Stiletto Sisterhood Read online

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Preview of Off Script

  Dedication

  To all of my devoted readers on Wattpad:

  I hope this inspires you to always chase your dreams and to embrace your Sisterhood.

  Chapter One

  Priyanka Seth was always a girl with a plan, and arriving hungover for a life-changing interview—sans panties!—was not part of it. Jumping into the backseat of a cab already loitering at the curb, Priya slapped a hand on the Plexiglas divider. “I need to get to Sutton Place then straight back to East Fifty-Third and Park before eight.”

  The driver lifted heavy-lidded eyes from his phone screen to meet hers in the rearview mirror. “You got a pair of wings in that purse?”

  Opening her clutch, Priya frantically dug inside. “I have . . . seventy-seven dollars with your name on it if you can figure it out.” She handed over the wad of mixed bills and the cab roared like a waking panther and charged—slamming Priya into her seat with an oof. While the car tore down the street, she unlocked her phone and scrolled through her contacts for the one person who could save her in her hour of need.

  The line rang twice before Caitlin’s bleary face filled the screen, all rumpled violet hair and sleepy dark eyes. “For the love of Vogue—what!”

  “Cait! Oh thank God! Get up, get up right now. I’m on my way to your place. Meet me outside in ten minutes. It’s an emergency. A Stiletto Sisterhood Code Red Emergency.” If citing their code like a preacher would a passage from the Bible made her a touch melodramatic, so be it. Her life was on the line.

  “Wait, slow down. I can’t follow stupidity this early without coffee.” Caitlin vanished in a flash of bedding and the creak of floorboards. “Where’s the fire?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you, but I’m pulling a walk of shame to a last-minute interview, and I need to borrow a suit.”

  Caitlin’s face smushed close to the screen. “You realize there’s a height disparity between us? Like six inches? I’m good, but I’m not a wizard.”

  “No, you’re Caitlin Choi-Emerson. Fashion guru. Savant of suits.” As a self-taught stylist, Caitlin’s brand was menswear made boldly female—with lush fabrics, daring cuts, and all the accessories. “If anyone can save me from this seventh circle of hell, it’s you.”

  “Ah, flattery,” she purred. “Well played. I’ll see what I can dig up.”

  “Thank you. And Cait,” Priya added with a panicked jolt before disconnecting, “something basic, okay?”

  “Boo.” Caitlin sighed. “See you in ten.”

  As the cab sped down the Upper East Side streets, mercifully empty on a Sunday morning, Priya combed through her purse for any other clues to fill in the missing gaps of last night’s hazy memory. There was a receipt from the bar for almost three hundred—holy fuzzknuckles!—dollars, some spare change, and her lipstick cap but no lipstick. Of course it had to be her favorite discontinued shade.

  No random numbers or drunken texts appeared on her phone, and by some miracle, all social media came up clear of damaging posts, but in her gallery there was a video . . . and given the thumbnail, it was absolutely NSFW.

  Priya hugged the phone to her chest and closed her eyes with a fervent prayer before lowering the volume and hitting Play. Her voice slid out first. All heavy panting and hot gasps. The answering accompaniment of a man’s laugh was smooth and wicked as he whispered something that got swallowed up in the start of a killer orgasm and ended abruptly with a partial view of his face. Vague and blurry as her memory, but it stirred a fleeting recollection of quick hands, a hot mouth. And something about an elevator . . .

  True to her word, Caitlin stood waiting on the curb, dressed in yellow sweats, orange heels, and oversized sunglasses, a white garment bag hung over one arm.

  Priya pushed open the passenger door and Caitlin slid in, draping the garment bag between them. “As requested.”

  “I could kiss you.” Priya drew down the zipper and her joyful smile vanished with a horrified gasp. “It’s teal.”

  “And?”

  “I said basic.”

  “It’s a solid.” Caitlin dipped her chin, sunglasses sliding to the tip of her pixie nose. “No pattern. No texture. No fun. Basic.”

  “Didn’t you have anything in black?” Priya sputtered as the cab pushed back onto the street, careening toward her certain demise. “Or navy? Charcoal?”

  “What makes you think any of those exist in my wardrobe?”

  “Oh my God.”

  “It’s June, Priya, and with your complexion? This color is confident. Striking. This commands attention.”

  “Cait, this isn’t a fashion editorial spread. It’s an interview.” Head in her hands, Priya groaned. “You had one job. One!”

  “Okey dokey.” Shrugging, Caitlin reached for the zipper. “Then don’t wear it.”

  “No! Give me the pants . . . I’ll make do.”

  Caitlin removed the trousers from the garment bag and handed them over. “Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

  Kicking off her heels, Priya slipped her feet into the pant legs and delicately shimmied the trousers on, careful to keep her skirt over top. “I went to the soft opening of that new Manhattan bar everyone’s talking about. The one owned by that hot artist from Toronto.”

  “Pathos?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Bitch!” Caitlin tossed Priya a glare sharp enough to kill a man at three paces. “We were supposed to go together when they officially open next month.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sorry, but I got an invite from that guy from Stikemans I went to dinner with last week.”

