THE STARS IN HER EYES

CHAPTER 1

THE INTERVIEW

JOANNA

OKAY. YOU CAN DO THIS. You can totally do this. It's going to be an interview, just like all the others, okay? You've nothing to worry about. Just keep your shit together, and you'll get through and actually have a chance at this job.

As I walked down the street to the building where my latest interview was taking place, I felt that rush of panic consume me once more and tried my best to calm it down before it got the better of me. I needed to play it cool.

I knew I had been way too enthusiastic in my last few interviews over the past couple of weeks. I thought it would be a good thing to come out swinging with such enthusiasm, but I had swiftly discovered that no company seemed to want to hire someone who was almost down on their knees begging for a chance at a job.

Which was why I was going into this next interview totally calm. As calm as they came. If there was a calmer person in this city right now, I would like to meet them. Mainly so I could ask for tips on how not to freak out right now. Ugh. Why couldn't I ever keep myself together when things got tough?

I came to a halt outside the building that was my destination, and I lifted my gaze to look up at the place that stood before me. Tall. Lots of floors. That was a good sign, right? Floors meant upward mobility, and upward mobility meant that I had a chance to work my way up. I didn't care if I had to start at the bottom if there was a hope in hell of me ever getting to the top.

Not stopping to let myself get distracted, I pushed the door open and tried to stride over to the reception area with some confidence. I wasn't sure I was selling it. I certainly didn't feel like I was.

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, even as I tried to soothe myself. I needed a job, something that told me I wasn't a total waste of space. My heart couldn't take another rejection, and my thighs couldn't take any more of the commiseration sundaes Violet made for me every time I got turned down.

"Hello," I said to the woman behind the desk, my voice sounding way squeakier than it ever had before. "I-I'm Joanna I'm here for the-"

"For the interview." A voice caught my attention, and I glanced around to see a woman striding toward me. She looked to be in her sixties, with a short coif of no-nonsense grey hair and bright grey eyes that seemed to pierce straight through me. My heart twisted in my chest. This must be the woman I was interviewing with.

"Yes, that's right," I replied with a smile.

She extended her hand to me. "Melanie," she said and jerked her head beyond the desk. "Come with me, will you? I want to get started on this so we can get to know each other."

"Sure," I replied, and I realized she was still holding her hand out to me expectantly. I took it.

"And I'm Joanna," I blurted out quickly as I shook her hand with a little too much enthusiasm. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," she replied, and she led me to a room beyond the reception desk which must have been her office. She opened the door and ushered me inside, and I hoped that I hadn't already done something to make a fool of myself.

I took a seat at the desk in the middle of the room, and she planted herself down on the other side of it, clasped her hands in front of her, and just eyed me for a moment as though she was trying to get a read on me.

I shifted back and forth on the spot, not sure how to react or if I was even remotely comfortable with this.

"Thank you for inviting me to the interview," I finally managed to say, figuring that it was up to me to break the silence one way or another.

She nodded, pressed her fingers together, and finally began to speak. "So, can I ask about your relevant work experience?"

I blinked. What position was I interviewing for again? I had thrown in so many applications that I had forgotten the specifics of this one, even though I had checked the messages before I left. Shit. Well, I would just have to give her everything and hope that it would be enough to save my ass.

"I worked at an art gallery," I said finally. "A couple of years ago. That was the longest I ever worked in one place. I helped organize exhibitions there and contacted new artists and stuff, uh, so I would say I have good communication skills, and if you ever need someone to put together a staff party, I definitely know what I'm doing there and-"

"And why did you leave that job?"

The panic had started to get the better of me, and I bit my lip. There was a thrumming need at the back of my head to just tell her the truth, even though I knew she probably didn't want to hear a word of this.

"My boyfriend got me the job," I confessed. "My boyfriend at the time, I mean. His family owned the gallery. Then it came out that they were involved in some shady stuff, and the business was investigated as part of that, eventually shut down, and-"

I caught my breath."And I lost my job," I finished up finally. She didn't need to hear all of it. She had just asked for work experience, not for my whole damn life story. I really didn't enjoy reopening or even thinking about that period of my life. There was one word for it. Darkness. That was what I felt.

