According to one of my business school professors, internships are supposedly like planting strawberries. You nestle the seeds in the ground, diligently water the sprouts, welcome the sunshine, then eventually, enjoy the delicious, ripe fruit that bursts with flavor.

"It's like love," she'd say. "Cultivate, nurture, then reap the benefits."

Now, I know nothing about love, and I'm only starting to be a halfway decent gardener. But this is my third internship, so I'm pretty knowledgeable in that department.

In reality, internships are like potatoes. After cultivating the plant, you dig into the earth, get messy, and eventually find a dirty, lumpy vegetable. Then you have to put in more time, and more work, before it turns into something edible. And even then, you might burn the spud to an inedible crisp while frying it in boiling oil.

My thoughts drift to french fries and my stomach growls, a Pavlovian response to my hunger. I shove aside a company brochure, check my phone, sigh. It's close to seven, and I should be home. Instead, I'm glued to my uncomfortable gray office chair on the third floor of the Jenkins Corporation office in downtown Atlanta, staring at a stack of files on my desk.

For a second, I rest my head on my forearms in the hushed office, trying to will away the hunger and, yeah, the boredom. The sooner I finish proofreading these memos, the sooner I can get home.

Thanks, Josephine, I mutter. Way to pile on in the last week of my internship. Normally I proofread marketing copy, the kinds of blurbs and snippets that showcase the company's charitable side. Charity is in short supply on the intern level, though. Even though I'm only making twelve an hour, the company treats me more like a junior public relations executive. All work and very little pay, for the opportunity to be considered for one of the few PR jobs that come open each year.

But my manager has already said there are no new junior PR positions this quarter, which means I'm out of luck. She'd assured me if there were available jobs, I'd be a shoo-in. But that and a dollar will get me a Beefy Potato-Rito on the value menu at Taco Bell.

Groaning, I lift my head and thumb through the files, my eyes feeling dry and scratchy from the harsh overhead fluorescent light. I'll never get home in time to make dinner. And I'll totally be too tired to work on that newsletter for the community garden in my neighborhood. Why did I volunteer to do that, anyway?

I pick up my cell and wearily tap out a text to my sister, Sabrina.

You're on your own for dinner tonight.

She calls me five seconds later. Unlike the rest of her generation, my little sister loves to chat on the phone, probably because she enjoys hearing herself talk.

"I have to, like, cook?" Her tone is dubious.

"Sabrina, I'm going to be late. You're on your own for food. There's one of those microwave pizzas in the freezer, I think." I cradle my cell between my ear and shoulder, opening the cover of one of the files.

"Let me check." I hear her open the freezer door. "Oh, look at that. There are two pizzas. Want me to heat one up for you, Evie?"

My sister's melodic southern accent soothes my mood. It sometimes baffles me that we're related. I have an accent as flat and dry as Florida, the state where I was born. My sister is pure Georgia, where our family moved after Dad got a sales job here in Atlanta at the world's most famous soda company.

"No, I'll deal with it when I get home. Eat yours. Microwave only on medium. Four minutes. You good? And hey? No friends over tonight. You need to study for finals."

"But whyyyyy?" Sabrina's high-pitched whine fills my ear.

I don't have time for this tonight and I snap at her. "Stop it. No guests."

"The exam's hella simple. I was going to invite over Kris and Aiden and—"

"I don't care if the biology exam's easy. Keep studying. Alone. Love you." I tap the Off button on my phone, cutting her off midsqueal.

Studying is her priority, while working to keep us fed and sheltered is mine. It's hard to raise a whip-smart, risk-taking teenager, I've discovered.

Boys worship her (which is a little adorable). Adult men love her (which is gross). Hell, she's even confided in me that she's experimented with girls. (That's fine with me, whatever makes her happy.) She does a pretty decent job of keeping on task, but I'd never tell her that. I try to act like Mom and Dad would have, or how I think they would've acted, had they lived. Sometimes I try to channel their reactions, something that Sabrina hates. But I'm now Mom, Dad, and big sister. Or, according to Sabrina, a jail warden.

