Miss Match Read online

  Samantha nodded and walked out of the kitchen toward her bedroom. Having some semblance of a plan should have made her feel better, but it didn’t. She couldn’t imagine going through this with anyone else but Andrew. Or Lucinda. But she took no strength from that thought—the idea of facing Lucinda right now made her want to curl up in a ball and die. No matter how much she told herself that everything would be fine, she didn’t believe it.

  She stripped out of her robe and walked into the bathroom before sitting on the shower floor and letting the water wash down over her. She played back every kiss, every touch, every whispered I love you, all of it, wondering if it had been worth throwing her entire life’s work into disarray. She knew in the back of her mind that she had been playing with fire when she got into this relationship, but it all seemed to be of little consequence when she was in Lucinda’s arms. All the feelings Lucinda stirred up in her—they had been worth it, right?

  Samantha sobbed under the water, trying to remember how she felt in every moment with Lucinda. Try as hard as she might not to second-guess the best thing that had happened to her in a long time, she couldn’t ignore the feeling of betrayal that settled in her like a stone. This couldn’t be happening again.

  *

  Lucinda cracked her neck and let out a heavy sigh. She had been poring over Richard’s accounts for more than three hours now. Prior to letting him go, she had reviewed his notes and client list, but currently she had the less-than-pleasant task of examining each account and seeing what deadlines matched up with whom. Furthermore, she was displeased, but not surprised, to find that Richard had been cutting corners. His work was sloppy. It was further confirmation that she had made the right call, but matching the right executive to these accounts to fix the issues and continue to provide the best service to the client was proving to be a difficult task, as this was the start of their busy season. The prospect of getting out of here by dinnertime was quickly fading.

  She wearily looked at the stack of applications that had been waiting for her approval to interview new executives. It looked like she might have to start that sooner rather than later. Amanda’s knock at her door drew her attention away from the endless pile in front of her.

  “Brian just arrived, he’ll be up shortly.” Amanda had been busily syncing calendars at her desk all morning trying to help in any way possible. Lucinda was grateful she could work today—she was a lifesaver.

  “Thanks. Can you close the door when you leave—it’s surprisingly noisy today.”

  “You bet.”

  Working on the weekend wasn’t a foreign thing for Lucinda, but having this much company was. She had asked legal to come in to review the contracts of all of Richard’s accounts to estimate the risk of client loss with his departure and inform her of their options. She had also asked her three top executives to pull overtime and start the ball rolling before the week kicked off on Monday; they needed to stay ahead of this. She intended to have a finalized letter ready to be dispensed to all of Richard’s clients informing them of his departure and introducing them to their new account executive before day’s end and had asked each executive to give her a brief pitch of their plans for the cases she had assigned them before they left for the day.

  Her phone buzzed with a text message. She smiled when Samantha’s name and picture popped up. The happiness she felt dissolved into confusion when Samantha’s text was short: I’m coming into the office in about an hour. We have a problem. Before Lucinda could type a reply, Samantha forwarded her a link, then three screenshots of emails from media outlets requesting interviews. She opened the link and stared at it in horror. Someone had reached out to the media about Samantha.

  “Fuck.” Lucinda called Amanda immediately. “Tell Claire to drop everything she’s doing and get in here immediately.”

  She picked up her cell phone and called Samantha. She was sent to voice mail on the first ring. Her second attempt was met with the same fate; by call number three, the phone didn’t even ring anymore, the voice mail intro cutting through her like a knife. “C’mon, Samantha, pick up,” she mumbled before fumbling through her phone for Andrew’s number.

  Brian knocked and walked in, not waiting for her to answer. “Everybody’s working on the weekend, huh?”

  “Brian, oh, thank God. Come here. Close the door—we have a problem.”

  Brian looked surprised. “What’s wrong?”

  “There may have been a breach. I just got word that one of our client’s confidential agreements has been teased to the press. I need you to get one of the IT guys in here to make sure no past client documents have been accessed in the last few weeks by any of the staff, particularly Richard.”

