My Billionaire's Dirty Secret

The folder landed on my desk at four fifty-three on a Friday afternoon, and Derek Walsh didn't sit down when he delivered it. That was the first sign that something was wrong. "Aiden Blackwood," he said, standing over me with his hands in his pockets. "Founder of Blackwood Tech. Eleven billion dollars, zero press appearances, and something buried in his past that certain people want public before he closes his next government contract." He tapped the folder once. "I want you on it." I looked up at him. In three years at Walsh Digital, Derek had never personally walked a file to my desk. He had assistants for that and had assistants for his assistants. "Why me?" I asked. "Because you're precise," he said. "And because you're hungry enough to do what's necessary." I opened the folder. I saw a photograph of Aiden Blackwood staring back at me. Sharp jaw and dark eyes with the expression of a man who had stopped explaining himself to people a long time ago. Behind it was a cover identity, fully built, already printed. Rachel Lin. A luxury real estate agent. Boutique Manhattan firm. "You're putting me undercover," I said. "Blackwood is scouting a private residential property through a referral network his assistant manages," Derek said. "I've arranged the introduction. All you have to do is walk in and be convincing." He paused. "Six weeks, find the dirt, and write the story." I thought about the eviction notice on my kitchen counter, sixty-one dollars in my checking account, and my father, who had spent his whole life doing the right thing and died with his name attached to a fraud he never committed, and had believed that integrity was its own reward right up until the moment it buried him. Watching that happen had taught me one thing. The world did not protect people who waited for permission to fight back. I was not going to die, careful and forgotten. Not like him. "And if he figures out I'm not a real estate agent?" I asked. Derek finally looked at me directly. "Then figure out how to make sure he doesn't." He straightened. "Front page, raise, contract renewal. Or I give your desk to someone who won't hesitate." "I'll do it," I said. He nodded like he had never considered any other outcome. "The first showing is tomorrow morning. Don't be late. Men like Blackwood notice everything." I was twelve minutes early to the first showing. The property was a penthouse on the Upper East Side, and the asking price was higher than my entire career earnings combined. I gave Rachel Lin's name to the doorman, rode the elevator up alone, and spent thirty seconds standing in the empty unit telling myself I was ready. Then the doors behind me opened. Aiden Blackwood was taller than the photographs suggested. Not just in height, it was the way he occupied space, like the room had always been his, and I was simply in it without an invitation. He looked at me the way you look at a document you are deciding whether to sign. He said nothing. I extended my hand. "Mr. Blackwood. I'm Rachel Lin. Thank you for…" "You're nervous," he said. My hand was still between us. He hadn't taken it. "I'm not," I said. "Your left hand," he said. "You've been pressing your thumb into your index finger since I walked in." I dropped both hands to my sides and held his gaze. "I'm thorough," I said. "Not nervous. There's a difference." He walked past me into the unit without another word. I followed him. He moved through the rooms the way someone does when they are not actually looking at the property, like the showing was a test with a completely different subject. I talked about the northeast exposure, the morning light, and the fire suppression system certified fourteen months ago. He asked one question I wasn't prepared for, and I answered it correctly by sheer over-preparation. He looked at me differently after that. "Most agents don't know that off the top of their head," he said. "Most agents aren't me," I said. He scheduled a second showing and left without seeing the terrace. Three days later, a different property. A townhouse in the West Village, narrow and tall, original hardwood floors with more light than the space knew what to do with. I got out of my cab two buildings down and walked the rest of the way, and that was when I noticed the black car. Parked directly across from the entrance with dark windows and the engine off. I would not have looked twice except I had seen the same car outside the Upper East Side penthouse three days ago with the same make, position, and same distance from the door. I stood on the pavement and looked at it for three full seconds. Could be a coincidence, I told myself. This is New York. I walked inside. Aiden was already there, standing at the far end of the main room with his back to the door. He didn't turn around when I walked in. "The light is better here than the last property," I said. "I know," he said, still not turning. "Why did you become a real estate agent?" he asked, turning around suddenly, hands in his pockets, looking at me with that same direct attention that had nothing polite in it. "I like matching people to spaces," I said. "Reading what someone actually needs versus what they think they want." "Is that what you're doing right now?" he said. "Reading me?" "I'm showing you a townhouse," I said. "You're doing more than that," he said. I moved toward the kitchen to break the moment. He stopped me with two words. "Your necklace." I stopped walking. "What?" "You've touched it four times since you walked in. You did in the last property, too." He nodded toward my collarbone. "From someone important?" It was my father's. A small compass pendant, the one thing of his I wore every day without thinking. "It was a gift," I said. He held my gaze for a long beat, then picked up my folder, flipped to the second page, and handed it back. His fingers brushed mine as I took it, and neither of us said anything about it. He walked to the door and paused. "The necklace," he said, without turning around. "Whoever gave it to you, they'd be unhappy knowing where you're wearing it." He left before I could answer. I stood in the middle of that townhouse with his last sentence sitting in my chest and one question I couldn't shake loose. How did Aiden Blackwood know anything about the man who gave me that necklace? And whose car was parked outside both properties?