Our fights have gotten more frequent during her senior year, with all the parties, all the risky weekend outings, like tubing through river rapids, and all the overnight trips to theme parks in Florida.

It's my goal to get her to graduation next week and to an elite science camp in Boston for the summer. She's been accepted, even gotten a scholarship for 75 percent of the cost, and I'm determined to scrape up the rest. Maybe I'll take on additional shifts at the restaurant . . .

I don't even want to think about her college in the fall. That's what loans are for. God knows I have enough of them. I might have to defer them for the rest of my life, but at least I have a business degree. I'd hoped to go for my MBA, but Mom and Dad's fatal car crash killed that dream. Maybe someday.

Back to work, Evie.

Scanning the first page of the file and then a glossy brochure paperclipped to the folder, I spot the Post-it note left by Josephine, my boss. It's stuck to the brochure.

Proofread this marketing plan for spelling errors and then bring this entire file to Alex's office. Right away. He needs to sign off in person, and wants to see the attached brochure as it's printed.

The second underline is a bit of overkill, in my opinion.

I frown and flip the note over, hoping for more instructions. Alex's office? The managing director? I'm an intern. Interns do not casually drop off reports for upper management like that.

"Josephine?" She isn't just in my contacts; she's always at the top of my list of recent calls. Next to Sabrina, I think I talk to Josephine more than any other human.

"Hey. It's Evie. Sorry to bother you. Can you hear me?"

There's clicking and a fuzzy response. Dammit, she must be on the train, headed home to her house in the suburbs. The line goes dead so I text her instead.

You want me to bring everything to Alex's office? Do you mean Alex Jenkins? Or is there another Alex I don't know about?

Already I have so many questions. What if I find an error? How should I correct it? Do I go over the corrections with the managing director? That can't be right. Josephine's usual micromanagement style seems half-assed tonight. Something is amiss, and all the poop has rolled downhill and landed squarely in my lap.

I riffle quickly through the file, waiting for a text, not spotting any errors. It's such an unusual request from Josephine because she always deals with Alex directly. Why can't I email this? Does the managing director not know how to use PDF files?

The last thing I want is to bust into Alex Jenkins's office after hours. The thought makes me shiver.

Dale Alexander Jenkins isn't around much. Usually he's traveling the globe, running one part of the company or another. Jenkins Corporation owns the world's largest tire manufacturer. The company was started by Alex's grandfather, according to a plaque in the lobby commemorating Dale Alexander Jenkins Senior.

But the conglomerate also recently acquired a line of chemical and industrial rubber products, a chain of sporting goods stores, and, inexplicably, a company that makes roofing supplies.

Rumor has it that Alex is angling to be the entire company's CEO—a job that's occupied by his father. His octogenarian grandmother, who is the chairperson of the company, is opposing the move, I've heard. It's not clear why she doesn't want him to ascend the corporate ladder, especially since he seems quite competent. I try not to pay attention to the rumors, though. They're none of my business, and likely aren't true.

I'm in the corporate communications department, which means I write feel-good stories for the company newsletter and copy edit press releases about Jenkins's "corporate citizenship."

Safety! Environment! Community!

Those are the company's three buzzwords, and they've been imprinted into my thoughts during my five and a half months here. They're on the company letterhead, at the bottom of my emails, in every news release. They're in my stupid dreams, ones where I push papers and type until my fingers ache. I wonder if Alex Jenkins knows his corporate communications intern has to work as a hostess at a fast-casual restaurant chain to make ends meet.

If those buzzwords float in my brain, Alex Jenkins is branded there, too. Because good lord, is he gorgeous.

Although I stare at him every day in our company literature—he's always smiling and self-possessed in those photos—I've only seen him twice in person. Once during a company-wide forum where he'd given a presentation, and once in the lobby of our building on a Saturday a couple of months ago. Both times I was shocked at how young he seemed—not a day over thirty—and how he had the most extraordinary way of looking both earnest and wicked.

I glance down at my phone, shaking off memories of Alex, the hot managing director.

