Chapter 4
By July, Arthur Beauty Global had fully entered what employees referred to as Launch Season, which was less a timeframe and more a psychological condition. The Second Shift campaign swallowed the office whole. Every surface was covered in mockups, influencer schedules, and urgent sticky notes that said things like “DO NOT LET HER WEAR ORANGE” and “SOMEONE FIND THE PANDA HEAD???” There were meetings about meetings. There were panicked calls about lighting. There was an incident involving a fog machine that triggered the building’s sprinklers and made a senior manager scream, “WE ARE NOT A NIGHTCLUB!”
James’s job became keeping influencers emotionally stable, which was like trying to keep cats from unionizing. He learned that one creator would only film if her boyfriend wasn’t in the room because his “energy made her pores close.” Another demanded a specific brand of coconut water because “my throat deserves luxury.” James handled it all with the gentle confidence of a man who had mastered the art of saying yes while doing whatever he wanted.
But Noah—Noah complicated him.
Noah worked in editorial at a digital magazine and had the audacity to be charming without trying. He texted good morning like it meant something. He asked questions James couldn’t dodge with flirting. He laughed at James’s jokes, but he also waited for the truth behind them.
They went on three dates. Or what James insisted were “hangouts with potential.” They walked through Central Park while sweat glued their shirts to their spines. They ate slices of pizza on a curb in the West Village while a woman yelled at a dog for having “a manipulative aura.” They kissed once outside a bodega at midnight, the city humming around them like it approved.
The kiss was sweet and easy.
Which, for James, was terrifying.
“You okay?” Noah asked after, thumb brushing James’s cheek like it belonged there.
James smiled too quickly. “Perfect.”
Noah studied him. “That wasn’t a perfect smile.”
James kissed him again to avoid answering, because James had always been good at turning vulnerability into performance.
Meanwhile Jenna was having her own problem: Luis Reyes was irritatingly respectful.
He kept appearing at product meetings with calm suggestions that improved her ideas without stealing them. He started leaving her tiny notes on swatch samples, like “This undertone makes it look expensive” and “You were right about ‘Make Him Regret It.’” Jenna hated that it made her stomach flip. Jenna hated stomach flips. Stomach flips were what happened before you got hurt.
One afternoon during a brutal heat wave, Jenna stormed into the lab to confront him about the latest formula change.
“You adjusted it,” she accused, pointing at the sample tube like it was a weapon. “You changed my finish.”
Luis looked up from his workstation, unbothered. “I stabilized it.”
“I didn’t ask you to stabilize it.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said, and there was something in his voice—gentle, certain—that made Jenna furious for reasons she refused to investigate.
Jenna leaned over the table. “Do you always do what you think is best?”
Luis met her eyes. “Only when I’m sure.”
Jenna scoffed. “That’s arrogant.”
Luis shrugged slightly. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Jenna repeated, offended by his lack of offense.
Luis smiled—small, warm. “You like arguing with me.”
Jenna opened her mouth, closed it, and then did the only thing that preserved her dignity: she grabbed the tube, spun on her heel, and said, “I like winning.”
Luis called after her, “You’ll win eventually.”
Jenna’s ears burned all the way back to her desk.
Melissa, however, was living in the strangest romantic subplot of all: the slow, dizzying possibility that Andre Arthur had noticed she was a person.
She hadn’t replied to the text at first. She stared at it for an entire workday, her brain cycling through outcomes like a roulette wheel: fired, promoted, blackmailed, married. She showed Jenna, who encouraged chaos. She showed James, who pretended not to care too hard.
Finally, at 11:43 p.m.—because Melissa couldn’t ignore the data irony—she replied: Coffee is fine. When?
The response came instantly.
Tomorrow. 7 a.m. My office. —Andre
Jenna screamed when Melissa told her. James went pale in a way that looked like annoyance disguised as concern.
“His office?” James said. “At seven in the morning?”
Melissa clutched her notebook like a shield. “Maybe he just wants to talk about the campaign.”
Jenna cackled. “At seven. In his office. Alone. Girl, he wants to talk about you.”
Melissa didn’t sleep. She tried. But her mind kept replaying Andre’s smile from pitch day, his voice, the way he had said dangerous like it was a promise. She showed up at 6:55 a.m. wearing a dress she hoped said “competent” and not “I have feelings and a mortgage dream.” She arrived with a coffee in hand like an offering.
Andre’s office looked like a magazine spread: sleek desk, minimalist art, a view of the city that made Melissa feel like she was trespassing in someone else’s life. Andre himself was already there, sleeves rolled up, no tie, hair slightly less perfect than usual—like he wanted to appear human.
“Melissa,” he said, smiling. “You’re early.”
“Habit,” she managed, because the truth—panic—felt too embarrassing.
Andre gestured to the sitting area. “Sit. Coffee?”
“I brought—” Melissa began.
Andre waved it off with a laugh. “You are always prepared. That’s why I wanted to see you.”
Her heart dropped into her shoes. “Oh. About work.”
