2: 2
On his way out, Mr. Larkin shot me a look, his face black with anger.
"Bailey, I want an explanation from you. Otherwise, there are plenty of other people who'd be glad to take over this project."
I bit back the urge to expose Joy's little act right there, because I knew there was no point in tearing off her mask now.
The next morning I spent hours going through the security footage before I finally caught it: at one point that USB drive had been switched out by one of the girls in Joy's little circle.
She'd bundled herself up so carefully I almost missed it. If it hadn't been for the agate bracelet on her wrist, the one she'd spent so long showing off the day before, I never would have caught her on camera.
But even if I put the truth out there now, the worst that would happen was that one of Joy's people got punished, and Joy herself would slip away clean.
So I decided to wait for my moment.
That evening, as luck would have it, Joy and I ended up waiting by the lobby doors at the same time.
When she saw me, her face went stiff for an instant, then she said to me, a little coy about it,
"What a coincidence. It's raining out there. Here, borrow my umbrella, Bailey. My boyfriend's almost here."
I was about to tell her not to bother, that my brother had gone back to the garage for the car and would be pulling around any second.
But before I could get a word out, a familiar figure came into view.
It was the ex-boyfriend I'd broken up with before I went abroad to study.
Laurence Joyce. The moment I saw him, memories I'd sealed away came drifting up like water rising.
He'd been an upperclassman at the college I attended back home; we met freshman year and started dating soon after.
For all the time we were together, he was generous with the emotional stuff and never once actually helped me with anything.
If anything, he used my connections in college to land the position of student council president.
Back then I was as clean and naive about love as a blank sheet of paper. A few sweet words off his lips were enough to win me over.
It wasn't until he was about to graduate that I found out he had another woman on the side.
He'd only stayed with me because I was the so-called "campus queen," the girl everyone chased.
That made him, the "campus king," want to win me, to claim the prize.
Once he graduated, I had no value to him anymore.
That was my "first love." A relationship so ridiculous it was almost funny.
Laurence seemed to notice me too, glancing over a few extra times without placing my face.
"Ahem, Bailey, let me introduce you. This is my boyfriend, Laurence Joyce. Laurie, this is Bailey, a coworker who just started at the company today."
At the sound of my name, Laurence looked like something had suddenly come back to him. His face changed, and without so much as a glance my way he grabbed Joy and bolted out into the rain, umbrella still folded.
I figured he'd recognized me.
It made sense he hadn't at first. After all these years, I was nothing like the girl I used to be.
So let me take a guess. A man like Laurence, always chasing advantage and steering clear of anything that isn't, was surely with Joy because of her supposed tie to the Farley family.
I really hadn't expected that Laurence's current girlfriend would, by some twist of fate, turn out to be my coworker.
"Little Bailey, why aren't you answering, standing there all this time? Aren't you cold? Get in the car, it's warm."
A cool, pleasant voice cut through my thoughts, and my brother Nolan Farley, whom I hadn't seen in so long, was suddenly there in front of me.
Inside, the car was clean and warm, the faint good smell of expensive men's cologne drifting through it now and then.
But I was in no mood to enjoy it. Thinking back on my first day of work, shut out by my coworkers, and then this so-called heiress who'd stolen my identity showing up on top of it all.
All at once it got to me, and I poured out every bit of it to him, the whole bucket of grievances.
