Chapter 4 - THE MORNING AFTERThe inside of Miles’s truck smelled faintly of gasoline, old leather, and peppermint gum. It was the exact opposite of my parents’ immaculate, sterile living room, and I had never felt more at home.
We drove in silence for nearly twenty miles before the city skyline of Hartford appeared on the horizon, glowing under the late afternoon sun.
"So," Miles said, glancing sideways at me with a slight, crooked smile. "Is this the part where you tell me you're actually a deep-cover corporate spy?"
I let out a breath that felt like a laugh and a sob all at once. I leaned my head back against the worn headrest.
"I think the only thing I'm a spy for is professional exhaustion," I murmured, closing my eyes. "Miles... seriously. Who are you? Like, actually?"
"You heard my name," he said, keeping his eyes on the road.
"Right. Miles Sterling. As in Sterling Corporation. The multi-billion-dollar global logistics and infrastructure conglomerate that owns half the commercial real estate on the East Coast."
"That's the one."
"And you... what, you just hang out in downtown coffee shops waiting for clumsy strangers to ruin your shirt?"
Miles chuckled, a deep, resonant sound. "I was actually meeting one of our regional directors at a cafe down the street. He was late, I was early, and you were having a very stressful phone call."
I felt my cheeks warm up. "You heard that?"
"Word for word. Something about your mother telling you that you were humiliating the family by being single." He shook his head slightly. "Seemed like you needed an upgrade in the boyfriend department. Figured I could pull a shift."
"A shift," I repeated, dryly. "Is that what you call casually detonating my sister's fake corporate career and terrifying my father with an SEC audit?"
"Hey, she asked what I did for a living," Miles said defensively, though his eyes were twinkling with amusement. "I handle operational problems. Sometimes those problems are broken transmissions. Sometimes they're broken corporate ethics."
He pulled the truck off the highway, navigating toward my modest, independent apartment building on the quieter side of the city—the apartment my family had always dismissed as a temporary holding cell before I finally "settled down."
When he pulled up to the curb and put the truck in park, the engine hummed softly before dying down.
For a moment, neither of us moved. The reality of what had just happened began to settle into the quiet space between us. My family dynamic was shattered. The annual barbecue was ruined. My sister’s lies were exposed.
May you like
And yet, for the first time in thirty years, I felt entirely weightless.
Miles turned in his seat, resting his arm across the back of the bench. "So, Serena. Now that you're officially the most dangerous disappointment in your family history... what's the plan?"
