The Girlfriends of Gotham Bundle

From Book 1:

"When small-town dreams clash with big city hearts, Natalie's in for one wild New York minute."

I moved to the bustling maze of NYC to escape the label everyone back home stamped on me: the reckless little sister. You’d think the towering skyscrapers, neon lights, and endless sea of yellow cabs would be intimidating. But for this country girl? It’s a challenge I’m all too ready to embrace.

Amidst crazy parties, whirlwind friendships, and New York bagels, I finally found my place – a killer job in the heart of Manhattan. I also found him. CJ, with his sharp suits, sharper wit, and a smile that could stop New York traffic. One teeny, tiny issue? He’s not just some city boy I can flirt with over coffee breaks – he's my off-limits coworker. Yep, cue dramatic music.

My heart says, “Go for it!” but my brain reminds me of the iron-clad rule at work: No Dating. Period. Not even if he looks like he stepped out of my wildest dreams.

But the city lights shimmer, the subways rattle, and between secret glances and accidental touches, the lines of professionalism blur. I'm trying my best to stay in the friend-zone, but the heart wants what it wants. Especially in a city as unpredictable as New York.

Do I risk it all for love? Or do I put my dream job and new life first? Decisions, decisions...

Jump into this whirlwind romance that’s Bridget Jones meets Sex and the City, but with that sweet 90's nostalgia. Let's face it: in the city that never sleeps, Natalie might be up all night making choices!

Closets are Overrated: Natalie

My Celica drove away from me and for a second I thought I saw myself waving from the back window. There I was, hanging over the seat back, my long blond hair draped over one shoulder, a lopsided smile on my face. My dark blue eyes were wide as I waved at the poor wretch who’d just left everything she’d ever known, handed her car keys to a stranger and allowed herself to be left standing alone, her life in boxes at her feet, at a busy curb on Amsterdam Avenue. I squinted and shook my head. And the girl in the window was gone.

And it was just Frank, driving away from me. The balding fat man from the parking lot near Newark had agreed to buy my car sight unseen over the phone and had driven me into the city on the tail end of my madcap cross-country dash. He left me there watching as he dodged my little car through the swarm of yellow cabs and disappeared amid the honking thrum of New York City traffic.

I turned to look at the steel door set back under an awning in the hulking stone building that was my new home, and a wave of nausea hit me. Hard. I turned and retched into the gutter, vomit streaking the passenger side of the car in front of me.

“Watch it,” a thin man with a beak nose said as he slid into the driver’s side of the car I’d just puked on. He started the engine as I was wiping my mouth on my sleeve, still doubled over. He rolled down the passenger side window, and I wondered if he might ask if I was okay. I felt like I needed someone to care just a little bit at that moment. “I oughta get your insurance. You know vomit is corrosive?” With that educational rebuke, he pulled abruptly away from the curb, leaving me feeling sick and more alone than I’d ever been.

Welcome to New York City, I thought. Welcome to your new life. 

* * *
When another copywriter at the publishing company I worked for in San Diego had mentioned that her college roommate lived on the Upper West Side and needed a new roomie, it was like she had dangled a golden key in front of me.

I’d snatched the opportunity, called her friend that night, and nodded violently as we talked, trying to convince her across the blind expanse of miles between us that I’d be the perfect addition to her Upper West Side apartment.

“So the room you’d be in has no closet,” she said.

“That’s fine.” My brain was already trying to understand how that was even possible. “I can figure something out.”

“The apartment is seriously not big.” 

“I own almost nothing.” It was true. Most of what I owned fit into the back seat and trunk of my Celica, and what didn’t fit wasn’t worth trying to cram.

“First month and a deposit will be twelve hundred dollars.”

“Perfect,” I lied. “Do you want me to send a check now?”

“No, just bring it with you. When do you think you’ll arrive?”

“Two weeks?” I asked, committing to moving across the country without consulting anyone else in the world about it. I felt giddy and terrified, winding a strand of hair around my finger until it became painful.

“Sounds good,” my new roommate Tory said. “Can you let me know when you have an exact day and time and I’ll be sure to be here?”

“Absolutely.” I circled her number in red pen on the pad in front of me. It was, after all, my new phone number. And it began with the numbers 212. I felt more worldly in that moment than I had in the preceding twenty-two years of my life. 

The scramble that followed had been easier than I’d expected it to be—with the exception of the conversation with my dad. I’d severed ties and packed what little I owned, trying not to reflect on what a small dent I’d made in San Diego in the one year since graduating from college. The truth was I didn’t have much to leave.

As the miles slipped behind me, my father’s ominous voice played an endless loop in my head.

“This is just another impulsive choice, Natalie. You’re famous for them and you know it. You switched colleges twice, you switched majors three times. You’ve been out of school a year and already had two different jobs. Now you’re ready to quit again and move to the toughest city in the world? New York will eat you alive.”