CHAPTER 2

THE WAIT

JOANNA

I could feel her questioning gaze on me. "And the boyfriend," I said, hoping to clear the air. I tried not to think about Jarrod when I could avoid it, but sometimes, he just got stuck in the back of my head, and I had to force myself to remember that he had nothing to do with the way I lived my life now.

"And since then?" she asked. "Where have you been working?"

"Mostly short-term jobs," I said. "I did some work as a waitress a few months ago, just for a couple of weeks. Then I was a temp at an office for a little bit, so I know how all of this stuff works-"

I gestured around myself, knowing that I must be coming off as a complete amateur but hoping that my honesty would set me up for something at least. I knew that it would be difficult for her to look at me and take me at all seriously, given all that I had just told her, but I had to try.

Trying was all the last couple of years had been for me honestly. Just trying, pushing, and hoping that something was going to change if I just kept my head down and kept working, even when it felt like everything was going to come falling apart at the seams all over again.

"But nothing long term since your work at the art gallery?" she asked.

I shook my head. "And it's not around anymore, so I can't even give you a reference. I'm so sorry."

"That's all right," she replied, and she seemed to mean it. Most of the time, when I ran down these aspects of my past, the interviewer would hit me with one of those hard stares that would let me know that I was already out of the picture for what they were looking for. And that just broke something in me no matter how hard I try to ignore it.

But she seemed sweet. Not totally dismissive at least. I couldn't help but feel a little awkward when I thought about the way I had just spilled my whole life story to her, but I didn't want anything to come up later that might cost me the job. Honesty up front. That was the policy, right?

And to my surprise, this woman carried on the interview like none of my patchy past seemed to matter at all. She chatted to me warmly about the company, about everything they did, and I listened and tried to respond with the right stuff as best I could.

I liked her actually and was surprised by that. She was the first woman who had conducted one of the interviews I'd been on over the last couple of weeks, and I was sure that had something to do with it.

Maybe she saw some version of herself in me. Maybe she had been screwed over by an asshole ex at some point in her past and felt a little sympathy for what I had been through with mine. Whatever it was, she seemed to take to me pretty well, and I found myself enjoying the conversation, relaxing a little, and managing to get in a few jokes to demonstrate my sense of humor.

Maybe she was the head of HR or something. Yes, that would make sense. The questions she was asking seemed to imply that the job was something close to simple. She asked about my communication skills, my comfort with technology, stuff like that. So maybe I would be helping run a mail room? Working at reception?

Nothing I couldn't handle. That was what mattered, of course. After all this time looking for a job, I couldn't help but dread the thought of having to head back out there on to the market to try my luck a little further. Job hunting, I had discovered, was about as fun as dating had turned out to be. Though at least I wasn't relying on the men I went to dinner with to pay my rent as well.

"Thanks for coming in today," she told me once the interview had drawn to a natural close.

I glanced at the clock on the wall above her and was surprised when I saw that nearly a half hour had passed. Normally, I was counting down the minutes of these things with total dread, ready and waiting to get out so I didn't have to worry about wearing these scratchy stockings or ill-fitting shoes a moment longer. But this woman had made me forget all about that for a change, and I was more grateful for that than she could know.

"No, thank you for meeting with me," I replied at once, and I extended my hand to her this time, taking the initiative.

She took it and smiled at me. "You'll be hearing from us soon," she promised. "Have a safe journey home, all right?"

"Thank you," I gushed. "Thank you so much. If you need anything..."

"We'll be in touch," she replied.

I nodded and pressed my lips together before I came out with anything else that would make me look like even more of an overenthusiastic fool than what I had just said.

She walked me to the door, we said our farewells, and by the time I stepped out onto the street, I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I couldn't believe it. I had actually done it. Not just gotten through the interview but actually done well at it. I didn't know how long I would have to wait to hear just how well I had done, but at least I was walking out of there feeling a hell of a lot lighter than I had on the way in. That had to count for something, right?I hope I was able to breath by the time the inevitable rejection letter came through. Most likely due to my past run in with the criminals I worked with.

