Midnight At Tiffany's by Sarah Morgan

CHAPTER ONE
    “C HAMPAGNE?”
    Matilda circulated carefully among the glamorous crowd, trying to keep her eyes off the glittering view of the Manhattan skyline and concentrate on keeping the tray steady. The last thing she needed was another catastrophic spill. She’d already had one warning from her boss and even though, technically, her last disaster hadn’t been her fault she knew another accident would get her fired. Her brief was to be invisible, and she considered herself perfectly qualified for the job.
    In a world where extroverts were celebrated, she was an introvert. She’d spent most of her life blending into the background. First in the playground, where she’d hidden away in books written by other people, and then at college, when she’d hidden in the books she’d written herself. Lost in her own fictional world, she became each and every one of her heroines and endowed them with qualities she herself coveted, namely courage, communication skills and coordination.
    Her current creation was Lara Striker, small-town girl finally returning home and trying to live down her badgirl reputation.
    Matilda stared through the crowd, her mind absorbed.
    What would it be like to have a reputation as a bad girl? How would it feel to live a life of daring and adventure, fullof wild affairs, and travel to far-off places? To walk into a room and know that people were nudging each other and whispering in awed tones “that’s
her
.”
    “Matilda?! Matilda!”
    Matilda blinked and returned to the real world.
    There was only one person who used that caustic tone when addressing her. Her boss.
Her nemesis.
    Cynthia, Director of Events.
    She gripped the tray a little tighter.
    Over Cynthia’s shoulder she saw her colleague Eva pull a face and make the shape of a shark’s fin with her hands. It cheered Matilda up.
    As always, Cynthia was wearing her corporate smile; the one she wore for every event along with her Star Events uniform. It sat there like an accessory, never reaching her eyes.
    This, Matilda thought, was her reality. The closest she came to being a bad girl was thinking very,
very
bad thoughts about her boss.
    “You’re staring into space,” Cynthia hissed between her teeth. “You’re here to work, not to gaze.”
    Lara Striker would have punched Cynthia right in the middle of that fake smile and added another crime to her already impressive list.
    Matilda simply nodded.
    In fiction, characters could punch their bosses and get away with it.
    In real life, you lost your job, and then you were dining on Cup-a-Soup seven nights a week instead of four. That was a fact of life, and at least this job allowed her to write.
    Her colleague Eva was mouthing something behind Cynthia’s back. Matilda couldn’t make out what she was saying, but it made her feel better to know she wasn’t alone.
    Apart from Cynthia, she worked with a great team of people, which was another reason she didn’t want to punch her boss. Working with Frankie, Eva and their team leader, Paige, was the most fun she’d had in her working life. She didn’t want to spoil that. When Cynthia was out of the office, they had fun. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she fitted. Not with the company, but with the group of women who were her colleagues.
And friends,
she reminded herself. As someone who was cautious with strangers and didn’t make friends easily, those friends were more precious than any of the jewelry on display tonight.
    “I realize there are celebrities here,” Cynthia managed to speak without disturbing the smile, “but you need to look through them. I don’t employ you to stand there gaping like a goldfish.”
    Lara Striker would know exactly where to put a goldfish.
    Matilda bobbed her head again. Experience had taught her to agree to everything. The best way to stay employed was to fly under Cynthia’s radar. She liked to think of herself as a stealth plane, traveling through life undetected. Of course, she