Page 1 of Stuck Together

Chapter 1

Madison

This was my last chance. If I didn't nail this interview, I was screwed.

The job hunt had been brutal, and if I didn’t get this one, I’d have to move out of the city. But I couldn’t let myself think about my past failures right now. I needed to focus on my experience and why I was a perfect fit for this position. Besides, the owner of the company my interview was with was practically family. Surely, that would give me a leg up.

Not that I wanted any favors. But I was desperate. I waited as long as possible before accepting this interview. I’d reached the point where I didn’t have a choice. It was this, or I was finished.

I opened the car door and stepped onto the sidewalk. I took in a deep breath and the cold December air burned my chest.

I loved winter, especially December in New York City.

Cold mornings were my favorite. There was something about the harsh contrast of the freezing air as it filled my warm insides that reminded me I was alive.

And today, more than any other, I needed to feel alive.

I'd been on twelve job interviews in the last six months, and I didn't get a single one. I had even accepted interviews for positions as entry level copywriters, though my qualifications and experience were more in line with an advertising executive position. If I had to start over, I would.

But I couldn’t even get an entry level job.

Who would have thought filing a complaint with human resources against my last boss for sexual harassment would have resulted in getting fired. To make it even worse, he blacklisted me from almost every advertising firm in the city.

I thought things were different in this day and age. I thought women had earned the right to stand up for ourselves in the workplace. When my boss made me uncomfortable and insinuated that I didn't dress sexy enough or that my clothes were too bland, I thought I could fight back. He even had the nerve to tell me my attire and appearance was holding me back and that a little action behind closed doors would advance my career.

Fuck that shit.

No woman should have to put up with that.

And I sure as hell shouldn't be punished for it because I stood up for myself. But I was, and now I had reached my last resort. My savings were gone, my retirement drained, and I’d exhausted all my resources.

I had nothing left.

I didn't want to take this interview. The last thing I wanted was to rely on my grandma and her long-term friendship with Althea Anderson, founder of Althea Group, Inc., to get me a job. I wanted to get a job on my own, not because my grandma called in a favor. I was thirty-three years old and, frankly, it was embarrassing to admit I couldn't even find my own job.

Althea had been my grandma’s best friend since childhood. When I was younger, I spent a lot of time with my grandma in the Hamptons at Althea’s beach house. Every summer and Christmas for eight years, Althea’s home had been like a second home to me. She had been like a second grandmother, stepping in to help my grandma after my parent’s death.

But I hadn’t been back since I graduated high school over fifteen years ago.

I couldn’t.

Not after what happened between her grandson, Logan, and me. He broke my heart and even after all these years, I still wasn’t ready to see him again.

I had to learn to let the past go and suck it up.

Desperation makes people do the impossible.

I swore I’d never see Logan again. I’d never gone back to the Hamptons with my grandma after the last summer we spent together. I thought we were entering into a new phase of our relationship, one of love and romance, but I’d been wrong. He left for college and never spoke to me again. My grandma begged me to join her, but by that point I was eighteen and could stay on my own.

But if I got this job, I’d be forced to see him again.

He was Althea’s right hand man and when she retired, the company would become his. But at least I wouldn’t have to work with him. I was interviewing for a copywriter position that was so far beneath a senior advertising executive that there would be no reason I’d have to interact with Logan. That combined with my desperation was the reason I finally agreed to take the interview.

***

ALTHEA GROUP, INC.was on the seventeenth floor of one of the tallest buildings in Manhattan. It was one of the larger and more successful ad agencies in the city. And one I’d never considered applying for. Not because I didn’t want to work for an agency with their reputation and caliber of clients, but because seeing Logan again was a major concern of mine.

My stomach twisted into knots as I stopped outside the bank of elevators, waiting for one to arrive to take me up.