CHAPTER 3

FIRST SIGHT

ZAC

"I'M JUST NOT SURE THAT I understand how this is going to move forward," Callum, my Scottish contact, remarked to me over the video call we were on.

"Take a look at the outlines I sent you," I replied. "That covers everything you need to know. And if you have any questions, you know you can always come to me, of course."

"Of course," Callum said, and I heard him shuffling papers off-screen.

The two of us had arranged this call earlier in the week so he could go over the details of the new expansion plan I was laying out to work with his tourism firm in Scotland. He could be a little skittish, and this was basically a chance for me to remind him that this was what he had asked for from me and that I wasn't going to let his nerves get the better of him.

"But do you really think we can do this?" he asked, and he looked down the camera lens at me, his nervous brown eyes flicking this way and that as though he was trying to parse just how serious I was with all of this.

"I can show you the success I've had in France, Germany, Italy, and Ireland if you'd like," I replied patiently. "But I'm sure you're pretty well acquainted with that yourself, am I right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have agreed to this in the first place."

Callum grinned. I knew that I had managed to say the right thing. With guys like him, it was just a matter of finding the right button to press and then you could get what you'd been after.

"You're right," he conceded. "Can I call you back later? Once I've had a chance to go over all of this?"

"Of course," I replied. "Speak to you soon, Callum."

He ended the call, and I was suddenly standing in that meeting room all by myself in total silence. But not for long as I suddenly remembered that I had agreed to have lunch with my mom. She would likely be waiting for me downstairs already, and if I was late, I would never hear the end of it.

I grabbed my coat and headed down toward the reception area where I knew that she would be waiting. And sure enough, she was there-but she wasn't alone.

There was a woman with her, a woman I'd never seen before. Mom was chatting with her as she headed over to the door, and the woman seemed animated as she talked back. She had a long rush of red hair that fell to her shoulders and bright green eyes that seemed to glow against her milky-white skin. She was dressed in what looked like a suit, though I couldn't make out if it was one of the kind that I saw around here a lot.

Did she work here? I was pretty sure I would have remembered someone like that working here. That was for sure.

As soon as the door closed behind this mystery woman, Mom turned and laid eyes on me. With a big smile on her face, she made her way across the reception area and gave me a big hug.

"Zac," she said happily. "So good to see you. Did your meeting go well?"

"Yeah, it did," I replied, and I nodded toward the door. "And yours?"

"What are you talking about?" Mom asked, and she shot a look over to the spot I had just seen her with the woman. "Oh, that girl? She's just a-uh, the daughter of a friend of mine."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked as I slipped into my jacket.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because there isn't a single one of your daughter's friends that you haven't tried to set me up with over the last couple of years, but I've never seen that woman in my life."

"You're too much of a cynic," she remarked cheerfully as we headed for the door.

"And you're too much of a liar," I responded. "Why did you meet her here? Is there something I should know?"

"Because interviewing for your personal assistant position shouldn't happen outside the office," she replied.

I sighed heavily as we headed out onto the street together. "I thought I'd made myself clear. There is no personal assistant position to interview for. We talked about this, remember?"

"Yeah, and we also talked about how you're going to lose your mind if you don't take a break every now and then," she pointed out.

"That's not a call you get to make," I said, trying to protest, but I knew as soon as I said it that she wasn't going to hear a word that came out of my mouth.

"I'm your mother. I'm the only one who gets to make that call." She looped her arm through mine protectively. "So, where are we going for lunch today?"

I sighed, and we headed down to the taco place I knew she liked, not far from the office building. She would never suggest it herself because it was pretty pricey, but she always seemed to forget I could actually afford to pay for fancy places for her these days.

She never liked to ask anything of me. Sometimes, I would have preferred she ask a little more before she just went headfirst into my life and tried to prove that she had control over everything she wanted control over.

By the time we were seated at our table with a spread of delicious food in front of us, I figured it was as good a time as any to remind her that I didn't need her meddling in my personal or professional life any longer.

"You know, you really should call that girl who was in today and let her know there isn't really a personal assistant position open," I said as she took her first bite of her taco. My mom doesn't understand I don't need any assistance, I could handle everything on my own just fine.