Cassandra’s POV“Holy crap!”I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Had I just caught Ellie cheating? For a moment, I stood there like a stunned idiot. Then I snapped back to my senses.I wanted to get back to my car without being noticed, so I slowly turned around to skulk my way back to my car.“Cassandra?”Shit. That was Ellie’s voice. She’d seen me. I turned around. Ellie glanced at me then pushed the man away. He stumbled a few steps, then scratched his head. He cast Ellie a look that I couldn’t quite see from my position at the bottom of the stairs. Ellie held the door open for him and he slinked through.“What the hell are you doing here?” Ellie asked, turning to me, her hands on her hips. If she’d just been caught cheating, she sure wasn’t acting like it. She was acting like her normal, bitchy self.I held up the garment bag. Ellie glanced at it, then saw the Hot House Flower logo.“Oh my god,” she said, her expression changing. “Is that my dress?” Her face broke out into a smi
Cassandra’s POVI stood on Ellie’s front step and tried to make good use of my time. Since I was stuck standing there for God only knew who long, I figured I might as well take care of some business. I reviewed some recent orders on my phone. Then I called Stella to discuss our upcoming project with Jordyn.“Where are you?” Stella asked. “I hear cars in the background.” “I’m standing on Ellie’s front stoop,” I sighed. “I just delivered her dress and she’s ‘inspecting it.”“Good Lord,” Stella chuckled. “I can’t wait until this order’s done so we don’t have to deal with her anymore.”“Same. I have a feeling she’s going to keep me waiting for a while, so I thought we could go over some of our plans for the project with Jordyn? There’s just a few outstanding things we need to finalize.” “No time like the present,” Stella said happily into the phone.We discussed the details. Like always, we were completely in sync with our ideas and thought processes. It was one of the reasons our co
Cassandra’s POV “So what can we do then? To really set us apart?” Stella tapped her pencil on the table, a pensive look on her look.We’d gone over most of the details for the collaboration. Since we specialized in women’s fashion, we decided to launch a collection that had the theme of ‘female power’. We both thought it was a great idea, since that’s what we both stood for. We’d created this company from nothing and we’d hustled hard to do it. We prided ourselves on empowering other women by offering internships and career advancement opportunities to women fresh out of school. We also contributed regularly to a number of ‘female-centric’ charities and organizations.So the theme suited us and our company’s vision.But now that we’d come up with the theme, we were stuck. We needed to expand the brand's influence and reach. How though? It was a saturated space. The same ole social media posts and Instagram pics could only get us so far. Our designs had appeared in a few fashion magaz
Cassandra’s POV “What is it, Cass?” Stella asked, concerned. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”“No,” I said. “It’s just that, well, I just remembered something.”Was I sure? Was it really the same man? I hadn’t got a good look at him from the street. And he wasn’t outside for very long. What if I were mistaken?But I shook my head. No. It was him. I was positive. I’d met him several times and I knew that face, even from a distance.“You know that man I was telling you about?” I said to Stella. “The one who was kissing Ellie on her front step when I delivered her dress?”Stella nodded. “Sure. Ellie’s little side lover,” Stella teased.“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Well, you’re not going to believe this, but he’s an executive over at Sterling Silver Limited.”“What?” Stella’s eyes went wide. “Ellie’s sleeping with Jordyn’s competition? Jesus. That woman really has no morals.”My mind flashed back to a recent business event we’d all attended. It was a luncheon with a charitable slant. Busines
Jordyn’s POV Opened the door to my house.“Cassandra, I’m home,” I instinctively called out. There was no response. I realized with a frown she wasn’t there.This wasn’t the first time I’d done this. Truth be told, I called out her name every time I opened that damned door. It was a habit. The first few times had been the roughest. I’d waited for her to greet me at the door, a smile on her face. I’d become used to her taking my coat and dropping me keys into the bowl by the door. Then she’d gently kiss me on the cheek and welcome me home. I’d stood in the doorway like an idiot, waiting for her to come and greet me. Of course, she hadn’t.Because Cassandra was gone.It felt like a sucker punch to the stomach. We were officially divorced now. She’d never greet me at the door again. She’d never take my coat and ask me how my day was. I would never see my wife, no – my EX-wife – in this house again.All traces of her were gone. Her dresser drawers were empty. Her favorite coffee mug wasn’
Jordyn’s POVI reached for a napkin to wipe the wine from my chin. When I looked up, Ellie was glaring at me, her hands on her hips. I let her words sink in, not knowing what to make of them.“You don’t want to pick a wedding date?” she asked, scowling.“I…it’s just that…” I stammered.A wedding date? It was too soon. I was momentarily at a complete loss for words. I’d literally JUST divorced Cassandra. The ink had barely dried on the divorce papers. It was too soon. I wasn’t ready to jump into another marriage. Not yet.Plus, I was worried about Ellie’s mental state. Sometimes she seemed…unstable. I was worried it was going to get worse. She hadn’t been like this before the accident. Maybe the accident had tampered with her brain chemistry. I felt like she needed professional help to address her condition. I’d even started looking for a good psychiatrist. I hadn’t broached the subject with her yet, though.“Jordyn,” she said, her eyes still locked on me. “You are planning on marrying
