Page 1 of Be With Me
CHAPTER1
MIA
My best friend’s engagement party was today, and I wasn’t invited.
I only found out because of a baffling text that landed on my phone about five minutes ago. I’d managed to read it three times before it vanished—deleted by sender.
Clearly, Fabi hadn’t meant to send it to me.
If I hadn’t been glued to my screen, trying to reschedule a fitting with one of my personal styling clients, I would’ve missed it. Instead, the words were imprinted in my memory, as if written in permanent ink.
“How close are you? Cosimo just got here for our pre-engagement party photoshoot, and I already want to shoot myself. Emotional support required. BTW, when you type the address into the app, it might take you to the wrong place. Here’s the pin with the exact location.”
I’m sorry, what? An engagement party?
Fabi hadn’t even told me shewasengaged.
“You ready?” Jenny asked, her voice barely cutting through the crowd chantingMorales for mayor! Morales for mayor!
“Uh-huh.” My palm was clammy around the phone as I zoomed in on the pin.
It was in Scarsdale. Wasn't that where Fabi’s brother lived? The drive from here to there would take a half hour. I was scheduled to stay until the end of Dad’s rally, but there was no way. As soon as I wrapped up my speech, I was out of here. Fabi and I needed to talk. Face-to-face.
“You look a bit flushed,” Jenny said.
“I’m fine,” I lied, pretending my mind wasn’t whirring at an alarming speed as I tried to process that text and what it implied. Fabi and I were best friends. Why would she hide the fact that she got engaged fromme?
Engaged to Cosimo. Her mysterious long-distance boyfriend. Just weeks after first mentioning him, Fabi had dropped a bomb. She was quitting her dream job at the UN in Geneva and moving back to New York to be closer to him. A man she’d only just met. A man she’d barely told me a word about.
Like any good friend, I’d asked questions. Lots of them. I’d wanted to make sure she’d really thought this huge decision through.
Nice one, Mia. You probably came off as unsupportive. Maybe you’d offended her.
I rolled my lips together. Did I? Was that it?
It had been three weeks since she returned to New York, and we still hadn’t seen each other even though we’d always dreamed of living in the same city again.
There’d been plenty of excuses—we were both insanely busy. Her with settling back in, and me with the never-ending demands of the campaign.
But what if she was just avoiding me?
Crap.
Heat crept up the back of my neck. This was a nightmare. I hated upsetting people. Especially those closest to me.
“If you elect me as the mayor of this great city, I promise to dismantle the organized crime families that have plagued our community for far too long.” My dad’s voice boomed over the speakers, so loud I could feel it vibrating inside my chest.
I glanced up at the stage and exhaled. It was almost my turn. I didn’t want to get up there right now—I rarely did—but skipping my speech wasn’t an option. Jenny was already going to scold me when I asked to leave early. She was one of my dad’s assistants. As my de facto boss, she controlled my calendar.
Dad slammed his hands against the podium. “The lawless mobsters and their cronies will be put behind bars.”
“Get them off our streets!” someone shouted from amongst the crowd.
“We will make New York a safer place for our children. That is my promise to you, and I am a man of my word.”
My dad was a powerful orator. He knew how to hold his audience captive, how to win them over with his rhetoric and his charisma.
Me? Not so much. I preferred to stay in the background. To let other people shine.
