Publisher's Synopsis
Cassie Woodson is adrift. After suffering an epic tumble down the corporate ladder, she pays her bills working a thankless temp job at a law firm, reviewing correspondence for a large-scale fraud suit. The daily drudgery amplifies all that her life is lacking-love, friends, stability-and leaves her with too much time on her hands. While sorting through a relentless deluge of emails, something catches her eye: the tender (and totally private) exchanges between a partner at the firm, Forest Watts, and his enchanting wife, Annabelle. Cassie knows she shouldn't read them. But it's just one look. And once she's opened that door, she finds she can't look away. Every day, twenty floors below Forest's corner office, Cassie dissects their emails from her dingy workstation. A few clicks of her mouse and she can see every adoring word they write to each other, every party invitation, every order confirmation from every online purchase. They have no secrets from her. Or so she thinks. At first content to observe from afar, Cassie's admiration quickly escalates into all-out mimicry, and then obsession. But when she orchestrates a "chance" meeting with Forest in the real world and sees something that throws the state of his marriage into question, the fantasy she's been carefully cultivating shatters. Suddenly, she doesn't simply admire Annabelle-she wants to take her place. And she's armed with the tools to make that happen.
