling up, but when I heard a loud giggle, I had to turn my head back to the reception.

  There, in the distance, was Bram with his arm around some skinny blonde chick I’d seen earlier. I think one of Steph’s distant cousins. She looked way young, way drunk and way into Bram.

  Unfortunately, he looked to be the same way about her. While her heel caught in the grass and she nearly went stumbling, he caught her and brought her to him. She laughed and kissed him and he eagerly kissed her back, pressing her lithe body and slinky dress to him. Her hand slipped down to his crotch and pressed it against what must have been quite the erection.

  He grinned at her, that stupid, wicked grin, and took her toward the garden area we had just come from, disappearing behind the rose bushes. Her giggles floated through the air and I couldn’t help but picture him stripping her naked, bending her over the bench, and unzipping his pants.

  I watched the bushes for a moment, seeing them rustle, feeling both sick and strangely turned-on.

  That could have been me.

  But it wasn’t. And when I started hearing her breathy moans, I snapped out of it. Jesus, he was fast to move on after he figured out he wasn’t going to get lucky with me.

  By the time the car pulled up for me, all my feelings had swirled into a cauldron of shame and anger. What a fucking pig! I was lucky as hell I didn’t end up throwing caution – or my panties – to the wind and sleeping with that slimy Scottish jackass. I had been right all along. He was trouble, danger, and I needed to stay away from men like him. Only now I wished I hadn’t even kissed him back, let alone exchanged words with him at all.

  While I stewed in the back of the Uber car as we crossed over the Golden Gate Bridge, I thought back to my motto. Live with no regrets? I was definitely regretting that I let him even think he could have slept with me that night.

  I also had another motto: Fool me once, shame on me. You won’t fool me twice. My pride will never, ever let me fall for something again.

  If Bram McGregor wasn’t on my hit list before, he definitely was now.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Nicola

  “Nicola Price, you’re fired,” my boss says to me in his most Donald Trump-like expression. Only he’s not smiling like it’s a joke and his coif is so shellacked with hair goop that it would put Mr. Trump to shame.

  Also, I’m pretty sure he actually said, “Nicola, we’re so sorry to tell you this, but we’re going to have to let you go.” But what’s the difference when they pretty much mean the same thing? In one damn second I’ve lost my job. My income. My stability.

  My future.

  It’s a wonder I don’t have a meltdown like the ones Ava throws when she can’t find her favorite plush toy, Snuffy. Or even leak a single tear. Instead, I just sit there like an idiot, a frozen, slack-jawed failure, while my boss, Ross (ex-boss now, I guess), prattles on about how sorry he is and how he wished they could have kept me but the company is downsizing and they’re removing one of the stores and yadda, yadda, yadda.

  But none of that matters whatsoever since I know I’m one week shy of having worked for them for three months. In one week, I would have finished my probationary period and my health insurance would have rolled in. I would have gotten a raise. I would have gotten piece of mind and a career in the field I’ve been striving for.

  And now I’m angry because I realize these assholes knew they’d never offer me a permanent position, they just wanted the cheap fucking labor. This had been their plan all along, to string me along under false pretences and then kick me to the curb before it became serious.

  Sounds a lot like my love life, come to think about it.

  “Is there anything we can do for you?” he asks, peering at me with concern, perhaps watching my face for signs of an imminent explosion.

  Ava, it always comes back to my daughter. If it weren’t for her, I probably would have just nodded at the dismissal. Take it graciously like I try to do with everything life throws my way, like I’d been taught at a young age. Never let them see you cry; never let them see you as anything but perfectly appropriate. Suck it up and carry on, a vision of cool.

  But my life at the moment isn’t cool and there isn’t a single appropriate thing about it. My rent at my shitty apartment recently increased. My car needs a part I can’t afford, so it just sits on the curb collecting rust from San Francisco’s eternal mist, and Ava has been increasingly sick lately. Nothing to worry about, the doctor says, just lethargic on some days but I’ve got an endless supply of worry for my kiddo and not always enough money to pay for a doctor’s visit. Not to mention a pretty useless doctor at that. I was counting on that goddamn medical insurance for her, not for me.

  And so, like Bruce Banner when he turns into the Hulk – minus the shirt-ripping – I let it all unleash on my unsuspecting ex-boss. For three months I have been prim and proper and yes sir, no sir, running around all the stores like an overworked slave, all while keeping a big smile on my face. Never let them see you sweat. Always keep your cool.

  Fuck that.

  I’m not even sure what to say. It’s like I go into some deep, black pit of pent-up resentment. I think I even blackout for a moment. All I know is that when I realize what I’m doing, I’m standing up, my finger jabbing in the air towards my ex-boss, and I’m spewing a load of obscenities.

