The billionaire’s weekend debt

Chapter Two: The Perfect Assistant

He turns around and hands me a folder.

"Meridian account," he says. "I need the restructure proposal on my desk by Thursday."

That's it.

That's all it is.

I take the folder. I nod once. I say, "Thursday, understood," and I walk back out of his office and close the door behind me and stand in the corridor for exactly one second, feeling profoundly stupid for the way my heart was hammering the whole way down that hall.

A folder.

Two years of this and a closed door still does something to my chest that I refuse to examine.

I walk back to my desk.

I get to work.

~~~

I have a system for everything.

Desk drawers labeled. Calendar color-coded, blue for external meetings, green for internal, red for anything requiring damage control. Lunch packed before I leave home because fifteen wasted minutes at the café is fifteen minutes I could spend being useful.

Chloe calls this a problem.

Chloe is not entirely wrong.

But the system isn't obsession. It's armor. Every labeled folder, every pre-scheduled reminder, every perfectly drafted response, they are bricks in a wall I built around myself the day I realized I was in love with my boss.

I built the wall.

I made my peace.

Most days it holds just fine.

~~~

Dana from reception stops at my desk at 10:22.

"Morning, Natalia. Car service called about the Hamptons pickup Friday. They need a passenger name for the manifest."

I don't look up. "Which booking?"

"Private arrival. Friday evening."

I flip to the travel tab. My finger runs down the page.

"Passenger name?"

Dana checks her phone.

"Ms. Vance," she says. "Elena Vance."

My finger stops.

I keep my face down.

Elena Vance.

I know that name. Have known it almost a year, since I pulled a background brief for Brooklyn before a dinner with his father and found her profile tucked between two investment summaries, like Marcus Ethan had placed it there on purpose. Young. Polished. Old money married to newer money. The kind of woman Marcus selects for his son the way he selects real estate, for value, for legacy, for what it says about the family going forward.

I filed the brief.

I never mentioned it.

I became very good at not mentioning things.

"Natalia?"

"I'll handle it," I say. "Leave it with me."

Dana walks off.

Four seconds.

Something moves through my chest, sharp and hot, the kind of thing that has no place in a color-coded planner. I let it come because I've learned that if I don't give it the four seconds it will find me later, in the elevator, in the dark, at 2 AM when I have nowhere left to put it.

Four seconds.

Then I straighten my blazer.

I update the manifest. I confirm the car service in three clean sentences. I move to the next item in my inbox.

The wall holds.

It always holds.

~~~

Chloe is outside at noon with jollof rice and the expression she gets when she's done research nobody asked for.

"Elena Vance," she says, before I even sit down.

"Dana texts you."

"Dana worries about you." She turns to face me. "Three Ethan family events in six months. And the Hamptons summit is where Marcus makes his announcements. Family announcements."

The rice goes tasteless in my mouth.

"He's my boss," I say. "His personal life is not my department."

"You've been in love with him for two years."

"I've been professional for two years."

She gives me the look. The one she's had since we were nineteen sharing a terrible flat. The one that sees straight through every wall I build.

"You know what you are?" she says.

"Don't."

"A crime," she says quietly. "A crime against your own heart."

I stand. I smooth my skirt. I pick up my phone.

"I'll call you tonight."

"You won't."

"I'll try."

She takes my container. "More accurate."

~~~

The afternoon passes the way afternoons do. Clean, managed, controlled down to the minute.

Brooklyn walks past my desk at 3:40 and doesn't look at me, which is normal. He stops at the printer at 4:15 and says "push my Thursday call," which I've already done, which is also normal.

I leave at 7:18.

Thomas holds the lobby door. I wish him good night.

On the subway I read four pages of a novel I've been trying to finish for three months. I heat up soup when I get home. I shower. I lay out tomorrow's clothes, charcoal trousers, the blazer that makes me feel like I can handle anything.

I try to call Chloe. She doesn't pick up.

I get into bed at 10:15.

I close my eyes and I tell myself the same thing I tell myself every night. That tomorrow will be the same as today. Controlled. Manageable. Fine.

I'm very good at telling myself that.

What I don't know, lying there in the dark, is that two miles away Brooklyn Ethan is standing in front of a security monitor, watching a recording of my desk from this morning.

Watching my face.

Watching the four seconds.

On the desk beside him his phone is lit up.

He dials.

Someone answers on the second ring.

"Do it," Brooklyn says quietly. "Tomorrow morning."

He ends the call.

And somewhere across the city, in an apartment she thinks is safe, my little sister Izzy has no idea what's coming.