Zoe
My apartment is too small for the thoughts that fill it, the walls pressing in on me from all sides as I pace from the window to the door and back again, my phone clutched in my hand, my mother's photograph propped against the lamp on the table beside a stack of bills I have not been able to pay. The room is dark except for the streetlight filtering through the thin curtains, and I can hear the radiator clanking in the corner and the neighbors arguing through the wall and the sound of my own breathing, too fast, too shallow, the way it gets when I cannot find the edges of the fear pressing against my ribs. I told Liam Cole yes. I told Evelyn Cole I am in. I have made deals with two people who could destroy me with a word, and I am sitting in my apartment with twelve dollars in my pocket and a mother who is dying.
My phone buzzes in my hand and I look down and see a message from an unknown number, and for a moment my heart stops because I think it is Evelyn. But the message is from Liam, and the words are short and cold and final, the same way he spoke to me in his office. Your mother has been moved to the private wing at Westbrook. The treatments start tomorrow. You can see her anytime. I stare at the screen for a long moment, my fingers trembling, my throat tight, and I feel something crack open in my chest, something I have been holding together for months. I want to cry, but the tears do not come, and I want to thank him, but I do not know how to thank a man who has given me something I did not ask for. I type back, my fingers clumsy on the screen, and I say, Thank you.
The next morning I stand in front of the mirror in my small bathroom and I look at the woman staring back at me, the woman with the grey eyes and the dark hair and the face that does not look like someone who lies for a living. I put on the navy blue dress again because it is the only thing I own that does not look like it came from a thrift store, and I brush my hair until it shines, and I tell myself that I am Lena Madaki, twenty-six, first-class degree, two years at Sterling Bank, and I am starting my new job at Crestwood Capital today. The lie sits on my tongue like a stone, and I swallow it and walk out the door.
Crestwood Tower is different in the morning, the light hitting the glass at an angle that makes the whole building glow, and I stand at the entrance for a moment, looking up, looking at the floor where I know he is sitting at his desk with his coffee and his silence and his eyes that see too much. I think about turning around, but I think about my mother in the private wing, about the treatments that are starting today, and I walk inside. I take the elevator to the top floor and I step out into the quiet hallway and I see the woman who was here yesterday, and she nods and says, "He is in his office. He wants to see you before the meeting."
I walk toward his door, my heart pounding, and I knock and wait and hear his voice say, "Come in." He is standing by the window when I enter, his back to me, his hands in his pockets, and for a moment I just stand there, looking at the line of his shoulders, the way the light catches his hair. He turns when I do not speak, and his eyes meet mine, and I feel it again, that pull, that heat, that thing that makes my chest tight and my breath shallow.
"You are early," he says, and his voice is the same as yesterday, low and calm and controlled.
"I wanted to see my mother after work," I say, and I see something flicker in his expression, something that looks almost like understanding. He nods and walks toward his desk and picks up a folder and holds it out to me, and I take it and our fingers do not touch this time, I make sure of that.
"These are the files you will give Evelyn," he says. "Old records, nothing incriminating, but enough to make her believe you are making progress. You will give her one file at a time, spaced out, and you will tell her that it is taking longer than expected, that I am careful, that I do not trust easily."
I open the folder and look at the papers inside, pages of numbers and names I do not understand, and I close it and look up at him and say, "And what do I tell her about you? About us?"
He is quiet for a moment, and I see his jaw tighten, the muscles working beneath the skin. "You tell her what she wants to hear," he says, and his voice is lower now, softer, and he moves closer, close enough that I can smell his cologne, close enough that I can see the scar on his eyebrow. "You tell her that I am interested, that I am watching you, that I am waiting to see if you are worth my time. You tell her that I am cold and distant and difficult, because that is what she expects, and that is what will make her believe you are working."
He is standing in front of me now, close enough to touch, and I do not move, do not breathe, do not allow myself to do anything that might betray the fact that my heart is racing and my skin is prickling. "And what about the rest?" I ask, and my voice is barely a whisper.
He looks at me for a long moment, and I see something in his eyes, something that looks like hunger and fear and the kind of wanting that destroys men like him. "The rest," he says, and his voice is rough now, the control slipping, "you make up as you go along."
He steps back, and the distance between us is cold and empty and I want to close it. But I do not move, and he does not move, and we stand there in the silence with the city spread out below us and the weight of everything we have not said pressing down on us. "The meeting starts in ten minutes," he says, and his voice is back to business, back to cold. "I will introduce you as my new assistant. You will take notes and you will not speak unless I ask you a question."
The conference room is full of people, men in suits and women in expensive dresses, their voices loud, their laughter filling the space. I sit at the end of the table with my notebook and my pen and my folder of lies, and I watch them move and talk and bargain. Liam sits at the head of the table, and he is a different man here, the CEO, the billionaire, the man who does not smile. He listens when they speak, his face giving nothing away, and when he speaks his voice is low and quiet and the room leans in to hear him. I watch him, and I take notes, and I do not speak.
When the meeting ends and the people file out, I am still sitting there, and I do not notice that he is still there, standing at the door, watching me. "You did well," he says, and I look up and see something in his eyes, something that looks like approval, something that looks like surprise. I stand up and gather my things and walk toward the door, and when I pass him I stop.
"Thank you," I say. "For my mother. For the treatments. For everything."
He looks at me for a long moment. "Do not thank me," he says, and his voice is rough, the mask cracking. "I am not doing this for you."
I walk past him into the hallway, and I feel his eyes on my back, and I go to my desk and I sit down and I open the folder and I look at the lies I am going to tell Evelyn Cole tonight. My phone buzzes, and I look at the screen and see a message from Evelyn. First file. Tonight. Same place. Do not be late.
I type back, my fingers steady even though my hands are shaking. I have something. I will be there. And when I look up, he is standing in his doorway, watching me, and I see the question in his eyes, and I nod, and he nods, and we do not speak, but we do not need to.