Chapter 7

After the car comes to a stop at the Wendell Group tower, the driver directs Mila to the front desk before driving off after she exits the car.

A woman at the front desk looks up before Mila can say a word.

"Miss Collins? Forty second floor, they're expecting you."

Mila does not ask how the woman knew her face.

The elevator rises so quickly her ears pop. At the twentieth floor it stops, and a woman in a tailored white suit steps in. She is tall and poised, with sleek dark hair and a name tag that reads Serena Martins, Chief of Staff. Her eyes slide over Mila slowly, from her plain shoes to her unpainted nails.

"You're the new intern."

"I suppose so."

"On Mr. Wendell's personal floor." Serena's smile is polite and chilly. "That's very unusual. Most people wait years and some people wait forever."

"I didn't ask for it."

"No one ever does." The doors open, and Serena steps out, then pauses and looks back. "A word of advice, Miss Collins. He doesn't keep strays. If he's interested, it's only for a while."

The doors close and Mila exhales through her teeth.

Sharper antagonists, she thinks wryly. How wonderful.

At the end of the forty second floor hallway, a tall man in a dark suit waits with a tablet in his hand.

"I'm Graham, Mr. Wendell's assistant. follow me."

Through the double doors, she hears a low, amused voice.

"You called her here yourself, you know."

"I called her because I want answers."

"You called her because you can't stop thinking about that glass of water."

A short silence follows, and then a single cold word.

"Out."

Graham knocks twice and opens the door.

Theo Calloway is sprawled in a leather chair with a grin he is failing to hide. He gives Mila a small wink on his way out. Behind the desk, Cavan Wendell does not look up from the file in his hands.

"Sit." He says and she sits instantly.

He lets the silence stretch until it is uncomfortable. Mila folds her hands and keeps her face smooth. She remembers this man from her first life, especially the way rivals went quiet the moment he entered a room.

"You will start on Monday," he says at last. "It's a six month internship on my floor, and you are required to sit in on my meetings."

"I don't remember applying for anything." I said . I’ve heard so much of an internship I never knew existed.

"Your father signed the paperwork an hour ago."

The words land like a slap. My father signed it and didn’t bother to tell me or notify me.

"He didn't ask me first," she says.

"Did you expect him to?"

He said it without cruelty, which makes it worse. Defiance climbs up her throat.

"Then I'm declining," she says. "It's my life and it should be my decision."

"It was." Cavan finally closes the file. "But your father's company is three weeks from bankruptcy, and my signature is the only thing keeping it alive. If you walk out of this office, I withdraw it."

Mila's stomach drops.

He is not shouting and he is not even threatening. He is stating a fact, the way a man reads out a price.

And the worst part is that she cannot walk away.

I am not ready for them to fall. I want to be the one who pushes.

"So you're blackmailing me," she says quietly.

"I'm making you an offer. You get a salary, a desk and a place on a floor that most people wait ten years to see. Most people would call that generous."

"And what do you get out of it?"

He rises and walks around the desk, stopping in front of her, close enough that she has to tilt her head back to hold his gaze, close enough to smell cedar and cold air.

"Answers."

"To what?"

He does not reply. He returns to the desk, takes a thin black folder from the drawer and slides a single sheet of paper across the polished wood.

It is a rental agreement from a post office on the south side of the city.

The name at the top is typed in clean black letters.

Clara Hunt.

The blood leaves Mila's face.

She invented that name in a library at midnight. She rented that box in a different hat and a different coat, with a different walk. No one on earth should ever have connected it to her.

Cavan sits, folds his hands and watches her with calm, unreadable eyes.

"Now," he says quietly. "I'd like you to tell me who Clara Hunt is."