Page 8 of Loathing My Boss
Lucky me. I can squeeze a nap in after the pie charts.
Cheerfully optimistic, I grab my laptop, sit down, and open Canva.
?
Dinner with Viktor—lunch with Crimson, my twin, who is actually not related to me at all.
But no one needs to know that.
They only need to know that she is myidenticaltwin, best friend, and the mate to my soul.
And they need toignorethe fact she’s a giant with long red hair that always falls in perfect, floating waves, deep brown eyes thatarecanonically flecked with gold, and a perfect seductive hourglass figure that has her weight distributed in all the right places, leaving her looking more like Athena and less like…a pear.
Which is what I look like, in case that wasn’t obvious.
I am a frumpy pear. She’s a goddess.
While she’s elegance, beauty, and grace, I’m extremely likely to fall on my face.
And—yet—we areidenticaltwins, and neither of us will tolerate anything but that acknowledgement.
Planting her long fingers on the small table, Crimson stretches over our teapots and sandwiches to stabilize a waitress’s tray before it can go tumbling over top of me, sear my flesh with three hot pots of tea, and embed floral shards of glass in my skin.
“Gracious,” Crimson murmurs, rising to assure the woman’s tray is steady and I am safe.
The waitress sputters, “I’m so, so sorry, Miss Nightingale!”
“Just be careful.”
“I will! I will, promise. Won’t happen again.”
It will.Ipromise that. So long as I come here again, it will happen again, and my shining husband Crimson will save me again, so I may sit—in awe—of her perfection.
Slipping back into her seat as the woman rushes off, Crimson hums, plucking her teacup and taking a dainty sip while she reclines. Gold-flecked eyes find me. “Where were we, Cris?”
“I don’t know whereyouwere. I was busy basking in your glory, seated in a devastating trance, beholding the wonders of your flawlessness.” Perching my elbows on the table—and effectively flipping a fork across the restaurant—I rest my chin in my hands, grin, and stare. “Angel.”
Crimson’s attention tracks the clatter of the fork with dull amusement. “I certainly hope the government never weaponizes you.”
“That would be detrimental to their well-being, I’m sure.”
“Indeed.”
A fresh fork appears beside me, and the waiter who delivers it literallybowsto Crimson as he backs away.
I mean.
As he should, obviously.
Crimson is the heiress of the Nightingale family, which means she’s a part of money older than the most ancient wines. Her family connections tie in with both mafias and governments—probably. Maybe just businesses. Butbigbusinesses. The businesses beneath her father’s jurisdiction bring inmillions. And, she lives here, in Sunset, the perfecttown curated by Viktor himself to be gorgeous without fault.
Now that the old regime has passed and I’m involved in the upkeep of our lovely hometown, it is glorious and safe by Canva Whiteboard design—as all things should be. Therefore, by design, Crimson is royalty that falls into a similar vein as the Bachelor brothers themselves.
The mere peasants who were granted access to the lush homes, regal countrysides, and quaint business roads know their place around her.
As such a peasant, I never would have discovered my long-lost twin if some guy with a coffee hadn’t fallen into me in front of her about a year ago—producing the miraculous feat of having one hundred percent of that coffee land on me, and zero percent splash onto her.
Even though she was wearing an elegant white sundress. And it would have been so simple for the universe to send a drop in her direction. If it didn’t hate me.
