Page 1 of Top Shelf

Chapter one

Heidi

“Drive like you’re about to get laid, Kevin! Do it for the plot! Do it for your endorphins—hell, do it for your pelvic floor. Just please, for the love of everything holy, move your ass!”

I lean over my steering wheel with a groan as the car’s brake lights flare for the eleventy billionth time in half a block. Its plate starts with KVN, which makes him Kevin.

And Kevin isn’t the only person pissing me off this morning.

It’s 7:52 a.m., and my morning has already reached a point where I’m naming vehicles men’s names, and voluntarily listening to a guy called Randy, who’s being interviewed on the radio about relationships.

Randy, based on the five minutes I’ve been trapped with him between traffic reports and Kevin’s aversion to green lights, lives with a woman who likely has the cortisol levels of a hostage. He believes “acts of service” means letting her know when he’s run out of clean socks.

“Leave him, Brittany!” I shout at my dashboard, flicking my blinker on to change lanes. “Take the dog, and leave that toddler-man to build yourself a better life!”

Out of the corner of my eye, my folder slides slowly across the seat, and I glance at the time on the dash again even though I know exactly what it says. I know because I checked it twelve seconds ago, and thirty-seven seconds before that, and also while stopped at the previous red light.

I’m just over seven minutes late. Technically, though, I’m only four minutes late if we’re operating on Heidi Time. Unfortunately, Dr. Moreno does not operate on Heidi Time. Dr. Moreno operates on Dr. Moreno Time, which is precise and world-class-orthopedic-sports-surgeon approved.

The folder on the passenger seat slides again, this time toward the floor as I take a hard right, and my hand shoots out to catch it before months of business planning and cost breakdowns can scatter beneath my pedals and murder me in the final minutes before my own funding pitch.

“Stay,” I hiss at it, braking for another red. “We are professional and organized today.”

I smooth a palm over the front of my hot pink zip-up at the next stop, and find a splash of coffee I spilled on myself ten minutes ago while attempting to drink and merge at the same time. Damnit.

The light turns green, and I inhale deeply. I’m just over three blocks away. I can recover this. I can walk into this meeting composed, and Keith Moreno will look at me over the top of his reading glasses and make a decision on whether to invest in my studio. And maybe whether to order me a psych exam.

But Carina Park, my best friend and colleague, will be there too—and Carina has seen me survive worse. She’s a kick-ass orthopedic surgeon, and Moreno’s golden child, so her opinion matters.

I edge forward again, and that’s when a silver SUV shoots out from a side street on my right.

There’s a useless second where my brain tries to rearrange the world into something that makes sense amongst the flash of chrome and the startled oval of the driver’s mouth. My own hand slams the horn too late, and the impact smacks right through my morning.

My seatbelt locks and my folder flies to the floor, followed by my empty coffee cup. The car jerks sideways, I hear bumper crunching against bumper, and then everything stops. For half a breath, there is only the tick of angry, hot metal and my pulse hammering in my ears.

“Okay,” I whisper, hands white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Brilliant. Love this for me. Big fan.”

My body starts checking itself before the rest of me can catch up. There’s no immediate pain beyond the rush of adrenaline and the sharp bite of the seatbelt across my collarbone. The airbag didn’t deploy, and there’s no glass or blood. The world outside my windshield is tilted a little wrong, but not catastrophically. Probably expensively. And definitely inconveniently.

The silver SUV is at a weird angle across the lane, its front corner crumpled against my passenger side, and as I crane to look out the window, I realize my right wheel tilts at a weird angle, telling me everything I need to know. I’ll need a tow truck.

Fuck.

I grab my phone and my folder, then climb out into the Denver morning wearing head-to-toe hot pink athletic wear, complete with a coffee stain on my sleeve.

The driver of the SUV gets out at the same time. He’s wearing a white button-down shirt and sunglasses, which look expensive, and his hair is arranged with the kind of confidence only a man who has never once been told to smile can carry.

He looks at the damage to my car, then his eyes flick to me and down to my clothing. To my pink leggings, my white socks and trainers, my messy ponytail. Then they travel to the folder clutched against my chest with one arm while my other hand shakes hard enough around my phone that I tuck it behind my back.

“Well,” he says, letting the word stretch. “You came outta nowhere.”

I frown. “Uh, I was on the road.”

“You were moving fast.”

“I was doing twenty-two in a thirty.”

His eyebrows lift over his sunglasses. “You know that for sure?”