Sneak Peek!

The Next Big Thing

Chapter One

Cora Lockwood was twelve the first time she set a kitchen on fire. She’d been making what she’d thought was the perfect grilled cheese sandwich. The butter had sizzled, the bread had crisped, and for one glorious moment she’d believed she had everything under control. Then, in the time it took to glance at the One Tree Hill re-run playing on the TV, it all went up in flames. Literally. Goodbye, gooey goodness. Hello, inferno.

Her grandmother hadn’t even batted an eye as the firefighters had packed up their gear. “Some folks are made to cook,” Grandma Lolly had said, wiping flour-dusted hands on her apron. “Others are born to keep the fire department in business.”

Years later, as Cora teetered on a wobbly kitchen chair, frantically waving a dish towel at her screeching smoke detector, the truth was undeniable. She had been born to have the local fire station on speed dial. “Don’t panic, don’t panic,” she chanted, but it did nothing to steady her racing pulse.

She yanked out the battery, and for five blissful minutes, silence reigned. Then, right on cue, the familiar thunder of heavy boots echoed up the stairs.

Some things never changed. While her friends were mastering homemade sourdough, she’d become an expert at getting the Thai place down the street to deliver crunchy spring rolls in less than an hour.

Her grandmother always said she’d end up in the kitchen. And technically, she had—just not as the one holding the spatula. Mostly, she played taste-tester for other people’s cooking.

Because Cora couldn’t cook to save her life, but she loved food. So instead of creating recipes, she built a career predicting what everyone else would be eating next. She could size up a restaurant just by the menu’s font. She was the first food trend expert to predict that cricket flour would go mainstream and orange wine would push rosé off its garden-party porch swing. But ask her to toast bread, and she’d somehow end up hosting a reunion of New York’s Bravest in her fourth-floor apartment. Again.

She swallowed her pride and opened the door, releasing a cloud of smoke into the hallway. Without a word, three firefighters shouldered past her and headed straight for the kitchen. They could probably navigate her apartment blindfolded by now.

“Morning, fellas,” she called after them, her fake cheeriness clashing with the rasp in her smoke-roughened voice. “I’ve whipped up a lovely bruschetta for your enjoyment.”

Jim, the firefighter who had unofficially become her favorite, was the last to step through. He glanced at the charred remains on the stove and lifted his chin. “Cora, this makes three times this year. Maybe you need to pick a new hobby.”

She blew a stray hair out of her face, the taste of ash still lingering on her lips. “I’m from the South, Jim. We don’t show up to a big event empty-handed, and this morning I’ve got an important meeting.” As she fanned her arms to clear the remaining smoke, a laugh bubbled up. In three hours, she’d be pitching the next big food craze to Morsel Magazine’s editorial board, all while angling for the Lead Forecaster title. But right now, she was perfecting the art of making charcoal toast.

Jim’s mustache twitched, his eyes crinkling with a familiar mix of amusement and concern. “Didn’t Robertson give you that takeout list the last time we were here?”

Cora winced, remembering the rookie’s awkward “intervention” around her cooking. “It’s taped to the fridge,” she admitted. “Right next to the burn unit’s direct line.”

Ordering takeout had become her survival plan, a way to avoid canned tuna and microwave dinners every night. It was embarrassing, especially for someone who worked at the top food industry magazine in the country. Her foodie coworkers had lost it when they found out she once needed stitches after peeling an orange, and that she had to crash in a hotel for a week after learning—too late—that even salad has a smoke point.

Suddenly, her last relationship’s abrupt ending made a lot more sense. Nobody wanted a woman who talked about cooking all the time but didn’t actually cook.

Her cheeks flushed. “Sorry you had to come out here again, Jim. One day, I swear I’ll figure it out.”

“Don’t sweat it,” he said with a wink. “You’re our favorite repeat customer.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “But seriously, has nobody ever taught you to cook? I thought Southerners were born knowing how to make bread or something.”

A familiar pang hit her, sharper than the smoky air. She’d only been ten when the accident turned everything upside down. One minute she had a mother, and the next she had a legal guardian who smelled like biscuits and wore combat boots to PTA meetings.

But Grandma Lolly had never complained. She’d simply opened her home to the scared little girl, tied an apron on her, and gotten to work. For years, Cora had hovered in the kitchen of her grandmother’s waterfront café, hoping to soak up some of Lolly’s culinary magic by osmosis. And while she did learn how to shuck an oyster straight out of the local waters and that watermelon tasted better with salt, Lolly’s famous kitchen wizardry had never quite rubbed off.