  “Greg?”

  “No, Matthew.”

  “Whatever. Stop talking before I shove you out of this cab.”

  “We’ll go there for their brunch event—all-you-can-drink mimosas. My treat, okay?”

  Caitlin’s scowl softened. Marginally. “Fine.”

  “Anyway. After inhaling enough tequila to flatline a frat boy, I got an email notifying me that my Monday morning interview was being shifted to Sunday at eight.”

  “Who sends out emails after midnight? Or requests an interview on a Sunday morning?”

  “I’d call her Satan, but that somehow makes her more perfect.” Sucking in a breath, Priya grunted. “Oh no. I can’t fasten the zipper.”

  “I tried to warn you.”

  Twisting in the seat, Priya stretched out as flat as she could manage across Caitlin’s la
p, but there was nothing. Not even the barest ounce of give. “Why do these pants have no stretch?”

  “This isn’t off the rack, Priya.” Caitlin leveled a baleful glare. “Lycra is tacky, and everything I own is tailored to me, therefore I don’t need stretch.”

  Priya whimpered at the memory of her custom suit, the one that cost an obscene amount of money, pressed and waiting in her mom’s apartment clear across town. “What am I going to do?”

  “Reschedule?”

  “This is Marai Nagao. Her calendar is always packed weeks—months out, even. I can’t miss this interview.” Especially not when there was a yearlong mentorship on the table. Some of New York’s most successful lawyers and judges had been molded like raw clay by her hands. All kinds of doors blown open. “Might as well kiss my entire future good-bye.”

  Priya had already gone through three separate interview stages just to get this far. First with HR and then two more with senior partners. Nothing—nothing—was going to derail Priya from this moment. Not a brutal hangover or lost panties.

  Shucking off the trousers, Priya folded them across her lap. “This is a disaster.”

  “We can salvage this.” Caitlin spun a finger at Priya, taking in the train-wreck ensemble with a narrowed gaze. “The skirt’s vintage Valentino, yes?”

  A smile pushed at the corners of Priya’s lips. Trust Caitlin to sniff out a label. “Yes.”

  “Classic A-line. Tasteful. Not a deal breaker for an interview of this magnitude.” With a giddy wiggle of her shoulders, Caitlin plucked the jacket out of the garment bag and shoved it at her. “Put this on. It was meant to be a bit oversized, so it should fit.”

  Priya slid on the jacket—definitely a size too big—while Caitlin attacked her mane of thick black hair, twisting it up into a tight chignon, somehow taming it into submission with bobby pins and ChapStick, then added a silk scarf tied in a loose knot around Priya’s neck for a final flourish.

  “Et voilà!”

  Priya frowned despondently at the picture Caitlin snapped on her phone. “I look like a hungover stewardess for a cheap airline.”

  “Do not insult my masterpiece.” She chef-kissed her fingers. “I call it Tequila-Hoe-Chic.”

  “Hilarious.”

  “I thought so.”

  Priya removed the scarf and handed it back to Caitlin. “Less is more, right?”

  “In the words of the great Coco Chanel, absolutely. You could use a bit of mascara to brighten those bloodshot eyes, though.”

  “Fresh out.”

  “Lipstick?”

  “Lost it along with my panties, apparently.”

  “I’m sorry.” Caitlin pushed her face so close to Priya’s that she was all eyes and nose. “Repeat that for me but slower.”

  Priya hung her head. “I lost my panties in some guy’s Fifth Avenue apartment.”

  Caitlin sputtered, blinked, and then doubled over in rib-cracking hysterics. “Stop,” she cackled in a rasp that pushed well beyond laughter into out of breath. “Oh, it hurts. It hurts. I can’t!”

  Priya tucked her tongue into the pocket of her cheek. “Are you finished?”

  “Almost.” She straightened, eyes glistening with tears. “Oh wow. That’s my workout for the week. Did you at least search the place before jumping into the cab?”

  “Of course!” After tumbling ass-first out of bed when the alarm went off, Priya had hunted for her clothes like a deranged maniac, starting with the pale-pink pleated skirt by the foot of the bed and black Louboutin heels near the door with her purse on top and all her remaining cash, cards, and ID tucked inside. Everything was accounted for, except her underwear. Hot-pink lace—hard to miss and even harder to lose. Yet she had done just that.

  And now she was minutes away from sitting down in front of her literal idol, bare-assed with tequila fumes wafting from her pores like expired perfume.

  “It was a studio. Not like there were many places they could’ve gone. He—whoever I hooked up with last night—must’ve taken them.”

  “Ew.” Caitlin’s nose scrunched with a scowl. “He’s a panty thief?”

  “Apparently. But he had the decency to pay for a loaded breakfast before ghosting me while I drooled into the pillow.” Not that she’d had time for anything more than finger-brushing her teeth. She’d snatched a pancake on the way out and inhaled it in the elevator, nearly choking on the damn thing. “I don’t remember his name, and I’d barely even know what he looked like if it wasn’t for the video.”

