Love the One You're With(9)
But why Emma before Grace? Adding insult to injury, nobody else in the room seemed to think this was strange. Even Riley and Julie didn’t seem fazed by the fact that Grace was apparently freaking invisible.
Oddly, only Emma seemed aware that something was off, and her eyes flicked to Grace as though asking permission. Grace wanted to give her a reassuring smile. To tell Emma to go ahead and take the story because it wasn’t Grace’s thing. She gravitated toward stories that were less edgy, less ballsy …
Less interesting.
At least Grace 1.0 gravitated toward stories like that.
Grace 2.0 was screaming that this was their chance to redeem themselves. To expose men as philandering frauds while slowly rebuilding their dignity.
“I’ll do it!” Grace blurted out, her hand shooting in the air like a precocious second grader rushing to beat her classmates to the answer.
Twenty pairs of eyes fell on her.
“Grace …,” Camille said, her voice gentle.
Oh shit. If their take-no-prisoners, half-batshit-crazy boss was going soft, it was worse than she thought.
“You just got back from vacation,” Camille said. “Give yourself a little breather to get back into the swing of things.”
But Grace 2.0 was strapping on battle armor, so Grace forged ahead. “Look, you need someone to go with an open mind into a dating scenario, right? Who better than someone who’s freshly back on the dating scene?”
“But we need—”
Grace held up a finger to stop the objections. “And who better to see through a man’s bullshit than someone who just got thrown over by a man? Nobody will be more watchful of a guy’s BS than me.”
“She has a point.”
Grace was a little startled to realize it was Emma who had spoken, but the new columnist looked completely unperturbed by the fact that Grace was trying to steal a prime story from right under her nose.
“Look,” Emma said in her husky voice. “Office water-cooler gossip has made it obvious that Grace is coming out of a nasty relationship. If this is truly a competition—and if Stiletto wants to prove that women read men far better than they read us—then we’ll need someone who has a burning desire to get it right.”
Grace didn’t know why Emma was taking her side, but Emma made an excellent point. Grace did have a burning desire to get it right.
She felt Camille studying her, her boss’s auburn bob barely moving as she tilted her head to the side.
“Okay,” Camille said simply.
Okay? Okay? That was it?
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Julie and Riley give her victorious smiles.
Camille changed the subject to some rant about organic skin care, and Grace sat back in her chair, feeling the best she’d felt in weeks.
Grace 1.0 was biting her nails nervously, and Grace 2.0 was doing victory push-ups.
Operation Reclaim Dignity was officially on track.
And Mr. Oxford better watch his back, because Grace Brighton was fully committed to exposing whatever smarmy, womanizing tricks he had up his sleeve.
* * *
“Cheers to Greg,” Riley said, lifting her cocktail to be clinked.
Julie choked on her martini. “You’re not suggesting we toast to the guy who cheated on Grace?”
“Actually, I think Riley’s on to something,” Grace said thoughtfully. “Had Greg not been a philandering jerk, I would be at home right now, watching whatever he wanted to watch, eating whatever he wanted to eat, after which I’d be putting away his laundry. So yeah … Cheers to Greg.”
They clinked glasses, and she felt Julie study her carefully. “You’ve come a long way. Just a few weeks ago you were alternating between causing a Manhattan Kleenex shortage and developing a strange obsession with chocolate.”
Grace took a sip of her drink to avoid mentioning that she still had that new obsession with chocolate. She’d always liked chocolate. But after the breakup, it had become her ultimate comfort food. Hot chocolate, chocolate fudge, chocolate ice cream, chocolate chips …
If only her hips liked chocolate half as well as her taste buds.
Don’t, 2.0 warned. That’s Greg and old Grace getting into your head. Grace 2.0 rocks her curves.
Riley nodded. “You do seem marvelously well adapted. Did you get some healing rebound tail in Florida?”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Yes, Riley. I got some healing rebound tail. That’s what restored my mental and emotional stability.”
Riley snapped her fingers and pointed at Grace. “There’s that dry sarcasm. I knew it. You are back.”
Grace considered. “Well, I’m not going to claim that there aren’t a few battle wounds. And I can’t say that I don’t still wake up in the middle of the night reaching for someone who’s not there, purely out of habit. But … I’m sort of done, you know? Sure, Greg screwed me over. But that’s also sort of what makes him not worth my time.”