Josephine, please text me back.

Staring out the window as the sun sets in downtown Atlanta, I have to force myself to shift my attention back to the stack of files. I'll never get home if I keep daydreaming. I open the glossy brochure and scrutinize the words on the front. It's a trifold, full-color, glossy-paper thing, the kind that's given to recruits at job fairs and corporate conferences.

When Josephine found out I was such a good editor, she'd unleashed me on all sorts of projects. If there's one thing I'm good at, it's details. I see the trees, not the forest.

My cell startles me enough to cause a yelp to burst from my mouth. Glancing at the screen, I notice two details: it's two hours after I usually leave the office, and it's Josephine.

"Hey! Thank God you called. About this brochure. You want me to bring it to Alex Jenkins's office? Do I have the right Alex? Or is it someone else? I wanted to double-check. Can't we email it?"

"Evie! Holy shit! No, we can't email it. Alex is going to a meeting in New York later this week and he wants everything to be perfect because of some huge deal. You haven't looked over the brochure yet? It's going to print tomorrow morning. I put that first in the stack, so you'd do it right away. Didn't you see the note? Alex said he wanted to see the proof by eight thirty. Get your skinny butt up to his office NOW."

Shaking, I hang up. Yep. There it is. A second Post-it on the inside of the file folder says: do this immediately!!!

The three exclamation marks are the punctuation version of a punch in the gut.

Glancing through the slick, colorful brochure again, a pit grows in my stomach, because I haven't put enough time into proofreading the thing. It should only take me ten minutes to give it a first read, but normally on something like this I'd spend an hour.

As usual, I get caught up in the details. I find one small error where there should be a comma, and wonder if anyone but me will notice. I look at the time and gasp. It's eight fifteen. Maybe I'll explain to Alex that there's a minor typo and let him decide if he wants the brochure redone. Why he's even interested in this level of minutiae, I'm not sure.

The brochure's glossy paper practically slips through my fingers as I stuff it into the file and run for the elevator. Once inside, I punch the button for the top floor. I hate elevators. Loathe them. Normally I take the stairs when coming and going from the office. But I don't have time to dash up several flights right now, so I suck it up. Right now, I'm more afraid of my boss and not getting this project to Alex Jenkins than the elevator.

I'm sweating with anxiety by the time I'm halfway to the top floor. This is Atlanta's tallest office tower, and I must think about anything but this small, confined box hurtling up fifty-two stories. Dinner? My stomach growls and lurches. Whether Sabrina's doing her homework? Gah.

Or . . . Dale Alexander Jenkins, the younger. That's something curious to ponder. As I'm whisked into the upper reaches of the building, I idly wonder why everyone calls him Alex and not Dale. Maybe because his father and grandfather were named Dale? Maybe because Dale's an old-fashioned name? He definitely doesn't look like a Dale. I imagine him introducing his sexy self as Dale and almost giggle.

A soft sheen of sweat blooms on my upper lip as the elevator takes me up twenty more stories. It dings softly, and when the doors slide open, I shoot out into a vast private office.

It's low-lit, illuminated only by a green glass shaded desk lamp and the twinkling lights of Atlanta's business district below. Thankfully, there's no one behind the desk—although the room has the charged energy of a place that was recently occupied.

I haul in a lungful of air. My sense of smell is strong, and I detect notes of spice and musk. A man's aftershave. My gaze sweeps around the room. I spot a closed door in the corner where there's a coatrack with a suit jacket. Otherwise, the few pieces of sleek, dark wood and black leather furniture are the only things in the room.

Hesitantly, I take a few steps toward the desk, figuring I'll drop the file and run.

When I reach the desk, I open the file once again. That's my downfall, because I feel a compulsion to read the first paragraph of the brochure once again, to make sure everything's correct. I can't stand errors and feel terrible that I haven't proofread this file with my usual level of care.

Jenkins Corporation is North America's largest—

"Thank God you're here."

I gasp and drop the file at the sound of the growly, masculine voice. The brochure and the papers spill everywhere at my feet, like leaves in autumn.