Chapter 1

When I pushed open the office door, my right foot went in first, the way it always did.

Aria Fox sprang up off the sofa, clapping her hands.

"Harry, I guessed right again this time. It was the right foot!"

I froze where I stood, my fingers instinctively tightening around the proposal I'd pulled three all-nighters to finish.

Aria sidled up next to Harry Gilbert and prodded his arm, urging him on.

"A bet's a bet. No backing out."

"I order you to go shred the file in her hands."

The words had barely left her mouth before Harry stood and pulled the thing out of my grip.

He flipped on the paper shredder. The thin pages hung over the mouth of it.

I clamped a hand down on his arm.

"The partners arrive tomorrow. Don't gamble with the company's interests."

The next second, he let go.

The machine swallowed the file whole and spat it out in shreds.

Harry turned his head to look at me, the coldness in his eyes too thick to melt.

"She's a lively girl. What's wrong with humoring her a little?"

"I promise, this is the last time."

The same thing, again.

I let out a scoff, the hand at my side trembling faintly.

Ever since Aria Fox joined the company, Harry had gone along with her on countless ridiculous bets.

Every time, he took something that mattered to me and destroyed it as the stake, without ever asking.

My newly reissued ID, the medicine I kept for low blood sugar emergencies, the bracelet I'd bought with three months of saved-up salary.

And afterward he'd toss out that airy promise that there wouldn't be a next time.

Which is why, a month ago, I'd already handed in my resignation.

From now on, I would not be the clueless chip in their games anymore.

1.

Harry leaned back into his chair, as if he weren't the one who had just fed my proposal into the shredder.

"Before tomorrow morning, I want to see the latest version on my desk."

"I know you can do it."

That line, again.

When Aria Fox rubbed her feet raw in her heels, he drove her to and from work for a solid month.

When I broke my leg and hobbled around on crutches in a cast, he said I was too slow and told me to take the subway.

The moment Aria Fox so much as sneezed, he booked her an appointment with the top specialist at the hospital.

When I had the flu and my fever hit a hundred and four, half out of my mind, he told me to order some medicine on the food delivery app.

Every single time, he said the same thing to me in the same tone.

"Lena, I know you can handle it."

"Aria isn't like you. She's spoiled and willful and can't hold it together. If I don't keep an eye on her, sooner or later something will go wrong."

I used to think it was trust. Only now do I see it for what it is. He just doesn't care.

I stayed at the office until the small hours before I finally scraped together the latest version of the proposal.

When I walked out the front doors, everything outside was pitch-black. Even the streetlights were dead.

It was too late for anyone to accept a ride request, so I opened up my chat with Harry.

"Are you asleep? Could you come pick me up?"

The message sank like a stone. I waited half an hour and got nothing back.

I figured he must have gone to bed early.

So I turned around, scanned a shared bike, and forced myself to pedal for forty minutes in the freezing wind.

By the time I locked the bike up, my ten fingers were frozen stiff as carrots.

But back home, the light in the study was still on.

I couldn't make out what was being said, only the laughter spilling out.

Harry had it on speaker, and on the other end was Aria Fox.

"Don't you forget what you promised me."

"Relax. I won't forget."

When he saw me, the smile on his face slowly faded.

"I'll hang up now. Get to bed early. If you can't get up tomorrow morning, you don't have to come in. I'll fill in your attendance for you."

I took off my coat and hung my bag on the rack.

Bending down to change my shoes, I remembered a day last month when I'd forgotten to clock in.

When HR came to me about it, Harry happened to be right there.

In front of everyone, he tore the makeup paperwork I'd submitted to shreds.

"A bad memory is no excuse for a mistake."

"This counts as one day of unexcused absence. Consider it a lesson."

The HR rep's gaze lingered on me and then on the wedding ring on his hand.

In the end, all she could manage was a stiff little line.

"Mr. Gilbert really is impartial."

Harry had never once tried to hide our relationship.

On my very first day at the company, he'd announced to everyone that we were husband and wife.

Some employee below wasn't happy about it.

"Another one who got in through the back door."

The voice wasn't loud, but everyone there heard it clearly.

Harry swept his gaze across the room, sharp, and what he said gave no quarter.

"I won't let personal ties affect my judgment."

"If anything, I'll hold Lena Swanson to a higher standard than anyone else."

"At this company, there is only ever a chain of command."

And he meant it.

He handed me the most work, squeezed my project timelines, and dumped every difficult, hard-to-please client on me all at once.

I could only grit my teeth and take it, not daring to breathe a single complaint.

But right now, all of a sudden, I didn't want to take it anymore.

As I turned, Harry was leaning against the doorframe of the study, the look behind his gold-rimmed glasses soft as water.

But what he said sent the warmth I'd only just managed to recover draining right back out of me.

"Aria still doesn't have a solid footing at the company."

"That project you're running right now, just hand it over to her."