Chapter 2
Brandon straightened his tie in the elevator mirror, forty floors up, practicing the smile that had closed every deal he’d ever walked into.
“Relax,” his assistant said. “It’s just a signature.”
“It’s eight figures. I don’t relax for eight figures.”
The elevator opened onto a glass office with a view of the whole skyline. A man stood at the window with his back turned, hands in his pockets, perfectly still.
“Mr. Hayes.” Brandon crossed the room, hand already out. “Brandon Pierce. Pleasure.”
The man didn’t turn right away.
“Pierce.” He let the name sit in the air a moment, like he was testing its weight. “I know the name.”
“That’s right.”
“My wife came home last night smelling like Coca-Cola.”
Brandon’s smile didn’t move. His stomach did.
“I’m sorry?”
“She didn’t tell me what happened.” Gabriel Hayes walked to his desk, unhurried, and turned a phone screen toward him. Paused on a frame — Eleanor, soda dripping from her lashes, Brandon’s laugh caught mid-breath behind her. “The internet told me instead.”
The air left the room.
“That’s—” Brandon’s voice cracked on the word. “That was a joke. A stupid joke. We didn’t know—”
“Know what.” Gabriel’s voice stayed level, which made it land harder than shouting ever could. “That she was somebody? Or that somebody would mind?”
Brandon said nothing. There was nothing to say that wouldn’t make it worse.
“Sit down, Mr. Pierce.”
It wasn’t an invitation.
Brandon sat. His assistant had already backed toward the door, suddenly very interested in checking her phone.
“We’re not discussing your deal today,” Gabriel said, taking the seat across from him, slow, deliberate, a man who had never once needed to raise his voice to be obeyed. “We’re discussing my wife.”
May you like
“Mr. Hayes, if there’s anything I can do—”
“There is.” Gabriel folded his hands. “But you’re not going to like how I define it.”