Cassandra’s POVOur assistant burst into the meeting room, her arms piled high with bags of sandwiches for lunch. We’d been in the boardroom all morning, brainstorming ideas for our upcoming fashion line with several designers: Maggie, Lisa, and Brin. We had yet to determine the actual action plan for the clothing line, so we’d ordered in lunch to keep working.“Okay, so we know the theme: “The Power of Women,” Brin said, unwrapping a sandwich. “And we know we want something that really stands out. Something different. But what?”I unwrapped a chicken salad sandwich and bit into it thoughtfully. We were lucky to have these creative designers here with us to brainstorm. Stella and I had been stuck on this for days. No matter what we came up with, it just didn’t seem right. We had to lean into the theme and come up with something that would reflect it.“I still think we need something bold,” Lisa mused. “I’m thinking primary colors. Bright. Something that represents resilience. Because
Cassandra’s POV We reviewed the presentation details on the way to the meeting. We were feeling pretty confident. It was a great proposal. It benefited both our companies and we believed in our idea.At Jordyn’s office, a receptionist led us directly into the boardroom. Jordyn and the company’s project director were already waiting for us. My stomach did a weird flip flop when I saw Jordyn. It was weird. We’d once shared a bed and now we were just business associates.I realized it would take some time getting used to.“Ladies,” Jordyn said, nodding at us. He introduced us to the project director and then gave Stella the floor. I sat in my chair, my pencil perched above a notepad, just like an assistant would sit.Jordyn still didn’t know my real identity and I wasn’t ready to reveal it yet. So for all intents and purposes, I wasn’t Stella’s partner in this meeting. I was just her personal assistant.Stella went through the proposal. She explained our concept of a clothing line with
Cassandra’s POVI waited with breath held for Dr. Forter to tell me about Dillon. Cameron and Stella appeared behind him and came to join me.“He’s out of surgery,” the doctor said. “We were able to extract the bullet cleanly. Thankfully, it didn’t hit any major organs. He’s stable, for now. But he’s lost a lot of blood so we’re monitoring him closely.”His words were like heaven to my ears.“Stable?” I asked. “That’s good, right?”“It is,” the doctor smiled. “He’s not completely out of the woods yet, so to speak. But it looks very promising at the moment. It’s a good thing he got here when he did.”“Can I see him?” I asked. I felt an enormous weight lifting off my chest. I’d feared the worst, we all had. I’d been terrified that the doctor was going to come and tell us that Dillon hadn’t made it. But now that he was stable, my mind immediately turned to thoughts of seeing him.“You can, yes. But not quite yet. He’s still waking up from surgery.”“I want to see him too,” Cameron quipped
Cassandra’s POVWe did our best to pass the time but it felt like the clock was moving backwards. Jordyn went to get us some food, and when he came back, we couldn’t help but chuckle. He dumped an armload of vending machine crap onto the table.“What did you do?” Cameron asked, “Rob every vending machine in the hospital?”“I didn’t know what anyone wanted,” he told us, suddenly sheepish at the mass amounts of chips, chocolates, and candies he’d purchased.“Thank you,” I told him. I knew it was his way of helping. None of us knew what to do, really, as we waited there in that room. Jordyn was at least trying to feed us.Stella reached for some chips and tore open the bag.“Cassandra? What’s your poison?” Cameron asked me. I was sitting, my knees nervously bouncing up and down. “Chocolate? Gummies?”I shook my head. “I’m not hungry,” I told them. Food was the last thing on my mind. Dillon had been in surgery for over two hours now. Several other people waiting had been called away, one b
Cassandra’s POVBeep. Beep. Beep.The red line gave way to little peaks again.“We have a pulse,” one of the paramedics said.“You mean? It worked? He’s…okay?”I let out a massive sigh of relief. I watched his heart beating on the machine. His heart had stopped. He had…he had died. I stared at the machine, studying the tiny peaks, as though, at any moment, they might betray us and flatline again. “His pulse is still weak, but he’s stabilized. ETA to the hospital?” one of the paramedics asked the driver.“Three minutes,” the driver said, as the ambulance lurched to the left in a hard turn.It had worked. Dillon’s heart had stopped and they’d restarted it. If they hadn’t come when they had, if they had been even a little while longer…Dillon would have died in that room in the warehouse. Without their machine, we wouldn’t have been able to resuscitate him.“Thank you,” I whispered.“We’re just doing our jobs,” one of them smiled kindly at me. “You can hold his hand again.”I felt so muc
