Page 12 of Daddy Knows Best

Sir Reginald curled against my feet, purring his approval or possibly just appreciating the warmth. Either way, I'd take it.

"Six more days," I whispered into the darkness.

Theemaildetonatedat2:47 PM on a Tuesday that had, until that moment, been boringly successful.

"Where the FUCK is our campaign?"

No greeting. Just six words that made my monitor swim and my carefully maintained balance feel like a joke.

Harrison Kline of Kline Automotive didn't do pleasantries on a good day. On a bad day—which this apparently was—he did career destruction.

I scrolled down, hands already shaking. The campaign he was screaming about? The one I'd scheduled last Friday, checked twice, confirmed with screenshots?

Nowhere.

Not delayed. Not misfired. Just . . . gone. Like it had never existed.

"Emily?" My manager Deb materialized beside my desk with that expression that meant someone important was upset. "Harrison Kline is on line one. He sounds—"

"Apocalyptic?"

"I was going to say 'concerned,' but sure, apocalyptic works."

Forty-five minutes later, I stumbled out of the conference room with my ears ringing and my professional confidence in tatters. Turned out the scheduling platform had glitched. Not my fault, technically. But try explaining "technically" to a client who'd just lost a full day of promotion for his President's Day sale.

"Take a walk," Deb suggested, which was manager-speak for "disappear before you cry in front of the interns."

I grabbed my purse, that responsible envelope tucked inside like a security blanket, and fled.

North Point's Riverwalk stretched out before me, all February sunshine and couples sharing coffee. I walked without direction, just moving to outrun the sound of Harrison's voice questioning my competence, my intelligence, my right to exist in the marketing space. My phone buzzed with follow-up emails I couldn't face.

That's when I saw it. Wick & Whim, nestled between a yoga studio and a shop that sold seventeen-dollar greeting cards. The window display featured candles arranged like a garden, all soft pastels and cream-colored wax in vessels that belonged in a museum.

Just smell some testers, my brain whispered. Scent therapy. Basically self-care.

The door chimed with expensive subtlety as I entered. The assault began immediately—lavender mixing with sandalwood, vanilla threading through cedar, rose petals drowning in bourbon. A symphony designed to bypass logic and mainline straight to the pleasure centers of the brain.

"Welcome to Wick & Whim!" A sales associate appeared like a eucalyptus-scented fairy. "Our signature collection is thirty percent off today only!"

I should have run. Should have remembered Dr. Whitlow's voice talking about trigger recognition. Should have thought about my envelope with its carefully guarded cash.

Instead, I picked up a tester labeled Midnight in Havana.

One sniff and I was gone. Not in Havana—better. In a world where I didn't fuck up client campaigns, where Harrison Kline didn't exist, where I was the kind of woman who burned expensive candles while reading Proust in a velvet robe.

"That's from our Wanderlust collection," the fairy informed me. "It pairs beautifully with our Capri Dreams."

She placed another candle in my hands. Then another. Soon I was cradling possibilities: Library at Dusk, Greenhouse Morning, Santal Haze. Each one a perfect life I could buy for just . . .

"Five for sixty dollars?" I heard myself ask. "The flash sale?"

"Today only! And they're usually twenty-four each, so you're basically saving sixty dollars."

Saving.

The word lit up my brain like a Vegas marquee.

Saving was responsible.

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