Love In Secrets (Love Distilled #3) - Scarlett Cole Page 0,80
this week. The last interview is Friday, and I will make my mind up over the weekend. I’d love to rehire you, given your experience.”
“Of course you would. It’s the bargain of the year for you,” she muttered before she realized she was speaking out loud.
Elijah raised an eyebrow at her. “This is not of my doing, Cass. You created this. Regardless, let me know by Friday at three if you want the job.”
Without anything left to say, Cassie left Elijah’s office. On autopilot, she took the elevator down and stepped out of the building. Fumes from the bus parked up against the sidewalk blasted her. The sounds she used to love suddenly seemed too loud.
On the subway home, thoughts came like rapid fire. She needed a job, but she didn’t have enough time to attend the other interviews she’d lined up before she had to give Elijah an answer. The best she could do was to protect herself by taking the insulting job offer and using it to pay the bills until she found a better job.
By the time she’d traipsed up the three flights of stairs to her apartment and put the key in the lock, her legs burned, and her eyes stung. Even the cute little entryway she’d styled with a vintage table, mirror, and hooks for her jackets failed to make her smile.
The apartment seemed small; her skin felt too tight. Nothing felt . . . right.
This was her career, goddamn it. And while she was pragmatic enough to understand that everybody suffered setbacks at some point or another, she couldn’t help thinking none of this was fair.
It wasn’t just her career, it was her life.
And she’d never felt less in control of it.
I need a vacation.
The thought hit him as he checked the latest delivery of spruce tips. For some reason, they didn’t seem as green, smell as vibrant, or feel as soft to the touch as usual.
But the logical part of his brain told him they were fine.
The batch of gin he’d tested earlier had tasted . . . off. Nothing he could point his finger at, nothing he could identify as lacking. Just an intuition that the sum of the parts hadn’t added up to the whole. Emerson had assured him it was perfect, but he’d marked up the batch and put it off to one side in the warehouse and made a note in his calendar to come back to it.
In the days since Cassie had left, after he’d recovered from his embarrassing hangover, he’d thrown himself into work. When he’d woken up at three in the morning, unable to go back to sleep because of the scent of her on his pillows, he’d got up and gone to the distillery. When he’d dreaded going home to an empty house and dinner alone, he’d stayed late and worked on new gin ideas while Sienna kept an eye on the evening batch. One particular thirty-six-hour window, he’d gone straight through with only a nap on the couch in Emerson’s office—leaving for the distillery one morning, and not coming home again until the next day.
Production volumes had never been higher.
And Jake had never been more miserable.
Cassie had messaged him to tell him she landed safely in New York and to repeat that she was sorry.
He’d not been able to come up with anything honest in response. Sure, she knew he’d seen the message, a technological advancement he fucking hated, but he still had nothing to say.
No. That was wrong.
The problem was he had too much to say, and he wasn’t sure Cassie wanted to hear any of it.
“Are you going to shave at any point in the foreseeable future?” Emerson asked when she arrived at the distillery. She placed a cup of coffee from his favorite coffee shop, along with a box of the pastries he always bought there, on the table next to Patience.
He ran his fingers along his jaw. Usually he kept it to scruff, but it was definitely headed toward beard. “Not decided.”
The coffee was hot and strong as he took a sip. He’d eaten breakfast, but it felt like it had been hours ago. He opened the box and took a large bite out of the apple turnover.
It didn’t taste quite as sweet as it normally did. Perhaps there was less cinnamon in it too. Or perhaps his senses were dulled from sleep deprivation and the full tilt his mind was on.