Cassandra’s POVThe ambulance tore off down the streets, sirens blaring. I sat on my seat beside Dillon’s stretcher. I felt like I was in the way. The paramedics went to work, trying to stabilize Dillon, they told me. He had an oxygen mask clamped over his face. His face was white as a ghost. They put a tiny thing on his finger to monitor his heartbeat.“Can I…can I hold his hand?” I asked, my face wet with tears. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hold him. I wanted to stroke his hair. But I didn’t want to get in the way of whatever they were doing. “Of course,” one of them smiled kindly at me. I took Dillon’s limp hand in mine and squeezed it. His hand was so cold it made my stomach drop. “Will he…will he be okay?” I asked.One of the paramedics looked me in the eyes.“We’re doing everything we can,” he said.I didn’t like that answer. I wanted to hear, ‘yes, of course, he’ll be just fine.’ The vague response only made me feel even more uneasy.How had we come to this? I wonde
Cassandra’s POVEverything happened so fast. It was like a blur.The paramedics rushed at us, asking me to step aside. They removed Dillon from my lap and tore open his shirt. Blood squirted from the hole in his stomach. I felt weak in my knees. I gasped and covered my mouth.They started firing questions at us.“When was he shot? How long ago? Does he have any pre-existing conditions? Any allergies? How long has he been unconscious?”Stella and I tried to answer their questions as best we could, but I was so panicked I could barely speak.“He was shot about three minutes ago?” Stella said. “He just passed out, moments before you got here. We’ve been applying pressure to the wound. He doesn’t have any allergies. He’s healthy.”“What’s his name?” one of the paramedics said.“Dillon,” Stella said.“Dillon? Can you hear me? I’m a first responder. Dillon?” the paramedic asked. Then he glanced up at the other paramedic.“Pulse is 124. He’s gone into shock. He’s lost a lot of blood. We need
Cassandra’s POV“Dillon!” The scream escaped my lips before I could stop it. Dillon hunched over, his face contorted in pain. He clutched his stomach.I couldn’t believe it! Ellie had shot him. She’d actually shot Dillon!“What have you done?” Stella hollered at Ellie. I glanced at Ellie. She was holding the gun in her shaky hand, looking as shocked as we all were.“I…oh my god…I,” Ellie stammered. I rushed to Dillon just as Jordyn charged at Ellie. Jordyn grabbed her wrist and she gave up the gun.Just then, we were sirens wailing in the distance. Finally, the police were coming. And just in time.“Call an ambulance,” Stella cried out, also rushing towards Dillon. Blood was gushing out of his stomach. His hands were covered in his own blood. He looked at me, his face growing paler by the moment. I no longer cared about Ellie. The room swam in my vision. The only thing I cared about in that moment was Dillon.“Dillon?” I asked. He stumbled and I knew he was going to collapse so I tried
Dillon’s POVThe moment we pulled up to the abandoned warehouse, a surge of adrenaline rushed through me. Ellie’s sweater was still lying in a heap on the ground where she’d carelessly tossed it aside. We glanced around, but there was nothing in sight. No other people, no other cars.“They must be inside,” Jordyn said, heading to a door. I motioned for everyone to be quiet with the tip of my finger. If Ellie was inside with the girls, I wanted us to be stealth, so as not to tip her off with our arrival. I didn’t want to give her a chance to escape.The door creaked open and we found ourselves inside a dark corridor. There were several other doors, all leading to other rooms. We walked quietly down the hall, peaking into the rooms, but there was nothing.Then, suddenly, I heard the sound of a voice. “We won’t let you do this!”“Stella,” Cameron said, recognizing the voice. We all tore off down the hall towards the voice. I was in the lead and soon enough, we came t
Cassandra’s POV“I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “If you planned it all out, then how did I end up in the right car?”“That’s what I’ve always wondered,” Ellie said, her jaw tight.I searched my mind, trying to remember that night, and slowly, the memories came back to me.Yes, I had been at the bar that night. I remembered because when I woke up the next morning to watch the news, Ellie’s car accident was the top story. Woman runs a red light. I could still see the headlines.I remembered it now because I’d thought, at the time: ‘I drove right down the same street as her accident, only ten minutes before her.’Ellie had blown right through a red light, t-boning an on-coming car and smashing into a cement wall. It was because her brakes had failed, I realized now.But as I’d sat there, watching the news story, my heart had hurt for her. Car accidents had always scared me and I hated hearing about them. The people that she’d t-boned had been okay. Ellie was not though, tha
Cassandra’s POV “Dillon!” I cried out. His face scanned the room, his eyes wild. Jordyn and Cameron both appeared behind him. “Cassandra,” he said, taking a step. But I stopped him. “Watch out. She has a gun,” I hollered. I had no idea how the men had found us. Cameron had tried to tail the black car, but it had lost him. I’d never been so relieved to see any one in my whole life though. However, my relief was short-lived. It quickly gave way to fear. “No,” I said, shaking my hand. “Get out of here. All of you!” I didn’t want them here. Ellie had a gun and she had completely lost her mind. I was terrified that seeing Jordyn, Cameron, and Dillon would set her off and she’d start firing at us. The men all whipped their heads towards Ellie. She was in the corner of the room, a shocked look on her face. “What the fuck?” she said. “How did you find us?” “That picture you sent of Stella bound t