That magic was all Lolly. Her cooking had charmed the toughest crowds. She’d even had a few marriage proposals thanks to her chicken and dumplings. Cora, on the other hand, had once given a guy food poisoning with a ham sandwich. Apparently, the Lockwood cooking gene had taken one look at her and said, Bless her heart, I’ll sit this one out.

It had only been six months since Lolly died, but the grief still clung to Cora like the smoke on her skin.

“I’ll stick to cereal from now on.” She laughed, but her voice came out a little shaky.

“Jokes aside, kiddo, grease fires are no laughing matter. Got your extinguishers ready for next time?”

Cora pointed around the kitchen. “The one on the counter lives under the sink.” She gestured toward the cabinet of mismatched dishes. “There’s another one up there.”

Jim nodded, satisfied she was at least semi-prepared for the next kitchen disaster.

But Cora wasn’t done. “There’s also an industrial-strength one in the pantry and a travel-sized beauty under the sofa.”

He covered his laugh with a cough as she shrugged.

“I nicknamed the one in the pantry Big Bertha. She’s my favorite.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Big Bertha?”

“Hey, show some respect,” she warned, managing a grin. “She’s saved me more than once.”

Jim’s hand landed on her shoulder, paternal and reassuring, as he ushered out his crew. “You know where to find us if you need us.”

Cora stumbled into the hallway behind them, almost colliding with her elderly neighbor.

Mrs. Davenport’s eyes sparkled with barely concealed excitement. “You okay, dear?”

Cora stifled a groan. Mrs. Davenport was a retired librarian and a hardcore romance-novel junkie, and—judging by her breathless tone—she was far too pleased that her favorite eye candy had shown up again.

Her gaze bounced between Cora and the firefighters heading down the hall. “Had to call them,” she said, patting her cotton-ball cloud of hair with a wrinkled hand. “I heard that smoke alarm and knew you needed rescuing.”

At eighty-five, with a first-responder fetish, living next to Cora must have felt like hitting the geriatric jackpot.

Back in her apartment, Cora placed her usual post-disaster pizza order to be delivered to the fire station. Extra everything this time. Those guys deserved it for hauling up four flights in full gear just because she couldn’t toast bread.

She resisted the urge to pull out her color-coded crisis spreadsheet. The one she always turned to when a disaster, like a visit from the fire department before breakfast, threatened to upend her normal routine. Just last week, she’d added a line item about how to prevent a rice cooker from exploding and spraying basmati all over the kitchen floor.

Instead, she glanced at her phone and yelped. If she didn’t get moving, she’d be pitching food trends in her pajamas. After a lightning-fast wardrobe change, she dashed out the door. If she could face the FDNY before her morning coffee, convincing her boss she deserved that promotion would be a breeze, even if she had to do it with store-bought pastries and the smell of burnt toast in her hair.

*

Cora burst into Morsel Magazine’s lobby, lugging a box of muffins from the bakery. “Morning, Vanessa. I brought carbs.”

The receptionist looked up from her desk, her manicured fingers shooing Cora toward the conference room. “You’d better grab one quick. They’re already waiting for you. And you’ll want to hurry. Something big is going down.”

Cora’s stomach fluttered with nerves. What was so urgent? Her meeting wasn’t scheduled for two more hours. As she power-walked down the hall, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a glass wall. Her hair looked like a bird’s nest, and her face had the kind of wild-eyed panic that screamed, Yes, I did just crawl out of a coal mine. Just what she wanted for the most important meeting of her career.

Slipping into the conference room, she was met with the harsh glare of fluorescent lights reflecting off the glossy mahogany table. Several of Morsel’s head honchos sat at the far end, their expressions colder than week-old oatmeal. She dropped the bakery box on the credenza and slid into a leather chair, pulling her laptop out of her bag so she could present the data from her spreadsheets if they needed more information.

She leaned over to Roger, the eager marketing intern sitting next to her. “I brought muffins.”

His eyes widened in alarm.

“Relax, they’re from the bakery,” she added, trying not to sound offended.

Roger let out a relieved sigh and stretched to fish out a banana nut muffin. “Oh, thank goodness. Remember when you gave the whole art department food poisoning with those ‘special’ brownies?”

She straightened. “That’s what the recipe on Pinterest called them. And the magic ingredient was—”

“Salmonella,” Roger finished with a chuckle.

