Chapter 1
Emma stood in the lobby of Chen Industries and watched people rush past her like she was furniture. Good. That was exactly what she wanted.
She wore a gray suit that she bought from a discount store and she kept her hair in a tight bun that made her look older and duller. Her glasses were plain and her shoes were flat and everything about her screamed forgettable. She had practiced this look in the mirror for a week until she was satisfied that no one would look twice.
The receptionist called her name and Emma walked to the desk with her head down.
"Fifth floor for interviews" the woman said without looking up.
"Thank you"
Emma took the elevator up and counted the seconds. Forty two until the doors opened. She stepped out into a hallway with white walls and glass doors and more people rushing past without seeing her.
The waiting room had six other candidates. They all looked polished and expensive. Designer suits and perfect hair and confident smiles. They looked at Emma and then looked away like she was not worth worrying about.
Perfect.
"Emma Lawson"
She stood and followed a woman in a tight pencil skirt down another hallway. They stopped at a door and the woman knocked once before opening it.
"Your next interview Mr Chen"
Emma walked into an office that took up half the floor. Windows showed the city below and the furniture looked like it cost more than most people made in a year. Behind a massive desk sat Alexander Chen and he was looking at his phone.
He did not look up when she entered.
Emma stood there and waited. She counted to thirty in her head. He still did not look up.
"Sit" he said.
She sat.
He typed something on his phone and then finally glanced at her. His eyes passed over her face for maybe two seconds before going back to his screen.
"You are here for the assistant position"
"Yes"
"Can you keep a schedule"
"Yes"
"Answer phones"
"Yes"
"Work late when needed"
"Yes"
He set his phone down but he still was not really looking at her. His eyes focused somewhere around her shoulder.
"Good. You start Monday. HR will send you the paperwork"
Emma blinked. "That's it"
"Do you have a problem with the job"
"No"
"Then we are done here"
She stood and walked to the door. Her hand was on the handle when he spoke again.
"What did you say your name was"
"Emma Lawson"
"Right. Emma. See you Monday"
She left his office and walked back to the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. When the doors closed she allowed herself a small smile.
He had not asked about her education or her experience or her references. He had not asked why she wanted the job or what her career goals were. He had barely looked at her face.
Alexander Chen had just hired someone to work inches away from him and he knew nothing about her. He did not even care enough to pretend to care.
The elevator reached the lobby and Emma walked outside into the afternoon sun. She pulled out her phone and opened an encrypted app. Three messages waited from clients offering her jobs. A tech startup in Singapore wanted her to restructure their entire business model. A pharmaceutical company in Germany needed her to navigate a hostile takeover. A hedge fund in New York was begging for a consultation.
She declined all of them.
Emma Lawson had better things to do than save companies for people who would actually appreciate it. She had a test to run.
She walked four blocks to a coffee shop and ordered black coffee and sat in the corner with her laptop. She opened a file labeled Chen Industries and scrolled through six months of research.
Alexander Chen was thirty two years old and he inherited his company when his grandfather died three years ago. The old man built Chen Industries from nothing and turned it into a billion dollar empire. Alexander got all of it because he was the only grandson.
Since taking over Alexander had made exactly twelve major business decisions. Emma had tracked all of them. Seven were mistakes that cost the company millions. Three were mediocre and barely kept things stable. Two were actually good ideas but Emma knew they came from anonymous strategy reports that Alexander received and passed off as his own thinking.
She should know. She sent those reports.
For the past eight months Emma had been consulting for Chen Industries without Alexander knowing it. Department heads hired her through encrypted channels and paid her in cryptocurrency and she sent them strategies that saved their divisions. Alexander took credit for all of it during board meetings.
Emma watched him through news articles and investor calls and company announcements. She watched him talk about vision and innovation and leadership while reading from scripts other people wrote. She watched him give interviews where he could not answer basic questions about his own company's operations.
And she wanted to know if he was worth saving or if he was just another trust fund baby coasting on someone else's work.
So she applied to be his assistant.
Emma closed her laptop and finished her coffee. Monday she would start and she would become invisible and she would watch Alexander Chen up close. She would see how he treated people when no cameras were around. She would see if he ever looked past himself long enough to notice the person fixing his mistakes.
This was not about money. Emma had more money than she could spend. This was about something else.
She wanted to see if powerful men who never had to work for anything could learn to see the people they stepped on.
Alexander Chen was about to become her experiment.
And Emma always finished her experiments.
