THE CEO'S SECRET OBSESSION

t in person - a woman named Marguerite who had the unbothered efficiency of someone who'd wo

nvenient." The way she said it made clear that conv

ised background check had turned up something she couldn't explain away. Nothing had come. That worried her more than an

stepped into his office and

oint on special acquisitions review - deals that need the kind of scrutiny you gave Halloway, a

ly to him.* That meant his calendar. His files. The kind of proximity to Blackstone's actual decision-mak

p for someone two weeks i

at makes sense on paper and none at all if you think about it the way most peopl

am I con

" he said, "or I want you somewhere I can watch clos

hat moment - with a clarity that should have frightened her more than it did -

be both?

mile, more like the shadow one leaves behind

er was reckless in a way that could unravel everything before she'd found what she came for. But the position put her exactly where she needed to be - inside the de

* she thought. *Let him. I need what's inside

pt," sh

re she'd walked in the door. "One condition. Everything that comes through this office stays in this office. No exceptions, no copies leaving the

erst

wasn't quite a threat - closer to a warning given out of something like consid

ss of it anyway, some current running under the professional distance neither

ything else,

. "The background check on Elena Voss came back clean. Verified

she'd trained every part of herself for exactly this kind of mo

ld when they're very good at building things. I don't think you're what your file s

o be, and you've spent too many ye

ing her, though the last thing he said landed before she'd closed

-

e she let herself breathe out the tensio

s wrong. He just doe

riding down through fifty-five floors of glass and steel with his offer folder in her hands, she felt something else entirely: the same steady, dangerous pull s

re for,* she told herself,

nquered, Alexander opened the drawer where he kept the folder his head of security had delivered that

iliar, that whatever answer he found at the bottom of it was going

ent back to work, and told