CHAPTER TWO

THE REJECTION

PART ONE

Mia barely slept.

She lay on her side with the blanket pulled up to her chin and replayed it all: his stillness, the way he had looked at the window instead of at her, the careful kindness of I appreciate your honesty. It wasn't the answer she had spent three years imagining. It wasn't a no, either. She told herself she had been honest, that honesty was enough, and almost believed it.

She was at Vale International before most of the floor had turned on its lights.

"You're early," the receptionist said, smiling.

"Couldn't sleep."

"Big day?"

"Very."

In the elevator, she studied her reflection in the mirrored wall. Dark hair tied back, jacket pressed, face calm. Calm on the outside, at least. She pressed her palms flat against her skirt to keep them still and rode up to the executive floor.

Alexander's office door opened before she had decided whether to knock.

He wore a charcoal suit and a tie that sat perfectly straight, and he looked as though he hadn't slept much either. "Mia."

"Good morning, Mr. Vale. I have your schedule ready."

"Good."

She waited. He seemed about to say something more, but a pair of analysts walked past the glass, and his eyes followed them. When he looked back, whatever he had been about to say had closed behind his face. His thumb moved along the edge of his watch.

"We'll talk later. Noon, in the executive lounge. Bring the board deck."

"The lounge?"

"The executives are already meeting there at noon."

It was not an answer, but he was already walking away.

The morning dragged. She sent emails, rescheduled a dentist's appointment for one of the vice presidents, and checked the conference room door more times than she would ever admit. At eleven thirty, it finally opened, and Alexander's inner circle filed out. Among them was Gregory Harrison, one of his oldest business associates, a broad, loud man who treated every conversation as an audience and every joke as a small cruelty at someone else's expense.

"Still here, Mia?"

"I'm always here."

"Of course you are." He laughed at his own answer.

Alexander walked past without looking at either of them.

At noon, she carried the board deck down the corridor, her tablet tucked against her ribs. The executive lounge was all leather and glass, with long sofas and a bar in the corner, and a view that stretched to the river. Alexander stood at the window with his back to the room. Three men sat on the sofas. One was pouring himself a drink at noon without apology.

"So this is the famous Mia," Gregory said.

She gave him a polite smile. "Hello."

"I've heard a lot about you."

She looked at Alexander. He didn't turn around. He didn't explain.

"Should I leave?"

"No." He faced her at last. His face was smooth as glass, and when he spoke, his voice was flat in a way she had never heard from him, as if he were reading from a card. "Stay. Close the door."

She closed it. The latch clicked, very loudly.

"About last night," he said.

No one in the room moved. Gregory raised an eyebrow. "Last night?"

Heat spread up Mia's neck. Alexander kept his eyes on her. "You told me something yesterday."

"Yes."

"I've thought about it."

She swallowed. "And?"

"You misunderstood the relationship between us."

A chill went through her, quick and clean. She kept her voice level. "What do you mean?"

"You work for me. I'm your employer. You should never have confused my kindness with something else."

"I didn't confuse anything."

Gregory gave a quiet laugh. Alexander's eyes flicked toward him, then back to Mia. His thumb was pressed hard against the face of his watch, hard enough that the knuckle had gone white. She saw it, and didn't understand it, and filed it away because there was nowhere else to put it.

"You told me you love me," he said. "Did you really believe I'd have a relationship with my assistant?"

"I wasn't asking you to,"

"You should have thought about your position before you said it."

The silence was so complete that she could hear the ice settle in someone's glass. Her eyes stung. She would not let them spill. "I understand."

"I don't think you do." He came a step closer and lowered his voice, which was somehow worse. "You and I live in different worlds."

"I never said I wanted to change your world."

"Just tell her plainly, Alexander," Gregory said, bored.

Mia turned her head and looked at him. Alexander's jaw flexed.

Then he said it.

"You are a nobody, Mia."

Everything in her went still. Gregory stopped laughing.

"You work for me. That's all." He didn't blink. "You could never belong in my world."

The room seemed to shrink around her. She looked at the man whose coffee she had carried every morning, whose schedule she had guarded, for whom she had stayed late more nights than she could count. He was looking at her as if she were furniture.

"Good," he said when she didn't speak.

She nodded once. She turned and put her hand on the door.

Behind her, Gregory murmured, just loud enough, "She really thought she had a chance."

Her fingers closed around the handle. She shut her eyes for exactly one second. Then she opened the door and walked out.