"Indeed we should. Let us return to the office and plan our assault."
The elevator ride back up is considerably more charged than the ride down, my shoulder pressed against his arm, his hand resting at the small of my back with a possessiveness that makes my pulse race. By the time we reach our floor, I have managed to wrestle my composure back into something resembling professionalism, though my glasses keep fogging up in a way that suggests my body temperature has not gotten the memo.
We find the office exactly as we left it—his jacket still pooled on the floor, our desks covered in the debris of a long day's strategizing, the windows streaked with rain that has finally begun to taper off. Knox retrieves his jacket while I settle back into my chair, pulling up spreadsheets and projections on my laptop, trying to find the angle that will get us across the finish line.
"We need something big," I mutter, more to myself than to him. "Something that will generate enough revenue in two weeks to cover the gap in our projections. A major client, maybe, or a strategic partnership that comes with an upfront licensing fee?—"
The ping of an incoming email cuts me off, and I glance at the notification with the weary resignation of someone who has received far too many pieces of bad news via electronic communication. But the sender makes me sit up straighter, my fingers flying over the keyboard to open the message.
"Knox. Come look at this."
He appears behind me instantly, leaning over my shoulder to read the screen, and I try very hard to ignore the way his proximity makes my skin prickle with awareness.
"The Meridian Foundation," he reads aloud, his brow furrowing. "I do not recognize this name."
"You should." My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my temples. "They are the largest charitable endowment on the Eastern Seaboard. Old money, older connections, and they are notoriously picky about which companies they contract for their financial management services." I point to the relevant paragraph, my hand shaking slightly. "They are hosting a gala this Saturday. Black tie, invitation only, the kind of event where deals get made over champagne and canapés. And they have just invited you—" I pause, rereading the text to make sure I have not hallucinated it. "—they have invited us to attend as potential candidates for their new primary asset management contract."
Knox is quiet for a long moment, and when I twist around to look at him, his expression has gone calculating.
"How much is this contract worth?"
"Enough." I pull up a quick estimate based on publicly available information about the Foundation's holdings, and the number that appears on my screen makes us both go very still. "If we land this contract, Knox, we do not just hit our profit target. We exceed it by a factor of three. The rival firm would not be able to touch us. The foreclosure would become completely moot."
"Then we attend this gala. We secure this contract. We crush our enemies so thoroughly that they never dare to challenge us again."
"It is not that simple." I chew on my lower lip, running through the logistics in my head. "The Meridian Foundation is incredibly exclusive. The people who attend their events are old money and high society, the kind of crowd that can smell new money—or hostile takeover money—from across a room. We cannot just barrel in with siege tactics and expect themto hand over a contract this valuable. We need to be subtle. Sophisticated. We need to fit in."
Knox straightens, his expression shifting into something that might be uncertainty on anyone else's face.
"This sounds like a battle for which I am poorly suited."
"It is a battle for which we are both poorly suited," I admit, glancing down at my practical, budget-friendly wardrobe. The nicest thing I own is a clearance-rack blazer with a small coffee stain on the inside pocket. "A black-tie gala at the Meridian Foundation is going to be filled with women wearing designer gowns that cost more than my annual salary. I do not exactly have formal attire suitable for infiltrating high society."
Knox's expression transforms from uncertainty to determination to almost gleeful.
"Then we must acquire appropriate armament." He straightens to his full, imposing height, and when he looks down at me there is a light in his golden eyes that makes my stomach flip. "You cannot ride into battle unprotected, Cypress. If this gala is the field upon which our war will be won, then I will ensure you are armored accordingly."
"Knox, I do not need you to?—"
"You are my First Mate." He cuts me off with a wave of his hand, already pulling out his phone and typing with surprising dexterity for someone whose fingers are each the size of small sausages. "When a warchief rides to war, his most trusted lieutenant must be equipped with the finest weapons and armor available. It is tradition. It is honor. It is—" He pauses, glancing at his screen. "—apparently available for rush delivery if I pay an additional surcharge."
I open my mouth to protest, to insist that I can find something suitable on my own, that I do not need him spending money on me, that this crosses some professional line that probably should not be crossed. But the look on his face stopsme cold—earnest and eager and so desperately hopeful that I cannot bring myself to refuse.
"Fine," I sigh, and his expression brightens like a sunrise breaking over a battlefield. "But I am choosing the color. And the style. And the shoes. You do not get to dress me like some kind of corporate Barbie doll."
"I would not dream of it." His smile shows just a hint of tusk, sharp and white against his green skin. "I am merely providing the resources. The strategy, as always, is yours to command."
I shake my head, turning back to my laptop to hide the smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.
"We have four days to prepare for the most important pitch of our careers," I remind him, pulling up a blank document to start outlining our approach. "We need to research every attendee, identify our targets, develop a comprehensive networking strategy, and practice our pitch until we can deliver it in our sleep."
"And acquire appropriate armor," Knox adds, settling into the chair beside me with a creak of protesting furniture.
"And acquire appropriate armor," I agree.
We have four days to prepare for battle. Four days to transform ourselves into the kind of polished, sophisticated operators who can infiltrate high society and emerge victorious.
Four days, and the fate of everything we have built together hanging in the balance.