She didn’t have time to defend herself, because Sylvia Masters, Morsel’s editor and Cora’s boss, cleared her throat at the head of the table. “All right people, let’s get started.”

Cora’s heart pounded so hard she was convinced everyone could hear it over the hum of the AC. This was it. The moment she’d been waiting for. Months of late nights, poring over endless stacks of spreadsheets, tweaking every prediction until it was razor sharp. She’d even forced Brad, her ex, to sit through a forecast marathon at her place one night instead of actually leaving the apartment for their date. But he’d seemed interested, so she’d kept talking. Maybe that’s why he’d ghosted her after dating for two months.

Still, it had been worth it. Sylvia had praised her work all along. “We wouldn’t be able to do it without you,” she’d said more than once. Cora only hoped the promotion would come with a raise, because living on takeout was starting to put a serious dent in her bank account. Her personal financial spreadsheet was coming dangerously close to setting off warning flares.

As she smoothed her black pencil skirt and sat a little straighter, the tension in the room thickened. No surprise there, considering how high-stakes this was. The annual food trend forecast was Morsel’s most important issue of the year. Restaurants and brands across the country depended on it. Menus changed, new locations opened or closed. When Sylvia had handpicked Cora to lead the research team, it was a dream come true. A real chance to prove herself since leaving Sunrise, North Carolina, fifteen years ago.

Sylvia tapped her pen against the table, her lips twisting into a scowl. “Today was supposed to be a celebration,” she began, her voice tight. “Industry insiders rely on Morsel for our forecasting expertise. They trust us to give them the data they need to make informed decisions that wow their customers.” The pen stilled on the table. “But late last night, mere hours before our editorial meeting, Food Trends Monthly dropped their annual trend issue . . . and it reads exactly like the forecast we were going to send to press tonight!”

A ripple of unease passed through the room.

After a long, tense pause, a woman from accounting leaned forward, her hands flat on the table. “So, what do we do now?”

Sylvia’s sharp gaze swept across the room. “Legal has called an emergency meeting in thirty minutes. We need to assess the damage and figure out our response.” She paused again, and this time her eyes locked on Cora for a moment too long. “Prepare yourselves. We can’t afford to be second in this industry. Advertisers are already threatening to pull out. As of right now, we’re in crisis mode. Don’t plan on seeing your families anytime soon.”

A chill ran down Cora’s spine. Could her forecast have been leaked? As the team shuffled out, murmuring in hushed tones, Sylvia’s voice sliced through the noise.

“Cora,” she said. “I need to see you in my office. Now.”

*

Cora stepped into Sylvia’s office, her legs shaky beneath her. As soon as she crossed the threshold, a memory hit her. Her first day at Morsel, nine years ago.

“Welcome aboard, Cora,” Sylvia had said, her smile warm and encouraging. “I have a feeling you’re going to do great things here.”

She barely had time to blink before the warmth of that first day was replaced by the ice in her boss’s voice.

“Close the door,” Sylvia ordered.

Cora did as instructed. Based on Sylvia’s scowl, she’d gone from rising star to falling meteor in less time than it took to burn toast. The wall clock ticked louder with each second, counting down to what felt like a professional execution. Cora swallowed.

Her boss’s voice cut through the silence. “I expected better of you, Cora. Your negligence has cost us dearly.”

Cora stiffened. “My . . . negligence?”

Sylvia slapped down a copy of Food Trends Monthly on her desk. “I trusted you,” Sylvia said, a flicker of sadness crossing her face. “I didn’t just hire you; I mentored you. I handpicked you from business school because I saw your potential.”

Sylvia’s words hit hard. Only a few weeks ago, she’d been handing out praise. Outstanding work on this section, Cora. Your attention to detail is exactly why I put you on this project. That acclaim, once a source of pride, now tasted like rotten lemons.

“I don’t understand,” Cora said. “What does this have to do with me?”

Before Sylvia answered, there was a knock at the door. The director of human resources walked in, placed a folder on Sylvia’s desk, and left without even glancing in Cora’s direction.

Sylvia opened the folder, her eyes skimming the pages before she nodded to herself. “You signed a non-disclosure agreement on your first day at Morsel.”

Cora nodded, confused. “Yes, but I still don’t see what—”

She shoved the magazine across her desk toward Cora, her finger tapping the byline. “Are you going to deny knowing Alex Jameson?”

“Of course not,” Cora said. “I read his work regularly.”

