Page 7

Caleb looks at me the way he looks at a building before deciding where to put the cameras. Elliot blinks — once, slowly — which is his version of falling off a chair. Jagger opens his mouth, and I point at him.

"Don't."

"I wasn't—"

"You were about to say something insufferable."

"I was going to say—" He pauses and savors the moment. The smug bastard actually savors it. "—that you know her name."

"She's an employee."

"You don't know employees' names. You call the head chef 'the kitchen.' You called Matteo 'the bartender' once and he's been here—"

"Four years," I say. "I know."

Jagger's eyebrows go up.

"This is pointless," I say. "She's a waitress. She spilled a drink. I didn't fire her because the paperwork's a headache and Lola would make my life difficult. End of story."

Nobody buys it.

I'm not sure I do either.

The penthouse is dark except for the city outside the windows — Manhattan at two in the morning, doing what it always does, glittering and indifferent. I can see the club from here, twelve blocks south. Dark building, no sign, no indication of what's inside. I designed it that way. The best things are invisible to anyone who doesn't know where to look.

I'm standing at the windows with a glass of whiskey I don't want and her file open on my phone.

For the fifth time.

Anna Chester. Twenty-six. Community college. Mama’s Diner. Patricia Chester. Mother.

I scroll to the headshot again. Brown hair. No makeup. That fucking stunning face.

I close the file and put the phone facedown.

Stand there for eleven seconds — I count — then pick it up and open the file again.

This is a problem.

I don't develop interests in people. I develop strategies. Portfolios. Occasionally, grudges. I'm a systems person. My life runs on structure, on the clean satisfaction of things being exactly where they're supposed to be, performing exactly as expected. Surprises are inefficiencies. Emotions are variables I've spent thirty-four years learning to eliminate from the equation.

And this woman — this clumsy, nervous, painfully honest woman who offered to pay for an expensive suit with money she obviously doesn't have — walked into my building eight hours ago and jammed herself into my operating system like a virus I can't quarantine.

First night.

I finish the whiskey and go to bed before I do something really fucking stupid like text her.

When I finally sleep, I dream about the half-second warmth of fingertips on my skin, and I wake up at 5 a.m., sweating and hard as a fucking rock. I open her file on my phone and grip my cock through my boxers.

“What the fuck am I doing?” I groan.

I get up, I can’t obsess over this woman anymore

Anna

Someone has replaced my uniform.

I stand in front of my open locker staring at it like it might explain itself. Same black silk blouse, same fitted trousers, but... different. The cut is softer through the shoulders. The waist sits where a waist should actually sit on a person who has one, instead of three inches too high like yesterday's uniform, which was designed by someone who apparently thought women were shaped like refrigerators. The fabric is heavier, nicer, with a subtle sheen I can feel under my thumb when I run it along the collar. There's a tiny Italian label on the inside that I don't recognize but that looks expensive in the way things look expensive when they don't need to tell you they're expensive.