My dad might’ve had a point, but I wasn’t going to let him be right. The New York he knew was the scary-subway, pre-Giuliani mess that we visited on a family trip in the eighties when Mom was still alive. He and my sister were put off by the peepshow awnings and punk rock kids with purple hair and studded collars in Times Square. It didn’t affect me the same way. To me, the whole place was electric, energizing. The city I was driving towards in 1998 was nothing that my father could understand. It was safer, cleaner, and shinier, and I was sure it was full of opportunities if I could just figure out where to look for them. I pushed aside my doubts and hurtled toward it to define myself in new terms and to prove to my father that I wasn’t just a lost and confused little girl. New York was my chance.

* * *

Tory greeted me at the front door of my new apartment once I had hauled myself and my belongings up all six flights, and I handed her most of the cash I’d gotten for the car.

“Thanks,” she said. Our rooms were separated by a bathroom, kitchen, and living room, all branching off the same narrow hallway. “It’s called a railroad apartment because it’s set up like a railroad track,” she explained. “Was the drive awful?”

“No, actually.” I stood awkwardly in the middle of my new living room feeling like an intruder. “It was surreal. It feels strange to be so far away, so … permanently.”

“I’m sure,” she said. She sat down on the couch and waved a hand absently at the other chair in the room.

I sat down, the weight of the last few days pressing me into the faded rose pattern of the upholstery. The room was sparse, the walls were a drab gray, and the wood floor was dusty and old. There were faded Blue Dog prints on the walls, but otherwise my new home felt closer to a dirty sanitarium than to the bright beautiful apartment I’d envisioned.

“So you said you have some interviews?” She was talking and watching Charmed at the same time, her eyes flitting sideways to me.

“Yeah, I have three set up,” I said. “The first one’s tomorrow morning. I love that show.”

“Cool,” she said, eyes on the screen.

I guess I was hoping for an invitation to watch with her, which didn’t come. Maybe she assumed I would settle right in and make myself at home. I sat there for a minute, feeling more like a guest at a shabby bed and breakfast than a resident of the apartment. Tory seemed to have already forgotten I was there. “Do you work tomorrow?” I asked.

She looked at me then, her short curly bob swinging into her brown eyes. She pushed it away and sighed. “Yeah. I’m an elementary school teacher. I feel like I’m always working. This is my zone-out hour. I’m sorry if I’m not being a great hostess.” She smiled apologetically and turned back to the television with a vacant expression.

“No, it’s fine. I should get my bed set up so I can fall into it. Thanks for everything. Good night.”

“Night, Natalie,” she said, her voice losing volume as she said my name and her attention never leaving the screen.

I retreated to the tiny room next to the front door where my few boxes were piled on a double mattress that took up most of the floor. I had one small folding bookshelf to set up, to hold the few mementos I’d brought. Once unpacked, my folded clothes made a sad pile in the recessed corner of the room that would be closet and dresser both. I made my bed and sprawled across it. My apartment was tiny and dirty, my roommate seemed too tired for a new friend—or maybe I just wasn’t what she expected—and I had interviews over the next few days for jobs I didn’t understand at companies I’d never heard of. I had a sinking feeling that I might soon regret letting Frank drive away in my little car. I might need it to drive myself back to California with my tail between my legs.

But I wouldn’t give up until I had tried. Just because my father believed I was impulsive and underprepared for an adult life didn’t mean it was true. I took a deep breath and searched for whatever strength I could funnel into believing this would be the place I’d succeed. California had become too stifling to stay. Between my dad’s belief that I was impulsive—and possibly mentally challenged—and my sister’s misplaced desire to mother me, there was no way I could ever be taken seriously there. By myself or anyone else. But here? Here I could reinvent myself. And that’s what I was going to do. I didn’t need my roommate to love me. I just needed a place to live. 

I let myself cry just a little when I put Mom’s picture on the top shelf of my little bookcase and pretended to believe she’d think I was doing something great in my move to the big city. It was easy to assign thoughts to someone who wasn’t around to have them for herself.

Sleep came that night mostly thanks to sheer exhaustion. The constant noise echoing down the tight alley next to my window did nothing to calm my nerves about the job interview I had the next day. Or the possibility that I’d just ruined my life.

* * *

I was almost late to my interview. The subway wasn’t exactly user-friendly.

“I’m here to see CJ?” I told the pert blond receptionist behind the glass and steel counter in the lobby.

“Have a seat,” she said, pointing me to a leather couch against the wall.

I had no idea whether CJ would be a man or a woman. I hated ambiguous names, and couldn’t seem to swallow down the churning in my stomach that was threatening to rise up my throat. I pinched myself hard between my thumb and forefinger. Pain was better than vomit for controlling nerves, and spewing in the lobby before the interview would probably not land me the job of my dreams.

