Chapter 13

ELEANOR'S POV

By Monday, I had twenty-nine days left.

I counted them the way a prisoner counts bricks. My resignation had been filed that afternoon. It was marked Confidential: Board Level, Effective in Thirty Days. I had processed it myself, since I was the one who processed everything. It sat in the HR system under a coded folder that Dominic had never once opened in his life.

Thirty days. The exact length of time between now and our wedding.

I was still his secretary until then. So at nine o'clock, I walked into his office with a tablet and a fresh cup of black coffee. Dominic looked up from his desk with an expression I had come to know very well.

It was the expression of a man who was about to ask for something.

"Ellie. I need a favor."

"Of course."

"Vivi and Henry can't stay at Callum's." He leaned back in his chair, tapping his pen against the armrest. "The press found out. There are cameras outside the bar. I want to move them somewhere safe, somewhere with proper security. The penthouse has a guest suite."

The penthouse. The top three floors of the Thorne Group building, where he lived. I had chosen the sofa in his living room. I had chosen the sheets on his bed.

"Temporarily," he added quickly. "Just until the story dies down. A week, maybe two."

"I'll arrange it," I said.

He blinked. He had been braced for a fight, and the fight didn't come.

"You're not upset?"

"Why would I be?" I made a note on the tablet. "A woman and a child in danger need a safe place. It's the sensible thing to do. I'll have the guest suite aired, stock the kitchen with whatever Henry eats. And I'll arrange a security rotation on the elevator."

"Ellie." He stared at me. "You're being very reasonable."

"I'm always reasonable."

"I know. I just..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Thank you. I mean it. I don't know what I'd do without you."

You are going to find out, I thought, and gave him a small, perfectly professional smile.

…

The suite took four hours to prepare.

I did it perfectly. I ordered Vivian's favorite jasmine candles and the fine cotton sheets she liked. Because I had read about them in an interview. I stocked the fridge with oat milk and cut fruit. I bought a pair of small dinosaur pajamas and a box of watercolor pencils for a boy whose favorite color I did not know.

I told myself it was practice. A good secretary finishes the job right, even on the last day.

At three o'clock, Vivian arrived.

She came up in the private elevator with two bodyguards and a rolling suitcase. her sunglass was pushed up into her hair. And a white gauze bandage taped carefully across the left side of her forehead. She looked fragile. She looked brave. She looked like a woman who had suffered terribly and refused to complain about it.

She also smelled like fresh blood.

I stopped moving.

It was only a tiny amount. A single pinprick of copper under the jasmine. A wolf's body is a machine built to heal. I had a gash across my own forehead from the hospital stampede. And it was still scabbing because of that unnatural fever, which made it slow to knit. But Vivian was a wolf too, and she had cracked her skull against a sink, supposedly hard enough to bleed down her face.

That wound should have been closed by morning. It should have been a faint pink line by dinner.

Instead, somebody had opened it again.

"Miss Ashmoor!" Vivian pressed her hand to her chest, her voice melting into gratitude. "You went to so much trouble. I can't tell you how sorry I am for all the confusion. I hope there are no hard feelings."

I looked at her bandage. I looked at her bright, damp eyes.

"None at all," I said pleasantly. "Please let me know if the suite isn't comfortable."

"You're so kind." She touched the bandage, wincing prettily. "It still hurts so much. The doctor says I mustn't get it wet. Dom was worried it might scar."

"I'm sure it won't."

She gave a small, grateful smile. Behind it, so quickly I almost missed it, something sharp and satisfied flickered in her eyes. She knew I had noticed. She knew I couldn't prove it. And she was enjoying it.

I made myself bow and step aside. I carried her suitcase to the guest room myself.

…

I found Henry later, standing alone in the long hallway on the thirty-ninth floor.

I had come up to drop off the last of the documents for Dominic's evening call. The penthouse was quiet, the late sun pouring gold across the polished floors. Vivian was in the bath, and Dominic was downstairs in a meeting. A boy of almost five stood by the tall window with his hands folded behind his back, looking out at the city.

He did not turn around when I came in.

"Hello, Henry," I said.

"Hello, Miss Ashmoor."

His voice was clear and polite. It sounded like a voice that had been taught which words to use.

"Do you like your room? I wasn't sure what you'd want. I bought some pencils."

"Thank you for the pencils." He turned his head slightly. "I like blue, but I will use the red ones too, in case Mother asks."

I stood very still.

He studied me with solemn eyes. The same warm brown as Vivian's, but flatter somehow. like glass painted to look like something living. Then he lifted one small hand and waved at me. It was a perfect little wave. It looked rehearsed.

I listened without meaning to. It is a habit. I have never learned how to turn it off.

His heartbeat was slow. Slow and calm and absolutely steady. The heartbeat of a man waiting for a train, not a child of almost five in a stranger's house. There was no fear in it. No curiosity. No childish flutter at all.

A child's heart should not beat like that.

"Henry," I said gently, "is everything all right?"

He looked at me for a long moment. I had the strangest feeling that someone much older was looking out through his eyes.

"I'm not supposed to talk to you," he said, and turned back to the window.

I stood in the golden light with the documents in my hand, and the hair on the back of my neck rose.

Somewhere behind me, a door opened. Vivian's voice floated out, warm and sing-song and bright.

"Henry, darling? Who are you talking to?"

The boy's shoulders dropped, just slightly. He turned to face me again. And the little face that looked up at me was suddenly a different face entirely. Wide-eyed, trembling, sweet.

"Nobody, Mommy," he said, in a small, shaky, childlike voice. "I was just lonely.”