  He nodded, grabbing a piece of paper off her desk and jotting down some notes. “Do you think this had something to do with him?”

  “I’m not sure. But the client is coming in immediately and we have to figure out how to fix this. The only way we can do that is to make sure this didn’t come from a failure on our behalf. It wouldn’t surprise me if that bastard had started squirreling information when he got his first warning. Let’s hope he’s not that smart.”

  “I’m on it. What are you planning on doing with the client?”

  “I’m going to appropriate some of legal to sit in on the session and I’m moving Claire Moseley into lead. Keep this quiet if you can. Until we know what happened, the fewer people involved, the better.”

  “Will do. I’ll give you an update in a few minutes.”

  A few minutes later, Amanda notified her that Claire was outside her door. She walked in and sat in front of Lucinda, at attention.

  “Claire. Put everything else I asked you to do on the back burner and review this file.” She handed Samantha and Andrew’s case to her with a heavy heart. “I’m going to email you a link regarding a possible leak about this client—this could be a PR nightmare for the client and for us. I need you to handle this with the utmost confidentiality. Only recruit your most trusted peers for this. I need you to have a plan in place within the hour.”

  “Within the hour?” Claire looked a little panicked.

  “Within the hour.” Lucinda opened her tablet and put the image on the large screen to her left, pointing to the content while she talked to Claire. “Be prepared to meet in conference room C with legal in forty-five minutes. You can figure out the rest with them there. The client will be there shortly afterward. I’ll move everyone out of this area”—she pointed to the org chart—“and reassign these tasks”—gesturing to several days of Claire’s hot deadlines on the team calendar—“to Justin and call in Glenn to help cover the rest. Make sure I have an outlined plan before the client arrives.”

  Claire looked a little dazed but nodded, exiting Lucinda’s office quickly. Lucinda called in Amanda and gave her a list of tasks and phone calls to make. After she left, Lucinda stared out the window at the gray day looming on the other side of the glass. This day had taken a sharp turn from the way it had started so blissfully this morning. She could only imagine the panic Samantha must be feeling right now. It occurred to her that it was probably similar to the panic she had herself right now: if Richard was behind this leak, this was going to come back to her. And rightly so. She had promised Samantha this would never get out—but here they were, both their careers potentially in danger. She had been so careful to make sure Richard was removed before he could access his accounts, but had she been too slow? Was she too distracted falling in love that she had mismanaged her job and let Samantha down?

  The phone rang. It was Brian.

  “What did you find out?”

  “It’s a good thing we switched over to digital records a few years ago—everything is accessible remotely by IT, which is good for us. They are confident they can figure out if the breach was internal within a few hours, but they warned me they obviously can’t determine if a paper copy has been accessed.”

  “I figured as much. Keep me posted on the results.”

  Luci
nda looked at her phone, feeling defeated. This could be a wild-goose chase and she knew it. Regardless of how this information got out, it was out. And she had to work her damnedest to keep it from roaring across the Internet and getting out of control. She glanced at the clock; Samantha would be here at any moment. She couldn’t even imagine what she would say to her. Sorry? Sorry I let you down? I’ll fix it? She wasn’t sure she could.

  *

  Samantha pulled the sun hat low on her forehead, her dark glasses obscuring most of her face as she stepped out of the car Andrew had hired to take them to Clear View. She was in no shape to drive, and he had spent the entire time on the phone making plans and setting up meetings. She had turned off her phone when Lucinda had called her—she wasn’t sure what to say, so she decided that saying nothing was the safest approach.

  Andrew checked in with security and took her elbow, leading her to the elevator. He pressed the floor to Lucinda’s office and that feeling of nausea returned to her again. “You look very Jackie O in that ensemble, Sam.”

  She shrugged, wondering if she might actually be sick. This was awful.