The opaque glass doors swung open and a tall broad-shouldered guy in a suit appeared. He had close-cropped blond hair and dark eyes surrounded by thick dark lashes. I found myself hoping this guy was CJ, although adding the nerves induced by an undisputedly handsome guy to my already roiling stomach would probably reduce me to a babbling idiot.

The blond guy spoke to the receptionist quietly, and then turned to face me. A broad smile overtook his face, and despite his looks, my nerves calmed a little.

“Natalie?” he asked, extending a hand.

I stood and shook his hand, a comforting warmth flooding me at his touch. It was like he had a feel-good force field and I’d just been pulled inside.

“Yes, hi,” I said.

“I’m CJ. Come on in.” He held the doors open, and we walked down the hallway of an office that could only be described as part Wall Street and part fraternity house. Guys in jeans played Mortal Kombat in one corner, a furious Ping-Pong match was going on in a far room, and rows of glass-walled offices led down a corridor. There were people moving around busily in the halls; some wore suits like CJ, others wore jeans and T-shirts. “Developers,” CJ explained, pointing at the jean-clad guys playing Ping-Pong. He flashed the perfect smile again. Despite my comfort in his presence, I couldn’t help but feel a little giddy when he smiled directly at me. He had an all-American football thing going on that I doubted any girl was immune to.

“Do you have any questions about us, about the company?” he asked, after we’d gone through my resume. I was interviewing for something called “affiliate marketing manager,” and though I had no idea what that meant, I didn’t want to blow it by asking.

“Do you guys have any organized extracurricular activities? A volleyball team, or a softball team or anything?” I immediately felt like an idiot. Then again, I needed to ask something, and “what’s an affiliate marketer?” seemed inappropriate.

“No, but we’d definitely be up for having someone on board to get something like that started!” He smiled broadly and the butterflies danced again in my stomach. “Let me introduce you around.”

I followed him out of the office, feeling confused. Had I just been hired?

“Natalie,” he said. “This is our sales team.” He walked me by a group of men, all in suits, all on the phone. They smiled and nodded or waved. We stopped in front of an open office door where a handsome dark-haired guy was pacing, also on the phone. “That’s Damon Michaels, our director of sales.” Damon put the phone to his shoulder for a minute, and when he looked at me through icy blue eyes, there was no disguising the predatory nature of the look he gave me. I shivered under his gaze.

“Hi,” he said, his charming smile making my stomach flip while his eyes scanned my body. It was clear that he knew the effect he had on women.

I didn’t need any work dalliances muddying my mission to succeed, even if I’d just been thrown two perfect candidates for dallying. CJ was handsome in an all-American way, and Damon … well, he might as well just not wear clothes. Everything about him screamed, “sex.” Even though both of these guys had every girl nerve in my body firing, I pushed down my attraction. Manhattan was huge, and if today was any indication, it was filled to the brim with attractive men. Getting involved with someone at work would only prove that my father was right—that I was impulsive and immature. There was no way I was going to let that happen. I swallowed hard and resolved to do my dating strictly outside the office.

“This is Natalie Pepper,” CJ told Damon. “She’s going to be our new marketing director.”

Damon smiled and nodded, pulling the phone back to his ear and returning to the call with a wink while my stomach leapt into my mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, pulling on CJ’s arm. “Did you just say ‘marketing director’?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll just run it by the CEO, but you’re perfect. There won’t be a problem. Why?”

At that point I didn’t feel it would be wise to tell him that I thought I’d been interviewing for a lesser position. If he wanted me to be the marketing director, that’s what I’d be.

“Just making sure,” I laughed.

He smiled and I continued behind him. Something in the way CJ said that it would be fine made me think it would be, and I was thankful for the quiet confidence that he exuded. I felt like he was my ally, like even though he barely knew me, he was definitely on my side. I followed him through the office, shaking hands with my new coworkers and trying not to think too hard about anything that might give away my complete shock.

When I left the building, my mind was churning. 

“So you got a job,” my dad said when I called him later that night. “I’m proud of you. Just be careful, honey.”

That was the highest praise I could expect from my dad. I took it. “Thanks, Dad.”

I spent the rest of the night reading the sales materials CJ had given me, trying to understand exactly what my new company did. All Night Media was an Internet advertising network. They basically sold advertising on other company’s websites, making them kind of a middleman. From what CJ had said, our marketing—my job—would be essentially business-to-business. I’d be working to convince ad firms to buy advertising across our network of sites. That was all I could get from what I’d been told that day and what I was reading. The sales materials weren’t spectacularly helpful. So much of it was like reading a new language that I worried I’d be fired on my first day—I had no idea what I’d gotten into.