I don’t need coffee.
I need Seraphina—her fierce gaze that could pin me in place, the way she’d have my Americano waiting on my desk, her own mocha creamer leaving a faint, sweet trace in the air.
Frustrated as fuck, I figure out how to check the voice mail, make a mental note to return calls and cancel appointments. Then I dial HR. Again.
Peeling off my wet workout shirt, I head into my executive washroom.
In the shower, alone, the memories I’ve been trying to outrun catch up.
Her desperate pleas echo in my ears. Her face—pale, shattered, those cornflower eyes brimming with hurt—cuts me every time I close my eyes.
“You have to believe me.”
But how could I?
Two hours later, yet another assistant is seated behind the reception desk. At least she answers the phone when it rings.
But when Celeste arrives and breezes right past her, all she does is shrug.
I barely have time to steel myself before the fixer throws open my door. She strides in, her blazer as crisp as her judgment. Her eyes, sharp and calculating, rake over me, missing nothing. She doesn’t waste a moment on a polite greeting. “Another scandal, Xavier?”
I blink. “What the fuck?”
She pulls up a website on her phone and pushes the device toward me.
PREDATOR KING CHEWS UP ANOTHER INNOCENT VICTIM.
I squeeze my eyes shut. The assistant I fired the first day went straight to the tabloids. Probably got more money from selling r story than she did in her severance package.
“You blew through your retainer. I’m going to need another six figures.”
Fuck me to tears. Can this week get any worse?
“If you want to hold onto your cash, you’ll need to stop being a PR disaster.” With that, she drops into a chair. Again, as always, uninvited.
“You look like shit, Xavier.”
“Fuck off.” Papers are scattered across the desk like fallen leaves. The Lockhart financials glare from my screen. Now that I’m the unhappy owner of the company, I see the truth. They’re overleveraged, bleeding cash, a house of cards Seraphina warned me about. And there are expenses I can’t account for. “I need a forensic accountant.”
“That’ll cost you.”
Of course it will.
Celeste continues. “Reynolds is gone.”
Tuesday, he’d called in and scheduled some PTO. The timing sucked. We need all hands on deck for the transition, bumpy as it is. “What do you mean, gone?”
“He’s in Mexico with his wife. Left on a red-eye last night. Bought a place, cash.”
The actual hell?
“His apartment has been cleaned out.”
My gut twists. My empire—built on years of ruthless precision—is crumbling, and I’m alone at the helm, clutching the wheel of a sinking ship. “Find out what the hell is happening.”
She studies me, her silence heavier than any words. Her gaze strips me bare, sees the fracture beneath my polished exterior.
“You made a hell of a mistake. Fix it.” She walks to the door, then stops to fire another salvo. “Stay out of the damn headlines. A week would be good.”
