Page 6 of One Last Shot

“You belong in front of the camera,” Emily says, shaking her head. “A face and a body like yours? They deserve to be seen.”

“And they are. But only by the people I choose to see them.” Since leaving New York, I’ve built myself a small army of supporters—friends who are like family, employees who would protect and defend me at any cost. However, that small security blanket will get ripped off when I report to LA in a month. But I can’t tell her that because the show I’ll be hosting won’t be announced until we’re well into filming, and according to my contract, I can’t tell anyone about it other than immediate family. In other words, I can’t tellanyone.

After the waiter delivers our drinks and takes our lunch order, Emily holds up her glass. “Well, here’s to you building a new life you love.”

I raise my glass to her toast, even though it’s odd to hear her refer to this as my “new life.” I only modeled for a couple years, then left to do event planning here in New York. After visiting my friend Jackson in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival, I started looking into the event planning market there and recognized a good business opportunity when I saw one. I moved there four years ago to start my own company and have never looked back. It wasn’t the first time I’d reinvented myself, and it won’t be the last.

“And to you,” I tell her. “For sticking with the thing you love, and being even more successful at thirty than you were in your twenties!”

Emily blushes, her cheeks pinking just the perfect amount. “Sometimes it still doesn’t feel real. I thought I’d be irrelevant by now. A suburban housewife looking back on the glory days, you know?”

I laugh. “No. I’ve never even pictured myself married, much less as a suburban housewife.” I tilt my glass to hers. “Here’s to not letting men define us.”

She tilts her glass toward mine before we both take a sip of our drinks, but her lips pull down at the sides.

“What is that look?”

“Hmm?” she asks, looking up at me as if she’s not really seeing me.

“Why do you look sad?”

“How could I be sad, Petra? I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”

I pause and take in her expertly highlighted brown hair; the big brown eyes, thickly arched eyebrows, long lashes, and the high cheekbones that have made her face perfect for modeling; the elegant column of her neck and the slope of her slim shoulders. “What’s missing?” I ask.

The quick intake of breath flares her nostrils—the only indication that I’ve hit on something she doesn’t want to talk about. She doesn’t reply.

“I’m here if you want to talk, okay?” I tell her.

“Everything is fine.” She shrugs and gives me a small smile. “But thank you.”

I wonder what she’s not telling me, but then I think of all the things I haven’t told her about. This woman I lived with for years when I first moved here, someone who was like a sister to me, is almost a stranger now. And that’s mostly my fault.

“I’m here for at least a few more days,” I tell her. “One lunch is not going to be enough time for us to catch up. What other plans are we making?”

Her face lights up, and I realize she’s missed me more than she’s let me know. And given that I’ve always prioritized my friendships with my girlfriends over everything else, I wonder how I let her down so badly—and what I can do to make it up to her.

* * *

“I’m Petra Volkova,” I tell the receptionist as I step up to the desk in the lobby of the lawyer’s office. “I’m here to see Tom Shepherd.”

“Oh, yes,” the receptionist says. She stands at the wooden desk she shares with the two other receptionists. I glance behind her whereCallahan, MacDonald, Reardon & Shepherdis written across the frosted glass wall in gold lettering. “Mr. Shepherd is expecting you. Follow me.”

She waits for me to step up next to her before she turns and leads me around the glass wall that separates the reception area and the rest of the office. I tower above her as we walk down the aisle between desks. My goal with high-profile clients is to give off the vibe of professional power, and nothing makes me feel more powerful than a well-fitted dress and sky high heels.

Leaning toward me with a conspiratorial grin, she tells me, “I’m probably not supposed to say this, but I’ve just been temping here, so whatever,” she waves her hand in the air like she’s brushing away the stigma around whatever it is she’s about to say. “All the girls in the office are in quite a tizzy today. We always are whenhecomes in. We’ve all been dying to see who he and Mr. Shepherd are meeting with.”

This type of inane chatter is exactly why I could never work in an office. And though I’m still not sure whoheis, I’m guessing that whoever Tom Shepherd called me here to meet is extraordinary in his own right.

“I can’t say that I see what the big deal is,” I shrug, feigning nonchalance while hoping she tells me who I’m meeting with.

She gasps. “Okay, maybe you’re not a hockey fan, but you’reclearlya woman. You can’t possibly be immune to a guy that looks like he does.”

I’m sure my face conveys exactly how unimpressed I am. I know next to nothing about US hockey and care about it even less. I’ve never loved the sport, and Sasha ruined it for me like he ruined so many other things.

“Hockey players don’t impress me,” I tell her as we come to the end of the rows of desks that sit outside the offices lining the wide hallway we just traversed. In front of us is a wall of glass windows looking out over Midtown Manhattan. “There’s something very—” I pause as I search for the word. “—brutal about the sport ... and the men who play it.”

I’ve actively avoided hockey for the past fourteen years so it’s not like, even if she’d told me his name, I’d have ever heard of this mystery man.

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