I Logged In As The CEO's Mother And Crushed His Favorite Girl novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Matriarch Card
Jocelyn watches her best friend sent into a thunderstorm with a fever, forces her way into the novel as the CEO's mother, and finds Holly face down in the mud.
The last thing Holly said before she went into the book was a promise.
She thumped her chest with her fist.
"A promotion and a raise? Easy. Give me a year. I'll come back with three hundred million and take you around the world."
Then she lay down on her bed in our apartment in Dayton, and her eyes went flat, and she was gone.
Her body kept breathing.
Mine kept going to work.
For three months I sat in a cubicle at an insurance call center with a headset on, saying, "I'm sorry, that isn't covered."
On my breaks I watched Holly on my phone.
The system had made me her observer, whatever that meant.
It meant I could open a little window and see her life inside the novel.
It was a billionaire romance.
Holly was the fiancee of Chase Pembroke, CEO of Pembroke Group, eighty billion dollars of glass towers in Chicago.
She was supposed to win.
She was losing.
Chase had an assistant named Brielle Cates.
Blonde. Sweet voice. A latte in her hand at all times.
Brielle moved Holly's meetings and didn't tell her.
Brielle "lost" Holly's reports and handed Chase her own.
Brielle laughed at Holly's shoes in the elevator, and Chase laughed too.
On a Thursday in April I opened the window on my lunch break and almost dropped my phone.
Holly was at her desk with her face the color of paper.
The little corner of the screen showed her vitals.
103 degrees.
Brielle stood over her with a hard hat held out on one finger.
"Riverbend needs a site walk today," she said. "Chase wants your eyes on it. Your project, right?"
Outside the window behind them the sky over the river was black.
"It's storming," Holly said. Her voice cracked. "The crews pulled out an hour ago."
"Then you'll have it to yourself." Brielle smiled. "Unless you want me to tell him you said no."
Holly took the hard hat.
I watched her walk to the elevator with one hand on the wall.
I took off my headset and walked out of the call center.
In the parking lot, in the rain, I said it out loud.
"Send me in."
The system answered in a flat voice inside my head.
"Observers do not enter."
"Then make an exception, or I'll pull her out myself."
"You cannot."
"Watch me." I opened the window again and put my thumb on the red button marked ABORT MISSION. "She loses everything. You lose your player."
The voice fell silent for a moment.
Then three cards hung in the air in front of my windshield, glowing.
THE FIRST LOVE. Chase's sweet ex from college. Weak heart.
THE CFO. Forty-four. Respected. Takes orders from the board.
The third card was gold.
THE MATRIARCH. Mrs. Pembroke, 60. Widow of the founder. Controlling shareholder. Chairs the board.
"That one carries a rule," the voice said. "You may not tell the player who you are until the threat to her life is cleared. If you tell her, you are removed, and she continues alone."
I didn't even look at the other two.
"Gold one."
The parking lot went white.
When I could see again, I was sitting in the back of a black car outside a tower on Wacker Drive.
My hands were old.
Silver rings. Thin skin. Short red nails.
A silver-handled cane leaned against my knee.
The driver turned around. "Mrs. Pembroke? We're here."
I got out without waiting for him to open the door.
The lobby was white marble, with a security desk the size of a boat.
The second I walked in, the whole floor stopped.
A man in a gray suit actually bowed.
"Mrs. Pembroke. Good afternoon."
Then another. Then a woman with a tablet. Then everyone.
I didn't answer any of them.
I took the private elevator to the top floor and walked straight to the CEO's office.
Brielle came out from behind her desk so fast her heels skidded.
"Mrs. Pembroke!" Her voice was pure sugar. "You should have called. I'd have set up a proper reception for you."
"Where's Holly?"
Something moved behind her eyes.
"Ms. Merritt? She's inspecting the Riverbend site."
Rain was hitting the glass behind her so hard it sounded like gravel.
"Go get her."
Brielle's smile stayed exactly where it was.
"With respect, Mrs. Pembroke, Chase assigned that site walk himself. I really shouldn't override him."
Three assistants at the next desks had stopped typing.
I leaned on my cane and looked at her.
"I've been married into this family for thirty-five years," I said. "In all that time, nobody ever told me I had to stand in the rain to earn my place here."
Her cheeks went pink.
"So who are you," I said, "an assistant, to make that rule for my son's future wife?"
Nobody in the room breathed.
Brielle picked up her phone. "I'll call Chase."
"Call whoever you like."
I was already walking back to the elevator.
"Riverbend," I told the driver. "Fast."
He didn't argue.
The site was half a mile of mud on the South Branch of the river.
The gate was open and swinging.
There were no trucks. No crew. Only rain coming down sideways and a single white sedan parked crooked by the fence.
Holly's car.
The driver's door hung open and the seat was soaked.
I got out into the storm in my good shoes.
"Holly!"
The wind took my voice away.
I followed a line of small boot prints across the mud toward a row of orange barriers.
Past them the ground dropped into a foundation pit full of brown water.
Someone was lying at the edge of it.
Face down. Hard hat gone. Auburn hair spread in the mud.
One arm hanging over the side, fingers trailing in the water.
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