“Our client list. I’m going to need you to manually enter it into Excel.” She frowned at Aster’s blank stare. “You do know how to use Excel, right?”
“Of course she does,” the IT guy said quickly. Aster whipped around and stared at him. She’d never actually used Excel, but she knew better than to admit that now.
Elizabeth marched back into the hall. “Don’t go into my office when I’m not there. And don’t ever call me. IMs only, got it?”
Aster blinked. “Pardon?”
Elizabeth sighed. “Mitch, please explain to the heiress how a computer works.” Then she eyed Aster ominously. “Girls like you always get what’s coming to them in the end,” she added before turning on her heel. Aster winced at the sound of her door slamming down the hall.
“Wow. She just went all evil Disney villainess on you.” Mitch, the IT guy, turned and faced Aster. He had brown eyes, blondish hair, and a cute bump on the end of his nose. Unlike everyone else at Saybrook’s, he wore Vans sneakers and no tie.
“Wait, I know you!” Aster cried. “I met you at last year’s Christmas party, didn’t I?” The company Christmas party was usually boring, but Aster remembered that last year she’d flirted with a cute geek. This cute geek.
“Good memory.” Mitch’s eyes lit up. “Welcome to the company. And”—he paused to cough into his fist—“I’m sorry about your cousin. She was well liked around here.”
“Did you know her?”
“A little.” Mitch shrugged. “She was nice to me. Some people brush off tech guys.” He cocked his head, shifted his gaze, and pointed dramatically at the door to Elizabeth’s office.
Aster riffled through the papers on the edge of her desk. The stack was thicker than a phone book. “Do I do this before I get her coffee, or after?”
“Definitely get the coffee first. That inputting will take days.” Mitch stepped closer. “Excel is a spreadsheet program, by the way. It’s not hard to figure out. I can help, if you want.”
“Thanks,” Aster said, trying to smile. But she felt tears at the corner of her eyes. She was so out of her element.
“Hey.” Mitch sidled closer. He smelled like laundry detergent and lemon. “You’ll be fine. Seriously, I can help with anything technical. I’m pretty good with this stuff,” he added shyly.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Aster took a deep breath and turned toward the hall. “Okay, I’m off to get the coffee.”
“Good luck,” Mitch called out behind her. Aster sighed. She had a feeling she’d need it.
HALF AN HOUR and a coffee spill later, Aster raced back into the Saybrook’s building and up to the ninth floor. There wasn’t a bakery at Greenwich and Harrison, but Aster had found one at Greenwich and King that seemed cute. Hopefully it was the one Elizabeth had meant.
She knocked on Elizabeth’s office door and, when no one answered, tentatively pushed it open. The office was empty. She quickly set the latte and muffin down on the desk and was turning to go when an image on Elizabeth’s bookshelf caught her eye. It was a framed photo of Elizabeth in a wedding dress—which seemed odd, since Aster could have sworn she hadn’t been wearing a ring earlier.
She stepped forward to examine the photo more closely. Elizabeth looked much younger, her skin smooth and her eyes unlined. Next to her was the groom, a tall man with slicked-back dark hair, an impish smile, and broad shoulders.
Aster’s blood turned to ice. She knew that man. It was Steven Barnett.
This was why Elizabeth seemed familiar. Aster had always known Steven was married, to someone named Betsy . . . which was, of course, a nickname for Elizabeth. Elizabeth—Betsy—had surely been at the end-of-year party five years ago too. The one where he had died. The one where he was last seen alone on the beach with Aster.
“Ahem. What did I say about coming into my office when I’m not here?”
Elizabeth stood behind Aster in the doorway, glaring. Aster quickly took a step back. “Um, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, and turned awkwardly on her heel, but not before she saw Elizabeth’s eyes flit to the wedding photo.
As she raced down the hall, she swore she heard Elizabeth chuckle ever so softly behind her.
10
After work a few days later, Corinne sat on the Louis XIV settee in the living room of her Upper East Side apartment. The settee was a period piece with intricate carvings on the arms and legs and brand-new camel-hair upholstery, but it wasn’t entirely comfortable. It came from Dixon’s great-grandmother, who had been French nobility and whom the family called grand-mère. Plenty of the other chairs and sofas in the large room were from the Saybrook side, along with a treasure trove of Tiffany lamps, botanical etchings, a Monet watercolor, and a vast collection of valuable porcelain and glass. Dixon wanted a picture of his family’s Texas ranch in the room too, but Corinne’s decorator, Yves, had insisted that the painting would ruin the room’s nineteenth-century ambience.