Alex was her so-called rival over at Food Trends Monthly, a lackluster forecaster with ideas so far off the mark they were laughable. But she’d never met him in person.

“So you admit to having an intimate relationship and sharing proprietary information with him?”

“An intimate . . . what? No.” Cora stared at her in disbelief. “I’ve never met the man.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you sure about that? Maybe at a social event?” She tapped the photo beneath the byline.

Cora leaned in, and her stomach dropped as she saw a familiar face grinning back at her. Brad. Her ex-boyfriend. Or, rather, not Brad.

She blinked. “Wait. That’s him? Alex Jameson?” She hadn’t seen a photo of him since they broke up, and certainly not in a food magazine. Food trend forecasters didn’t usually get the celebrity treatment. No one pinned posters of them to their bedroom walls. Their names might trend. Their faces? Not so much.

Her head spun. Why was Brad, who had claimed he didn’t even know what a Michelin star was, in a competitor’s magazine touting her forecast? Brad, who had pretended to listen while she ranted about Himalayan salt and listed the virtues of mood-enhancing microgreens. Brad, who she’d thought was just a guy who liked takeout as much as she did.

Sure, she’d never been to his apartment, but she’d just assumed it was because hers was nicer. Or cleaner. Or had a better selection of delivery menus. It had crossed her mind that maybe he was married, because he always wanted to meet at her place and seemed fine staying in with takeout instead of going to a restaurant. When she’d asked him about it, he’d told her he just preferred to be a homebody.

And that was fine with Cora. Food trend forecasters weren’t exactly a social bunch. They didn’t get wined and dined like the travel or fashion reporters. The closest thing to a fancy event she had attended was an overly competitive tasting of brownies made with grasshopper flour at the farmer’s market.

Cora let out a short, bitter laugh. “Do you call being dumped by a man who lied to you an intimate relationship? The most intimate thing we did was share a pizza. He took the last slice, by the way, which should have been a red flag. And he said his name was Brad.”

Sylvia’s face remained hard. “Whatever you called him, you shared confidential information with him, and now we’re facing the consequences.”

Cora leaned forward, desperation creeping into her voice. “I didn’t know he was Alex Jameson. I certainly didn’t know he worked for Food Trends Monthly. He told me he was a software developer.”

“No excuses,” Sylvia snapped. “This disaster happened on your watch, and now Morsel is facing a major scandal. We’ll be lucky if the magazine survives it.”

Cora opened her mouth to protest, but Sylvia silenced her with a raised hand. “There’s nothing to explain. You’re being placed on indefinite unpaid leave, pending an investigation by our legal team. In simple terms, you’re fired. HR will be in touch about the final arrangements.”

Final arrangements. As if she was a corpse, not a person who had poured years into this job. Cora’s heart sank, and she struggled to catch her breath. Everything she’d sacrificed—her personal life, her relationships, her identity—were all being ripped away in an instant.

“Sylvia, please,” Cora began.

But her boss’s icy stare shut her down. There would be no second chances. She was done.

Fighting back tears, Cora turned and walked out of the office, the weight of her colleagues’ stares heavy on her shoulders. She kept her chin high, even as whispers followed in her wake.

“Cora?” Roger’s voice broke through the haze. He looked at her with wide-eyed concern, holding out a muffin as if it would fix everything.

She took it, though her appetite was long gone.

Vanessa stood behind the reception desk, hand over her mouth in shock.

Keith from HR approached and gripped her elbow. “I’ll walk you out.”

As they left the office, she felt the eyes of her now-former coworkers on her. Some pretended not to notice, suddenly engrossed in their computer screens. Others offered sympathetic looks that only deepened the hollow ache in her chest.

Keith didn’t stop at her desk. “Your personal items will be packed and sent to you later,” he said.

She briefly considered pocketing a stapler for the road but decided against it. With her luck, she’d trip and impale herself on it.

Moments later, they stood in the elevator. He swiped his security card, ensuring a direct ride to the lobby. The descent was endless, her mind spinning through shock, anger, and humiliation.

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open to the bustling lobby.

Keith gave her a curt nod. “Take care, Cora.”

She stepped out, her heels clicking against the polished floor. The bright summer morning outside felt like a cruel joke compared to the storm swirling inside her. She stumbled to a nearby bench and, finally, the tears fell. As Cora cried, people hurried past on the sidewalk, oblivious to the fact that her entire life had just gone up in flames. Again.