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Chapter 1

I have a theory Hating so in love with them I’ve had a lot of time to compare love and hate, and these are my observations

Love and hate are visceral Your stoht of that person The heart in your chest beats heavy and bright, nearly visible through your flesh and clothes Your appetite and sleep are shredded Every interaction spikes your blood with a dangerous kind of adrenaline, and you’re on the brink of fight or flight Your body is barely under your control You’re consumed, and it scares you

Both love and hate are ao Trust me, I should know

It’s early Friday afternoon I’m imprisoned at my desk for another few hours I wish I was in solitary confinement, but unfortunately I have a cellmate Each tick of his watch feels like another tally mark, chipped onto the cell wall

We’re engaged in one of our childish ga we do, it’s dreadfully immature

The first thing to know about me: My name is Lucy Hutton I’m the executive assistant to Helene Pascal, the co-CEO of Bexley & Gamin

Once upon a ti was on the brink of collapse The reality of the econoe repay all over the city like candles being blown out We braced ourselves for almost certain closure

At the eleventh hour, a deal was struck with another struggling publishing house Gae with the cru evil empire known as Bexley Books, ruled by the unbearable Mr Bexley himself

Each co the other, they both packed up and moved into their new marital home Neither party was remotely happy about it The Bexleys remembered their old lunchrooia They couldn’t believe the airy-fairy Ga, with their lax adherence to key perforets and dreamy insistence on Literature as Art The Bexleys believed numbers were more ih-five the team Repeat

The Ga their boisterous new stepbrothers practically tearing the pages out of their Brontës and Austens How had Bexley ed to amass so many like-minded stuffed shirts, far more suited to accountancy or law? Gamins resented the notion of books as units Books were, and alould be, so to respect

One year on, you can still tell at a glance which company someone came froeometrics, the Ga figures and constantly hogging the conference roo sessions, entle doves in clock towers, poring overfor the next literary sensation The air surrounding them is perfumed with jasmine tea and paper Shakespeare is their pinup boy

The , especially for the Gaht line between each of the old cos, mark a red dot exactly halfway between theray ce on a e onto in the afternoon It’s arctic in thehas one redeeed by the early risers, or should I say, the Bexleys

Helene Pascal and Mr Bexley had toured the building prior to theThe top floor of the building was an insult Only one executive office? A total refit was needed

After an hour-long brainstorner’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears, the only word Helene and Mr Bexley would agree on to describe the new aesthetic was shiny It was their last agreen brief The tenth floor is now a cube of glass, chro any surface as aEven our desks are lass

I’ reflection opposite me I raise my hand and look at h hten otten I’ame with Joshua

I’ here with a celleneral has a second in co an assistant was never an option, because it would have required a concession froed in outside the t office doors, and left to fend for ourselves

It was like being pushed into the Colosseum’s arena, only to find I wasn’t alone

I raise ain now My reflection follows sh deeply, and it resonates and echoes I raise my left eyebrow because I know he can’t, and as predicted his forehead pinches uselessly I’ve won the game The thrill does not translate into an expression on my face I remain as placid and expressionless as a doll We sit here with our chins on our hands and stare into each other’s eyes

I’ opposite me is the executive assistant to Mr Bexley His hench anyone needs to know about me, is this: I hate Joshua Templeman

He’s currently copying every m

ove I make It’s the Mirror Game To the casual observer it wouldn’t be immediately obvious; he’s as subtle as a shadow But not to me Each moveht time delay I lift my chin from my palm and swivel to ht years old and it seeh the cracks of heaven and hell and into purgatory A kindergarten classroom An asylum