  “You know if you had just fucked me over sideways, that would have been fine. But you’re hurting my daughter by doing this. How dare you just toss me aside a week before my health insurance kicked in!” I yell at him. “Don’t you have a damn heart?”

  But from the way Ross calmly picks up his phone and asks his assistant, Meredith, to come in the room as if I need to be escorted out, I can see he doesn’t have a heart at all.

  Meredith has never liked me and the last thing I need is her gloating, so I hightail it out of his office before she can get a glimpse of my red and distraught face. I quickly gather my purse from my cubby in the staffroom, grateful for once that while I was the company’s visual stylist for the past three months, I never had a desk of my own. What a pain that would be to clean out.

  I don’t even say goodbye to Priscilla, the buyer whom I’d become somewhat close with, or Tabby, the regional merchandiser, someone whose job I hoped to have one day. I’m just too ashamed to tell them what just happened and I feel worse when I suspect maybe they knew all along.

 
; When I first got the job for the popular yoga clothing chain, Rusk, I thought I’d finally made it. I’d spent enough time taking two steps forward and one step backward. The city doesn’t always make it easy on you, no matter what industry you’re in. And fashion is definitely one of the more challenging ones.

  I went to college with Stephanie at the Art Institute in downtown San Francisco, connecting with her after being decades apart. I grew up near Steph in Petaluma, a town north of the city, and I knew her in grade school until my parents got divorced and I moved with my mom to the Pacific Heights in San Francisco to live with her terribly rich new husband. Long story short, after spending high school with the rich kids – and being one of the rich kids – I enrolled myself in college, wanting to do something with my passion for fashion. After all, the garments I designed and made in my spare time, ones with screen-printed graphics and kooky phrases, would never grant me an income or a career. They were good but not “that good” (as my ex-stepfather had pointed out). So, I thought a career in fashion merchandising would be the next best thing.

  And it was. I mean, school was amazing. I finally felt in my element, surrounded by people who understood my passion, who “got” me. But finding jobs after school wasn’t so easy. And even though I managed to snag a few internships in some pretty important places (Banana Republic being one of them), I struggled to find a job that was related to my field and paid enough to give Ava everything she needed.

  That’s usually what it came down to, my daughter. Her arrival was a curveball to my perfectly crafted life but I took it in stride, determined to love her. And I do, with all my heart. I never regretted keeping her for a second. But it was Phil, my baby daddy’s leaving that really undid me. And after that, everything just kind of kept falling apart. Me and Ava against the world.

  One day, though, while I was still with Phil, I thought my prayers had been answered. I had gotten a job at an online jewelry store as the copywriter and buyer. It was actually pretty amazing. The pay was excellent and all signs pointed to a long and promising career. But online retail is a cutthroat and fickle industry, so after a couple of years the site went bankrupt. I was out of a job. Then I was out of a boyfriend. Then my mother cheated on her new husband and, thanks to the indemnity clause, I was out of any extra financial support as I bounced around the city from a nice apartment to a so-so studio to a run-down in the sketchy Tenderloin district trying to find work again in the industry.

  Finally, after a yearlong maternity leave stint as a sales clerk in the Nordstrom shoe department (not at all what I wanted to do but it paid the bills), I came across the position at Rusk. I thought I found something that would kindle my passion while providing the financial support I wanted for Ava. It’s not that she asked for anything, but I wanted to be able to give her whatever she desired. I’d do anything for her including working my ass off just so she could have all of life’s opportunities.

  Rusk promised a great career in visual merchandising and an amazing paycheck with fabulous benefits. Even though my probationary salary was barely above minimum wage, I was fueled by their beautiful promises. I quit Nordstrom and jumped at the chance. I really thought everything would change.

  And it did. For the worst. Now…now I’m hurrying past the people on Sutter Street on the verge of a panic attack. Every person’s face is a blank blur and my vision occasionally clouds over as tears swarm my eyes, hot and potent. They never fall, though. That has to mean something. That I’m a trooper. That I will get past this.

  I will find another job. I will find another chance.

  Sometimes I feel life is just one episode after another of trying to find another way. I wonder what happens when you discover there is no other way this time.

  I make my way down Leavenworth as the streets become a little less clean and the people a little less friendly. Or too friendly, depending on how you look at it. The same man with his toothless smile asks me for change outside a liquor store, but today I don’t spare him a cent. I just keep my head down and brush through the riff raff of the neighborhood, a place I’ve resented ever since it became my only option in this high-priced city until I’m unlocking the door into the lobby of the apartment building.

