Chapter One

Y A N A

“I’m so sorry, Miss Allard, but I’m afraid there’s nothing much I can do,” Deborah says, glancing at her papers with a fake regretful face. “You’ve been asking for rent extensions for . . . three months?”

“Well, two months and twenty days, but of course,” I correct her. “Is there really nothing you can do? I mean, give me two weeks and I will--”

“Yana.” She stares at me sternly with her beady eyes. “That’s what you said two weeks ago.”

I open my mouth to tell her that no, that’s not actually the case, but even I can’t fool myself anymore. The truth is, my jewelry business Catori, is not taking off, and it’s been a year since I established it. I can’t afford the rent in downtown LA anymore, even if the store is right below the living space of the building.

Deborah Phipps, the owner of the establishment, is done with me. Hell, she could have thrown me out three months ago, but she didn’t. Or at least not yet.

I’m on my ninth life right here, and I don’t think anything will save me from giving it up.

I take a deep sigh, gripping the thin stack of papers in my hands. I can vaguely see the numbers at the end of the page, all the money I owe her, and I force myself not to look and find out.

“I really am sorry, Miss Allard.” Deborah starts to gather her files and slide them into her expensive briefcase. This time, she really does look pretty sorry for me. “I really do wish there was something more I can do for you, but I can only give you until the end of the month to gather all your things and leave. That’s in seven days, by the way, not fourteen.”

“Okay,” is the only thing I can say. If I dare talk more, I would cry. “Thank you.”

With that, she nods and exits my small office, closing the glass door behind her and leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I think for the first time in my life, I’m truly, utterly fucked.

I flip the papers on my desk, opening my computer to seem busy but in reality I want to disappear. It doesn’t help that moments after Deborah leaves, my best friends Lily and Jason eagerly knock on the glass door.

“Come in,” I squeak, trying to inject some happiness into my tone. But when I see their happy, excited faces, my heart just sinks.

“How did it go?” Lily asks, sitting on the chair that Deborah just vacated. “Little old Debbie looks pissed, so I assume you managed to talk her into a longer extension?”

Her tone is so hopeful that I end up blurting out, “Totally! We have . . . three weeks this time!”

Jason cackled. “Damn, Yana! I don’t know how you do it! How about we get some Taco Bell to celebrate?”

“Amazing!” I beam, but my face is frozen and my fingers are numb. I think I’m going to get a heart attack. Which honestly would be great at this point. “I’ll just go make calls!”

Both of them exchange high-fives with me before leaving, and I feel trashier than ever when the door closes again.

I lied to them. Right in their faces.

As I get out of the office to look around my little shop, I can’t help but wonder why on earth this isn’t working out. I am a design graduate. I have experience. Lily and Jason are marketing graduates with experience, and we have done everything we could to get our name on social media. We tried going with the trends, posted all sorts of silly stuff, tried to go viral a couple of times. . . .

And everything just failed.

I mean, I love my designs. I have gotten so many compliments on my work. I love that I honor my grandmother who’s from a Native American tribe Sioux. My heart is in this. I don’t plan to get rich off of it, but I did hope that I would somehow make my parents proud. Or at least not to think of me as a complete failure.

But I guess all that I could ever achieve is becoming the hot topic every Thanksgiving, and not for the right reasons.

Sighing, I sit on one of the leather couches meant for clients, then I turn on the TV plastered on the pillar just to have some noise in the background while I wallow in self-pity.

“. . . so to set the record straight: you and Olivia Lacroix are not an item?”

The loud voice of the The Early Express show host rings inside the display hall of my shop. I lower the volume, squinting to see who she’s interviewing. The camera pans over to the young man leisurely lounging on the couch, and my mood drops even lower.

It’s Mikhail Sartori, the famous CEO of Satellite Corp, a huge holding company here in California. He’s in his late twenties, handsome, savvy, and all that jazz. In his case, that also comes with an abundance of arrogance and the usual tendency to be a womanizer. Olivia Lacroix is like, what, the fifteenth model he got involved with this month?

“Not an item, Janice,” Mikhail clarifies, batting his pale gray eyes at the host. “Right now I am focusing on the expansion of Satellite Corp and providing more jobs for our hardworking people. In fact, we will be holding a--”

“What is it about Olivia that didn’t catch your ever-wavering interest?” the host Janice persists with a cheeky little wink.

Mikhail’s smiling face falters a little bit. He looks quite annoyed by the interruption, and I have to say that he does look really charming with his wavy black hair and piercing gray eyes. He could pass as a movie star for sure. There’s just something rough and intimidating about him that I can’t put my finger on, and it gets more intense when he frowns.

But of course, he quickly recovers with a grin when the audience cheers him on.

“Olivia is a beautiful, wonderful woman,” he says, and the hollering got louder. “Unfortunately, our relationship has always been and will remain professional. Like I said, I am dedicated to what my company wishes to achieve, and that is to bring more small businesses and workers to the limelight.”

“Bullshit,” I mutter, looking for the remote to turn off the TV.

The last thing I need is preaching from this upstart. What does he know about small businesses? He probably wipes his ass with hundred-dollar bills.

I’m about to turn off the TV when suddenly one of his statements catches my attention.

“. . . public conference for small business owners,” he’s saying confidently. “I will personally attend the event with my executives. We will choose from the first hundred owners who will register through the link on our official website, the top ten best business ideas and ventures. But we will do things differently this time.”

The remote almost falls from my slackened grip.

Janice beams and nods, but it’s clear she wants to go back to talking about the model. “And how will it be different, Mikhail?”

“This time, we will not be buying these small companies and taking them under our wing.” Mikhail smiles at the camera. “We will fund these businesses. We will offer our teams of experts. And from there, we will watch these owners soar. That’s what our company stands for. That’s what we aim for. Sharing our success and the support of our people--”

I don’t let him finish. I turn off the TV, toss the remote to the side, and race back into my office with my heart pounding.

This is unbelievable. This is astounding.

I can’t believe that the best possible answer to all my problems just fell on my lap like that, when all I did was turn on the TV that would be repossessed from me seven days from now.

Of course. Maybe that’s what I needed. Maybe that’s what Catori needed. A rich bastard who will lend me experts and fund my business and watch me soar.

And all I have to do is be one of the first hundred registrants.

I fire up my computer again, which has fallen asleep the entire time I was watching. As I click on the Satellite official website, my entire body starts to sweat. I scour the simplistic black and gray typeface and see the tab for the registration, and with that I get to work.

My fingers are flying across the keyboard, logging all the information they’re asking. Business type. Name of the owner. Registration number. Descriptions. My brain is in overdrive, spouting all the answers as fast as my hands could go. When I reach the submit button, I hold my breath, praying to all the gods that I got here first, that I actually have a chance to make something out of my life. . . .

“Congratulations! You are successfully registered for Satellite’s first open conference. The details have been sent to your e-mail. Please confirm attendance.”