THW BILLIONAIRE WIFE DISAPPEARED

Chapter One: The New Beginning

I've been standing outside this building for almost ten minutes now.

I'm not lost. I checked the address three times on the drive over, then twice more after I parked. I can't get my legs to carry me through the door.

Kingsley Enterprises takes up the whole block. Glass and steel, climbing so high I have to tilt my head all the way back just to find the top. My stomach does something ugly looking up at it, and I hate that a building can do this to me before I've even walked inside.

First day. New job. I tried my blazer on twice last night, just standing in front of my mirror, turning side to side, wondering if it made me look like someone who actually belonged here.

I checked my phone. 8:47.

Any longer standing out here and I'll manage to be late before the job even starts. That has to be some kind of record.

Okay, I say out loud to nobody. You've got this.

I don't feel like I've got this. Not even close. But I walk in anyway because turning around now and driving home isn't really an option.

The lobby smells like new carpet and coffee I can't find the source of. A woman behind the front desk looks up, already wearing the kind of smile that comes standard with the job.

Morning. Can I help you?

Hi, morning. The words come out faster than I mean them to. I make myself breathe. Stephanie Reyes. It's my first day. Executive department.

Oh, right, right, they've got you down here somewhere, "she says, tapping at her screen without really looking at it. Fifteenth floor. Someone'll grab you when you get up there.

Great. Thank you.

Elevators are past the plants, hon.

I find them, step in alone, and watch the doors slide shut. My own reflection stares back at me off the brushed steel, hair doing something strange on one side, blazer creased from sitting too long in the car. I fix what I can reach.

Don't be weird, I tell my reflection. Just don't be weird.

The doors open on fifteen; for one second, the nerves in my chest go quiet, mostly out of shock. Everything up here looks expensive in a way that isn't loud about it. Clean lines. People moving fast, folders under their arms, voices low, as the whole floor runs on some rhythm nobody's bothered to explain to me yet.

A woman in gray cuts across the hallway toward me, heels clicking hard against the floor.

Stephanie?

That's me.

Clara. I'm the exec assistant; come on, I'll show you where everything is. She's already walking before I catch up, and I spend the next minute half a step behind her the whole way. Okay, so you're gonna be working closely with Mr. Kingsley. Heads up now, he's, um. Particular.

Particularly how?

She glances at me sideways. Not quite a warning. It's not quite a joke. Somewhere stuck in between.

You'll find out.

That's not reassuring.

Wasn't trying to be.

I laugh, more nerves than humor, and I'm about to ask something else when a door at the end of the hall swings open.

I don't need Clara to tell me who that is.

He's tall. Dark suit, the kind that clearly didn't come off a rack. He walks like a man who's never once had to rush for anybody in his life. His face gives away nothing, not annoyance, not curiosity, nothing at all. His eyes sweep the hallway once, land on me, and just stay there.

A beat too long. Long enough that my pulse picks up before he even opens his mouth.

Who's that, he says. I'm not really asking. It's more like he already expects the answer to be sitting in his hand, waiting for him to reach out and take it.

Stephanie Reyes, Clara says. Starts today, sir. Executive department.

He looks at me another second. I start counting it in my head without meaning to.

My office, he says. Now.

My stomach drops somewhere down near my shoes. Yes, okay. Yes, sir.

I follow him in. The door shuts behind us, and the click sounds louder than any door closing has any right to.

His office is bigger than my old apartment. Floor-to-ceiling windows. A desk with exactly one folder and a laptop shut all the way, like even the furniture's been told to behave itself. He walks around behind it, picks up the folder, and doesn't sit down.

You'll be helping on a few things starting this week, he says, holding it out to me. I need you on time. I need you paying attention the first time I explain something, not the third. And I need that read before two o'clock.

I take it. It's heavier than it looks, or maybe that's just me. I'll do my best.

Don't do your best. His voice stays flat, no heat in it at all, like he's correcting a typo on a page and nothing more. Do it right.

I blink. Right. Yes. Sorry, I mean. Yes, sir.

Something moves across his face. There, then gone, so fast I almost miss it. I would have missed it if I hadn't already been staring, trying so hard to read him.

That's all, he says. Go.

I turn for the door fast, already half convinced I've blown it in under five minutes, when his voice stops me before my hand even reaches the handle.

Stephanie.

I turn back. Yeah?

He's still looking at me, and for one second, the flat, unreadable thing in his expression eases into something else. Not warm exactly. It's just less shut.

Welcome to Kingsley Enterprises.

I manage a small smile. Thanks.

Out in the hall, Clara's leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, already grinning like she heard the whole thing through the door.

So, she says. How'd that go?

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding for five straight minutes. I need coffee. Immediately.

Second door on the left. She pushes off the wall, already walking. You're gonna need a lot of it. Trust me.

I follow her down the hall, and for the first time since I walked into this building, some small, stubborn part of me starts to believe I might actually survive today.

I have no idea yet how wrong I am about that.