  Pausing, I stare at the door just as I’m about to close it behind me. The door is glass and there are long vertical bars on the windows, indicative of the neighborhood. I remember when Phil moved out and I lost my job at the online retailer, how I could no longer afford to live in Noe Valley, a gorgeous neighborhood next to the Castro. That apartment was everything to me but there was no way I could afford to live there on my own while supporting Ava. The two of us bounced from apartment to apartment, the standards of living slipping each time, until I found myself staring up at the bruised façade of this building, both hoping I could get an apartment and promising myself I’d move us out of there the first chance I got.

  It looked like that chance wasn’t going to happen for quite some time.

  I sigh, my heart a stone in my chest, and make my way up to the second floor. My mom usually babysits during the day on Thursdays and Fridays and I pay Lisa, my usual sitter, to watch Ava the rest of the time. I’ve been trying to get her into some affordable daycare but that shit is hard to come by in the city. The waiting lists are epic and you really have to be wary of where you put your kid. Before I had Ava, I had no idea how difficult it could be to keep your child secure and safe. I thought daycare and babysitters and education and healthcare would be easy, maybe because I had it easy growing up (or maybe as a child, you just don’t pay attention to those things). But now I know better.

  No one is looking out for you or your child but you.

  I slip my keys in the door and quietly open it just in case Ava is down for a nap. The apartment is a one-bedroom but only about 550 square feet. I made it as beautiful as possible, though, and in my opinion it looks just as good as my fancier place in Noe Valley did. To be honest, it’s pretty much an Anthropologie showroom. I couldn’t afford to shop there anymore so I held onto my old stuff like it was gold, gluing back coffee cups if the handles fell off or sewing curtains back together if Ava tugged on them too hard (which has happened more than once).

  Ava and Lisa are playing with dolls on the shag carpet and the moment I step in, Ava smiles that big, gorgeous bright smile of hers and gets up, running over to me. She wraps her arms around my leg and before I can even shut the door behind me, I crouch down to her level and envelope her in a giant hug. Just being around my daughter elevates my mood and increases my heart rate. It makes things both hard and easy at the same time, something I have a hard time figuring out myself. I think sometimes when you love something too much, you’re that much more aware of how much you have to lose. Holding my little girl in my arms brings me peace but makes me realize that I’m going to have to do everything in my power to make sure she’s okay in the end.

  When I pull away, Ava looks at my face with open curiosity. “Mommy, why are you crying?”

  I hadn’t even noticed. I quickly wipe my tears on my shoulders and give her a shaky smile. “I’m fine, angel,” I tell her.

  Lisa is standing up, wiping her hands on her jeans. I get to my own feet, close the door behind me and put my hand on Ava’s ash-blonde head. Normally my hair is long and dark brown, many shades darker than Ava’s, but Steph recently chopped it off to shoulder-length and put lots of highlights in it. I tell her when she’s done with running her own business she should become a hairdresser instead.

  “Everything okay?” Lisa asks, peering at me through her glasses. Tall, reed-thin and sporting an ever-present ponytail, Lisa’s a whip-smart student who seems wise beyond her age, sometimes more mature than me. She’s been looking after Ava for two years now, whenever she can fit it into her schedule. I don’t want to let her go and I have no idea how I’m going to even broach the subject, but the fact is I don’t see how I can possibly afford her while I’m out of work.

  Shit, if I ended it a bit better there’s a ch
ance I could have at least worked the last week and gotten more money. I doubt I can even put Rusk on my résumé now after the way I yelled at Ross. No one wants to hire a crazy person.

  I give Lisa a small shake of my head and tell Ava to go into our shared bedroom and put her doll to bed. She runs off and I collapse onto the couch with a hard exhale.

  “What is it?” Lisa asks, sitting on the arm of the couch.

  I chew on my lip for a moment, avoiding her gaze. “I got fired today.”

  She breathes in sharply. “What, are you serious? Why?”

  I shrug. “They told me a whole bunch of bullshit about closing down some of their stores, but they weren’t the stores I worked at anyway. I think they just wanted cheap labor.”

  “Dude, that sucks,” she says. “What are you going to do?”

  I eye her apologetically. “Look for another job. But until I find one, I’m afraid I can’t afford to pay you anymore. Money is going to be really tight around here.”

  Her face scrunches up for a moment but it quickly becomes sympathetic. I forget that she may have depended on me the same way I depended on her. “I understand. And I’m sure you’ll find something really fast.”

  “I hope so,” I tell her. “I kind of have to.”

  She gives my shoulder a light pat. “Well, I better get going. I guess you don’t want me to sit tomorrow night?”

  I give her a quizzical look and then quickly remember. “Shit,” I swear loudly while hoping Ava doesn’t hear me. Linden’s birthday is tomorrow night and he’s celebrating it on a Tuesday instead of the weekend like any normal human being. I eye Lisa. “No, I guess not. It’s best I stay home.”