  The elevator doors closed and Andrew turned to her, an empathetic look on his face. “We’ll figure it out. It’s not the end of the world. Let’s see what they have to say and move on from there.”

  She nodded, not trusting her voice in that moment. When they reached the floor of Clear View, she reached out and took Andrew’s hand. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  He patted her hand and all the courage she had been trying to muster dissolved when Lucinda met them at the elevator doors. Her face was serious, intense almost. She looked tired. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes—that’s what Samantha noticed the most.

  “Hey.” Lucinda addressed Andrew. “Everything is ready in conference room C, Amanda will take you there. I’d like to have a word with Samantha.”

  Andrew looked at Samantha and nodded encouragingly; he stepped away from her grasp and followed Amanda down the hall, out of sight.

  “Are you okay?” Lucinda’s tone was gentle.

  “Not really.” Her voice wasn’t shaking, that was good.

  “We have a plan in place and will work quickly to make sure this doesn’t get any bigger. We’ll fix this, Samantha.”

  Samantha slid the sunglasses off her eyes and hoped the redness from earlier was gone. She looked at Lucinda closely, her eyes tracing over the stress lines on Lucinda’s forehead, the worried way her lips twitched as she waited for Samantha to reply. She knew she should say something, but she wasn’t sure what to say. She decided to be hopeful. “I believe you.”

  “Let’s talk afterward, okay?”

  “That’s probably a good idea.”

  Lucinda nodded and motioned toward the conference room Andrew had disappeared into. She placed a gentle hand at Samantha’s lower back, her apprehension clear. It felt like the warmth of Lucinda’s usual contact was missing. Samantha wondered if she was imagining it or not.

  *

  Samantha’s head was swimming. The voices in the room were starting to blend together into this low-frequency hum. She had been pleasantly surprised at how proactive Lucinda’s people had been. By the time she and Andrew had taken seats, they already had a list of options laid out in front of them. The choices ranged from denying everything to addressing the interview requests head-on with prepared statements. There was talk between Andrew and the Clear View reps about the vagueness of the blind item. No one was quite sure how much information was floating around. Everyone seemed pretty positive that if there was more to be released it would come out in the next day or so. She nodded numbly and agreed to their decision to prepare statements for the media but wait to see if anything else came to light.

  She had been impressed by the account executive Lucinda placed in charge. Claire seemed knowledgeable and focused. Tenacious, even. Samantha rather liked her. But no matter how much attention she could give to the goings on around her, she was aware of Lucinda’s presence at the back of the room. Outside of the small contact they’d shared by the elevator, Lucinda made no attempt to talk to her or touch her. It was glaringly obvious to her how much of their relationship revolved around touch, so even the slight absence felt like a large void. Lucinda only commented a few times throughout the meeting, always addressing the group, never Samantha or Andrew exclusively. It was as if she knew they needed to distance themselves from each other. She hoped that was the case; it would make this next conversation a lot easier.

  The meeting ended and everyone filed out except the three of them. Andrew shook Lucinda’s hand and hugged her, telling Samantha he would meet her in the lobby. She hated him for leaving her alone but realized she had to face this.

  Lucinda closed the conference room door and leaned against it. Again not making any movement to touch Samantha—it sort of enraged her.

  Lucinda spoke softly, almost whispering. “I have to stay here to work out some of the details we talked about in the meeting. I was hoping I could see you later on, maybe talk about some of this stuff a little more.”

  “I think we should take a little space. The last thing I need is to fuel the fire by being seen with you right now.”

  The hurt on Lucinda’s face felt like a blow to her gut. Lucinda stepped forward, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. “Samantha, don’t.”

  She stood her ground and shook her head. “I need to think. I have to figure some things out. I’m sorry.” She squeezed Lucinda’s hand and released it, stepping back.

  Lucinda’s expression was a mix of shock and disappointment. She opened her mouth to reply but said nothing. After a few agonizing moments, she stepped away from the door, facing Samantha as she said, “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m not ready to give up on this, on us. But I can’t force you either. I love you, Samantha. I’m here to talk, when you’re ready.”

