CHAPTER TEN

Isabella's POV

“You've been reading our quarterly filings at two in the morning,” Nathaniel said as he set a cup of coffee beside my laptop.

I nearly knocked the cup over.

I had not heard him come in. The door between my bedroom and my study stood open, and he stood beside my desk in his grey T-shirt with a second cup in his hand, looking at my screen.

Blackwood Holdings. Third Quarter Results. Page forty-one.

Heat climbed my neck. “I was curious.”

“About page forty-one?”

“About everything.”

He lowered himself into the armchair by the bookshelf and stretched his long legs across the rug. He did not look offended at all. He simply looked interested.

I pulled my notebook closer and turned the cover face down.

For a week, I had filled the notebook with everything I remembered from my first life. Not feelings. Facts. Dates, sectors, names, prices.

Renewable energy. Storage, not panels.

Logistics. Freight, ports, warehouses.

Healthcare technology. Diagnostics.

Infrastructure. Government programme announced in April.

Technology stocks crash. Last week of December.

Northway Freight. Chapter 11 in March.

In my first life, every line on those pages had made Adrian Cole rich.

Well, never again. 

On the first page, I had written one rule in capital letters and underlined the words twice.

NOTHING FOR ADRIAN. NOT THIS TIME.

“What do you think of them?” Nathaniel asked.

I blinked. “Of what?”

“Our filings.”

I studied his face. As always, I heard nothing. No flicker of amusement. No contempt. Only a closed door and a man waiting behind the door.

So I told him the truth.

“Your Westbridge office portfolio is valued as though every tenant renews,” I said. “Your three largest tenants are technology companies. Two of them have been burning cash for eighteen months. If technology stocks fall, those tenants shrink, and half of those floors go empty. Your valuations don't allow for any of this.”

He said nothing.

“And your Chicago office is carrying two buildings at last year's prices,” I added. “The finance director uses a lot of exclamation marks but none of them sit next to the vacancy rates.”

For a long moment, the only sound in the study was the hum of my laptop.

Then Nathaniel set his cup on the side table.

“My research division wrote forty pages on the office portfolio last month,” he said. “They missed the tenant concentration.”

“They weren't looking for the problem.”

“And you were?”

“I always look for the problem first.”

In my first life, I had learned to look for the problem first because nobody else in the house ever did. Adrian looked for applause. I looked for the crack in the floor.

Nathaniel studied me the way he had studied me on the night of the dinner, as though I was a puzzle with a missing piece.

“Come and work with the research division,” he finally said. “I will give you full access. Any data you want. You will have a desk on the forty-first floor tomorrow.”

The offer hung in the air between us.

Full access to Blackwood Holdings. In my first life, I would have wept for half as much.

“No,” I said.

His eyebrows rose a fraction in response.

“Thank you,” I added. “But no.”

“Why?”

I closed the laptop.

“Because you'd be opening a door for me. Everyone on the forty-first floor would know who opened the door. Every idea I had would belong to the chairman's wife.” I met his eyes. “I spent a long time as somebody's quiet helper, Nathaniel. I don't want a door my husband opened. I want the chance to prove I belong in the room.”

He did not answer at once.

I listened, out of habit, and heard nothing. The silence no longer frightened me. Tonight, the silence only made me impatient.

He looked down at his hands. Then he looked up.

“Then prove yourself.”

“How?”

“A challenge.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Blackwood funds a test portfolio. Ten million dollars, yours to run. Five junior analysts on the research floor run identical portfolios. Same money. Same rules. Same three months.”

“And if I win?”

“If you beat all five, I give you the capital for a company of your own.” He paused. “And I never control the company.”

I stared at him.

Ten million dollars. Three months. A company of my own.

In my first life, I had built an empire for a man who never once said my name in a boardroom.

“Not a gift,” I said.

“Sorry?”

“The capital. Let it not be a gift. Let it be a loan, at market rate. I pay every cent back with interest.”

“Done.”

“No board seat for you.”

“Done.”

“No veto. Not on hiring, not on investments, not on anything.”

“Done.”

“And my name on the door. Not Blackwood. Not Whitmore. A name I choose.”

“Whose name did you expect?”

“Somebody else's,” I said softly. “Somebody else's name has been on every door in my life.”

He held my gaze. Then the corner of his mouth lifted, the same small movement I had seen at the Galleria.

He leaned back in the armchair as though he had all night. His eyes had brightened. He looked, for the first time since I met him, almost boyish.

“You're enjoying this,” I said.

“Nobody negotiates with me.”

“No?”

“They agree with me. Or they sue me. I like this.” He tilted his head. “Any more terms?”

“The three months start on my first trade, not on my first day.”

“Done.”

“Then we have a deal.”

I held out my hand.

He rose from the armchair, crossed the rug, and took my hand in his.

His palm was warm and dry. His grip was firm without being hard. We shook once, the way business partners shake.

Then neither of us let go.

His thumb moved once across my knuckles. A small movement. Perhaps an accident. My pulse jumped anyway.

I became aware of everything at once. The lamp. The late hour. The thin cotton of his T-shirt. The fact I was wearing pyjamas with tiny blue clouds on them.

We let go at the same moment, both a little too fast.

He cleared his throat. “One more condition. Mine.”

“Go on.”

“The analysts don't know you're my wife.”

I frowned. “You're ashamed of the marriage?”

“No.” He said the word flatly, without a pause. “If they know, half of them will flatter you and half of them will try to trip you. I want neither in your numbers.”

Fair, I thought with a nod. More than fair.

“Who will know?”

“Julian Cross, my chief operating officer. And Simon Leach, the head of research. The portfolios sit under Simon's division, so Simon has to know.” He picked up his cup. “On the forty-first floor, you'll be Isabella Whitmore. A family friend on a trial.”

“Isabella Whitmore,” I repeated.

The name felt strange in my mouth. A week ago, I had been glad to give the name up.

“Monday,” he said. “Eight o'clock.”

He walked to the door. Then he stopped and looked back at me.

“Isabella.”

“Yes?”

“Drink the coffee. You'll need the coffee more than the sleep.”

He left.

I sat in my study and stared at the closed door for a long time. Then I turned my notebook face up, opened the first page, and pressed my finger against the rule.

NOTHING FOR ADRIAN. NOT THIS TIME.

Below the rule, I wrote a second line.

Everything for me.

***

On Monday morning, Harrison dropped me two blocks from Blackwood Tower, at my request.

“Mr. Blackwood said you might prefer to walk the last part, ma'am,” he said, holding the door.

Of course he had.

I walked the two blocks in my new navy suit, with my laptop bag over my shoulder and my grandmother's emerald under my collar. I had worn the pendant every day since breakfast with Eleanor.

Twice I had tried to ask Eleanor about my grandmother. Twice Eleanor had smiled and changed the subject to her roses.

If my father had torn a house apart to find this necklace, then the safest place for the necklace was around my neck.

Blackwood Tower rose fifty storeys over the Westbridge financial district, all dark glass and steel. The lobby smelled of coffee and polish. A security guard printed my pass. I. WHITMORE. RESEARCH. TEMPORARY.

Temporary. Fine. Everything started somewhere.

In my first life, I had never once walked into an office building with my own name on a pass. I had walked into Cole Global by the side entrance, carrying Adrian's lunch.

I stepped into the elevator alone and pressed forty-one.

The numbers climbed and my heart climbed with them.

Ten million dollars. Five analysts. Three months.

The elevator slowed. The bell chimed.

Then the doors slid open on the research floor.

What greeted my eyes made my heart drop to the floor. 

Twenty feet away, beside a glass office, Adrian Cole stood smiling and shaking Simon Leach's hand.