“Maybe that’s my problem?”
Sage flicked her tail.
“Maybe I need to forget about work for a change and do something completely different.” Standing, I moved toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and looked upon New York below. Twinkling lights, cars, and pedestrians appeared and disappeared beneath streetlights like different bugs—some large, some small—but all of them moving with purpose.
What would it be like to be down there with them? To wear jeans (gasp) and eat food from a street vendor (oh, no)? To be on my own, rather than watched by a driver and bodyguard.
Don’t I deserve to know what else is out there before I give up everything?
Today, I’d turned nineteen.
I was old enough to have sex but not old enough to drink. I was old enough to run a billion-dollar company but not old enough to wander alone in a city promising such adventure.
My fingers flew to my neck, clutching the beautiful sapphire star necklace my father had presented me with this morning. We’d both been pressed for time but he’d sent the cook away, and together, we’d whisked up buttermilk batter and created a mismatch of blueberry pancakes before he gave me my gift.
It’d been a wonderful morning, and I’d treasured his company, the pancakes, and my necklace, but I couldn’t help feeling like something was missing.
Mom was missing, of course.
But something else.
Someone else...a friend on two legs instead of four.
After an hour together, Dad and I had headed to work and lost ourselves in the cogs of such a demanding mistress.
I didn’t know if he was still in his office working late, just like he would never know if I snuck out and pretended to be a girl from a different life for the night.
Wait...what?
The idea came out of nowhere. The betrayal and willingness to sneak behind my father’s back was a horrid, terrible concept. Yet...so enticingly exciting.
You could do it...just for one night.
Do what?
The five points of the sapphire star bit into my fingers as I glanced at the congested street below again.
Be one of them.
Do what they do.
Go where they go.
Be free.
My heart bashed my ribs as the idea slowly manifested into potential.
Tomorrow was yet another day belonging to Belle Elle. But tonight? Tonight was my nineteenth birthday, and I’d yet to give myself a gift.
Could I do it?
Could I be brave enough to leave my world and everything I knew in order to sample what I could never have?
Could I seek something I didn’t know how to find?
Sage wrapped herself around my ankle, head butting me with approval. Or at least, I’d take it as approval because suddenly, I couldn’t imagine not doing it.
The prison gates I’d lived behind all my life creaked with rust and whined with disapproval, slowly hinging wide. I had a few short hours before the clock struck twelve and the enchantment of my birthday would vanish.
It’s now or never.
Tonight, I would give into my urges and taste freedom for the first time.
And tomorrow, I would stop these childish regrets and fully embrace my crown as the Belle Elle empress.
Chapter Three
MY FIRST STOP was the shop floor of Belle Elle.
Being our flagship location, the merchandise section took up multiple levels of the skyscraper. We sold everything from top-of-the-line technology to baby toys and everything in-between, and I knew every nook and cranny. I’d spent the majority of my life helping design displays and solving stock issues.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I wasn’t there on business.
Taking the elevator down from the offices, I swiped my keycard and entered my passcode to prevent the alarms going off. The store had shut to the public an hour ago, and the hushed world of cotton and silk welcomed me.
I clipped in red high heels past pantsuits and high-fashion attire straight to the teenagers department. Ever since I’d signed Dad’s Last Will and Testament—and even before that—I’d dressed like a woman. I’d never dressed in a garment with a popular quote or profanity like the kids at my school. I’d never worn anything valued at less than four hundred dollars.
That was about to change.
Browsing the racks of diamante encrusted jeans and off-the-shoulder tops, I found myself critiquing the display and position of the mannequins rather than shopping for an outfit.
Stop it.
You’re a customer right now, not the boss.
Forcing myself to exhale and loosen my shoulders from stress, I stopped beside a table with discounted denim. I grasped the pair neatly folded on top and shook it. The baby-blue washed jeans had a skinny leg and silver embroidery on the pockets.
I did my best not to recall the cost of bulk buying these from Taiwan. How I’d placed the order at the start of last year to be out for this season. How, even on sale, we were still making money because that was how businesses worked. Price high and then slowly discount until no more remained in stock, our margins slowly narrowing but still profitable.
Ugh, stop it.
You’re not an heiress tonight. You’re just Elle. A nineteen-year-old about to break all the rules and go out.
What would my driver, David, say when I didn’t call him in a few hours to take me home? What would Dad say if I had so much fun tonight and I didn’t return home until daybreak?
Does it matter?
You have to do this for yourself.
You’re an adult.
Clutching those thoughts, I stole the pair of jeans, pilfered an off-the-shoulder cream and black top from the rack beside it, scooped up a black lace scarf from the new arrival podium, and traded the clothing department for the shoe emporium.