  “Stop.” Caitlin flagged a hand like an officer halting traffic. Or a criminal. “First, you need to lay off the shots—think of the brain cells. Second, you own those pants now.” She nodded toward Priya’s lap. “Third, you have a video, and you’re only just telling me now?” Her chin lowered to match her hushed voice. “Is it good?”

  “Good enough that I wish my booze-addled brain had left the memory intact.”

  “Ah, tequila. She’s a cruel bitch to us all, yet you gotta love her style.”

  “Miss.” The driver rapped a hairy knuckle against the partition. “Your stop is up ahead. Where’d you want me to drop you?”

  “At the corner would be great.”

  “All right, skank.” Caitlin set her hands on Priya’s shoulders as the cab jerked to a halt. “Best advice I can offer you is to keep your head high and pull your shoulders back. You are Priyanka Victory fucking Seth.” She punctuated each syllable of her name with a heaving shake. “Founder of the Stiletto Sisterhood, queen of any room she walks into, a force to reckon with—goddess extraordinaire—even without undies. Shall I continue?”

  Now Priya did laugh. “No, that’s plenty. Thank you.”

  “Good. Because if anyone can turn a walk of shame into a stride of pride, it’s you.”

  Caitlin slid out of the backseat first and held the door open as Priya struggled to steer herself across the sticky fake leather, and she felt a lick of sympathy for all those scandalized socialites who’d been caught with a lens up their skirts while exiting a car.

  “Careful, Britney. Don’t want to give someone a heart attack.”

  “It’s not as easy as it looks.” Sighing, Priya smoothed down her skirt, grateful there was no tunneling wind. The last thing she needed right now was an impromptu Marilyn Monroe moment. Torn between a laugh and a groan, she hugged Caitlin tight. “I owe you for this.”

  “Slay this interview and we’ll call it even. Go get ’em, G.I. Jane. See what I did there?” She smacked a hand to Priya’s butt. “Because you’re commando.” Laughing, Caitlin jumped back into the cab, blew a kiss through the open window, and sped off.

  Head swimming, heart racing, Priya took a moment to gather herself. This was it. No turning back now. “Chin up,” she whispered. “Game face on.”

  Chapter Two

  Isobel Morgan, often the paragon of patience, cast her eyes to the ceiling and prayed for the strength not to shove her fiancé down the stairs.

  “I can’t believe you’re kicking me out of bed before dawn. Again.”

  “Baby . . .” She sighed, hands clenching and unclenching in impatient fists. “It’s nearly eight. You know he’ll be up soon.”

  “Seriously—come on, Tink, we’re engaged now. I think we can stop the charade.” At the base of the stairway, Kyle Peterson whirled around, and, even with a scowl on his face, she was struck by the beauty of him. Broad shouldered and lean, his face dominated by tempest-gray eyes, sullen full lips, and a chiseled jaw. Even brooding, he was breathtaking. Maybe more so. He could’ve easily modeled if his heart hadn’t been set on soccer.

  It was staggering to think in three short months she was going to be his wife.

  They’d met as kids at summer camp but had gone separate ways until high school. That first moment she’d seen him again, when he’d smiled at her from across the field, her heart had tumbled ri
ght out of her chest and onto the shorn grass at his feet. Every single girl in school, even the seniors, wanted him, but it was Isobel Morgan he’d asked to be his date for the fall dance, and shortly thereafter to be his girlfriend. Kyle “the Pan” Peterson—the fearless boy who flew on the field, and Isobel Morgan, his Tinker Bell.

  Because you bring magic to my life. And I bring adventure to yours.

  “It’s his house. I have to respect it.” Isobel looped her arms around his waist and wiggled Kyle back toward the doorway. Three feet. Just three more feet.

  “Which is why you should come to the condo instead.” Kyle planted himself like a tree on the threshold and arched a brow. “You are coming over tonight, yes?” Isobel held her breath. “It’s your turn, Tink.”

  Yes, it was. He’d made the effort every day for the past two months, but nights away from home made her anxious and too stressed to sleep. Even in Kyle’s arms, which was her favorite place to be, she found no solace from the nagging worry.

  Did he take his meds?

  Is he throwing up?

  In pain?

  Did he get dizzy and fall, again?

  “Tink?”

  Grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, she yanked him in for a pacifying kiss, mainly to stop the storm she saw brewing in his eyes from turning into a full-blown hurricane. “I’ll call you later. Also, don’t forget about our lunch meeting with the coordinator.”

  Kyle’s frown slid into the pout of a toddler being told he had to eat his dinner if he wanted dessert. “Do I have to?”

  “Well . . .” Isobel shuffled, barefoot. “Don’t you want to be there to see the venue?” There weren’t many locations in Toronto available for a late-summer wedding that matched her stringent, environmentally friendly perspective and vegan lifestyle with Kyle’s need for . . . style, as he put it. But the loft space in the Distillery District was perfect, and this was her last chance to get in there to see it before signing the paperwork.

  Kyle scraped a hand over his head, mussing short brown curls gilded from his recent trip to Miami with his team. “Babe . . . I’ve really got to rest up for the game tomorrow. Coach says I have to take it easy after stressing my ACL in practice.”