Andre’s gaze softened. “Always about work,” he said, and it was the kind of line that sounded like flirting even if he didn’t intend it. He leaned forward slightly. “Your models. The way you’re thinking— it’s not intern work. It’s… rare.”
Melissa’s throat tightened. Compliments from professors were nice. Compliments from friends were sweet. Compliments from Andre Arthur felt like being spotlighted without warning.
“I just… like patterns,” Melissa said.
Andre nodded. “I like people who see patterns.”
He paused, then added, quietly, “And I like people who aren’t afraid to tell me what I don’t want to hear.”
Melissa blinked. “I—am afraid. I just do it anyway.”
Andre laughed, genuinely. The sound startled her.
For a few minutes, it did feel like work. They talked about cadence and conversion and the way audiences responded to vulnerability. Andre was sharp—sharper than his public persona suggested. He asked questions that made Melissa think harder, faster. She found herself relaxing. Smiling. Forgetting that she was alone with a billionaire influencer in a room with a door that closed.
Then Andre’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it and his expression changed, slight but unmistakable. He stood, walked to his desk, and turned his screen away as he typed something fast. When he came back, the charm was still there, but tension threaded underneath it like wire.
“Everything okay?” Melissa asked, because she couldn’t help it.
Andre’s smile returned, but it looked practiced. “Always,” he said.
Melissa didn’t believe him.
She left his office at 7:38 a.m. with her mind spinning and her heart doing something deeply inconvenient. In the hallway she bumped into Simone Vance, who stepped aside with perfect grace.
“Good morning,” Simone said, voice smooth as expensive fabric.
“Good morning,” Melissa echoed.
Simone looked her up and down, subtle as a scalpel. “He likes you.”
Melissa’s stomach dropped again. “What?”
Simone smiled faintly. “It’s… obvious.”
Then she walked away, heels clicking like punctuation.
Melissa returned to the intern corner trembling. Jenna pounced instantly.
“HOW WAS IT?” Jenna stage-whispered as if the office weren’t full of ears.
Melissa sat down slowly. “He thinks my work is rare.”
James, pretending to check his email, said, “That’s true.”
Jenna leaned in. “Did he flirt?”
Melissa’s cheeks burned. “I don’t know.”
Jenna looked triumphant. “That means yes.”
James’s fingers tightened on his mouse. He forced a laugh. “Melissa, be careful. People like Andre don’t do things accidentally.”
Melissa stared at him. “Why do you sound mad?”
James blinked—caught—and his expression flickered, like someone had yanked his mask for half a second. “I’m not mad,” he said quickly. “I’m… protective.”
Jenna raised an eyebrow. “Since when are you protective?”
James’s smile snapped back into place. “Since I care about my friends.”
Melissa’s gaze lingered on him, thoughtful. She could feel a new pattern forming, and patterns didn’t appear without cause.
The launch party for Second Shift was scheduled for the end of July, a waterfront event in Dumbo with a guest list that looked like a social media algorithm had written it. Everyone was on edge. Everyone was sweating through their makeup. Everyone was pretending it was fun.
On the morning of the party, Andre called an emergency meeting.
They crowded into the glass conference room. Andre stood by the table, jaw tight. Simone stood behind him like a shadow with perfect posture.
“We have a problem,” Andre said, voice calm but sharpened.
James’s stomach dropped. Jenna muttered, “Of course we do.”
Andre clicked a remote. A photo appeared on the screen: a blurry shot of Andre entering his building late at night, taken from across the street. Next slide: a close-up of an envelope with a gold wax seal. Next slide: a screenshot of a message that read simply: I know what you did.
The room fell silent in a way that felt dangerous.
Melissa’s mouth went dry.
Jenna whispered, “What the hell?”
James looked at Andre, and for the first time since starting the internship, he didn’t see a god.
He saw a man who was scared.
Andre turned back to them. His gaze swept the room and landed briefly on their intern trio, lingering like he was deciding something.
“We proceed tonight,” Andre said. “No mistakes. No leaks. No drama.”
Jenna couldn’t help herself. “Andre, that message— what did you do?”
Simone’s head snapped toward Jenna, eyes flashing warning.
Andre stared at Jenna for a long moment, then smiled—a small, cold curve. “If you want to survive here,” he said softly, “you learn which questions keep you alive.”
The air grew heavier. Summer outside the windows looked bright and indifferent.
When the meeting ended, the interns walked back to their desks in stunned silence.
Melissa finally whispered, “I don’t like this.”
Jenna’s voice came out low. “I love chaos, but not this kind.”
James glanced toward Andre’s office door, closed tight. His phone buzzed again. He looked at the screen, and this time his face didn’t just twitch.
It hardened.
Jenna saw it. “James,” she said slowly. “Who is texting you like that?”
James swallowed. “No one.”
Melissa watched his hands. Watched the way his thumb hovered like it wanted to type something it shouldn’t.
Outside, the city baked under the heat wave. Inside, something colder moved through Arthur Beauty Global—quiet, deliberate, waiting.
And the worst part was: they still had a party to throw.
