Chapter 10 — Damien’s POV

I had a meeting at eleven.

Six people. My executive team plus two consultants from the Mercer group, flown in from Chicago, four hundred dollars an hour each, here to discuss a restructuring proposal that should have been straightforward.

Nothing about today was straightforward.

I told Noah at nine. Conference room. Eleven o’clock. Coffee for eight, Mercer files on the table, manage the arrivals.

“Ten forty-five,” he said, which meant it would be done by ten thirty.

It was done by ten thirty.

The consultants arrived. I heard Noah at the door, easy and professional, not one degree warmer than necessary. The shuffle of expensive coats. The particular energy of people performing intelligence at each other.

I came in at eleven exactly.

The meeting moved. Mercer’s lead consultant, a man named Briggs, talked too much and said too little, which was a skill in its own right. My legal team nodded at appropriate intervals. I asked three questions that made Briggs recalibrate his entire presentation in real time, which was the point.

At eleven twelve Noah came in to refill the coffee.

Quiet. Efficient. Invisible the way good staff was invisible.

And then Briggs said something to him.

Low. Conversational. The specific tone of a man who had just noticed something he liked and decided to do something about it.

I didn’t catch the words. I caught the tone. I caught the pause before Noah’s response, brief and professional, and the way Briggs laughed at whatever Noah said like they were suddenly having a private moment in the middle of my conference room.

“Mr. Carter,” I said.

The room went quiet.

“The liability clause. Page twelve of the Mercer contract. Your assessment.”

I felt the room shift. Six people recalibrating. Briggs going still.

Noah didn’t miss a beat.

“The indemnity language is too broad,” he said. “Third party claims aren’t adequately limited. It needs tightening before anyone signs anything.”

Silence.

My legal team had missed it. Briggs’ team had missed it. Noah Carter had caught it while organising files at ten thirty in the morning.

“Thank you,” I said. “That’ll be all.”

He left.

The meeting ended twenty minutes later.

When the room cleared I told Noah to come back in and close the door and he did, setting the tray down, turning toward me, waiting.

“You’re fired,” I said.

The words landed in the room like something dropped from a height.

Four seconds of complete silence.

“I’m sorry?” he said.

“Fired. Effective immediately. Severance by end of day.”

“You’re firing me,” he said slowly. “For catching the liability clause.”

“I’m firing you because I’ve decided to.”

Another silence. Tighter this time. I could hear him processing it, the particular quality of someone running numbers they can’t make add up. Eli. The treatment. The sixty percent. Seven days.

“Okay,” he said.

That was it. Okay. No begging. No breakdown. No desperate reaching for any argument that might change my mind.

Just okay, quiet and final, like he had already known this was coming and had made his peace with it somewhere between the conference room and right now.

I heard him pick up the tray.

Cross to the door.

Open it.

“Mr. Carter.”

He stopped.

“Put the tray down.”

A pause that lasted exactly long enough to mean something.

“Sir?”

“You’re not fired. Sit down.”

Nothing.

Then, very carefully, like he was handling something that might explode: “What.”

“You heard me.”

“You just fired me.”

“And now I’m not. Sit down, Mr. Carter, before I change my mind.”

“You literally cannot—” he stopped. I heard the tray go down. Heard him not sit. “Why,” he said. “Why did you just do that.”

I had nothing that served me so I said “The Mercer clause needed flagging and you’re the only person in this building who caught it. I can’t afford to lose that right now.”

A long silence.

“That’s why,” he said. Not a question. Flat. Like he didn’t believe it and wanted me to know he didn’t believe it.

Smart.

“Get back to work,” I said.

He left.

I sat in the empty conference room and told myself it had been a rational business decision and my phone buzzed and I picked it up and it was Daniel.

Mrs Hale says you have a new assistant. Lasted longer than the others. Bring him Thursday. I want to meet him.

I stared at the message.

My brother. Who still thought he had any say in how I ran my life. Who flew into the city and smiled at everyone and made everything seem manageable and had not seen the inside of this penthouse in eight months because I hadn’t let him.

I typed back: No.

Three seconds: Damien.

No, Daniel.

Thirty seconds of nothing. Then:

I’ll be there at seven. I’m bringing food. Don’t fire the assistant before I arrive.

I put my phone down.

Stood up.

Walked back to my office and sat down and pulled up the Mercer file and tried to focus on something that was not the fact that my brother was coming Thursday and had specifically, deliberately, mentioned Noah in the same breath.

Daniel noticed everything.

It was the most irritating thing about him.

Down the hall I heard Noah at his desk. Typing. Steady. Back to work like the last twenty minutes hadn’t happened, like I hadn’t fired him and un-fired him in the span of ninety seconds, like he was just going to absorb this the way he absorbed everything and keep going.

My phone buzzed again.

Not Daniel this time.

A number I didn’t recognise.

I answered.

“Mr. Cole.” A woman’s voice. Smooth. Carefully professional in the way that meant she was used to managing difficult conversations. “My name is Victoria Mercer. I believe you just met with my team.”

I went still.

Victoria Mercer did not make phone calls. She had people for that. Three companies and a personal net worth that made mine look modest and she called through assistants and lawyers and never, under any circumstances, directly.

“Ms. Mercer,” I said.

“I owe you an apology,” she said. “My team missed the liability clause. Your assistant caught it.” A pause. “I’d like to discuss the restructuring directly. Just the two of us. Dinner. Thursday.”

Thursday.

When Daniel was coming.

When Noah would be here.

“Thursday works,” I said.

“Wonderful,” she said. And then, almost as an afterthought, almost but not quite casual: “Bring your assistant.”

The line went quiet.

“Ms. Mercer,” I said.

But she had already hung up.

I sat with my phone in my hand and the Mercer file open on my desk and the particular feeling of several things moving at once in directions I hadn’t authorised.

Thursday.

Daniel. Victoria Mercer. Noah in the same room as both of them.

This was going to be a problem.