  Samantha watched Lucinda leave the room and disappear behind her office door. She ghosted out to the elevator to meet Andrew and rode down alone without any recollection of the ride itself. She just had to get through one final car ride until she could be by herself. As much as that appealed to her, she dreaded it as well. Because she knew the minute she was alone, she would start crying and not stop.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Lucinda sat on her couch, watching the video play on the screen before her. The sound was set to mute—no distractions, just the images on the screen.

  It was of one of the last taped performances of her and Dominic. She could dance those steps this very day without missing a turn or a beat if asked to. This had been one of her all-time favorite choreographed dances. There was something about the liveliness that cheered her up, usually, although tonight it didn’t lift her spirits at all.

  The meeting at Clear View three days ago had gone as well as she could have expected. They had rallied under the pressure extremely well—her team had done everything she had asked of them. What bothered her though was her interaction with Samantha. She had seemed distant, cold even. Lucinda wondered if her perceptions were fair or if her own fears of being inadequate in her leadership position clouded her judgment of the situation.

  Word from IT was inconclusive: the only person who had accessed their account digitally was Lucinda herself, the day after Connie’s wedding. And as far as they could tell, Richard had not been involved at all—or at least, they couldn’t link him to the leak. That was far from a 100 percent confirmation that the breach wasn’t from within Clear View. It was an imperfect conclusion at best.

  Lucinda realized she should probably be more upset about the whole ordeal than she was. But what was really keeping her up at night was how quickly Samantha had shut her out. It was as if at the first sign of trouble, Samantha retreated into herself. She’d pushed Lucinda away so aggressively, she felt like she had whiplash.

  Lucinda stopped the DVD and stood, walking to the kitchen to pour herself a stiff drink. She settled onto the bar stool and looked out the small window to her private backyard
. As she swirled the contents of her glass, letting the ice clink along the sides, she tried to ignore the way her heart felt stomped on. Samantha rejecting her after she had been so vulnerable, so willing to try, was just proof once more that everyone she loved left her, one way or another.

  She drained the contents of her glass and set it in the sink, to be dealt with another day. She glanced at the calendar on the wall and felt like every bone in her body was made of sand. The anniversary of Dominic’s death was tomorrow. And she realized she would spend it, like every other year since he had died, alone.

  *

  Samantha had been staring at her desk without focusing on anything in particular for the last two hours. In fact, that’s all she had done for days. She hadn’t really slept and the amount of caffeine she had been consuming to save face was making her fingers shake. She wasn’t sleeping because every time she closed her eyes she saw the slapped look on Lucinda’s face when she told her that she needed space. It had taken all her strength not to apologize and beg for forgiveness in that moment. Seeing how devastated Lucinda was might have been the most difficult thing she had ever experienced. And she had been punishing herself for it every minute since.

  She reached for her phone for the thousandth time in the past few days. Every time she loaded her contacts and hovered her thumb over Lucinda’s name, she chickened out. A part of her wanted to be angry, to hold on to that feeling of being betrayed. She wanted to assign blame; she wanted Lucinda to save her, not be the potential cause of her problems. Not that she thought that was very fair either; she shouldn’t shut her out. It was reflexive. Automatic. How easily she put her walls up and shut down. It’s like she had been sort of expecting this all along, like she had prepared an emergency plan in case things got a little too intense. And yet all she had was a whole lot of doubt. And want.

  She hated not talking to Lucinda every day. She hated being afraid to text her or call her. She hated living in fear of being in an honest relationship with someone for fear of the repercussions it could generate for her business. What good was this business if she denied herself the one thing she found for everyone else? She was a hypocrite if she turned her back on love for any reason at all. She was a coward. That’s why she chickened out when pulling up Lucinda’s name on her phone—she was a coward and she didn’t deserve what Lucinda offered her. Lucinda deserved better than her and it kept her up at night. What had she done?