Caught Between Ice and Fire

The first thing I learned about rich people is that they hate waiting. The second thing I learned is that they hate being told no. I found out both on the same morning, in the same elevator, on the way up to the forty-third floor of Kade Tower — with a coffee stain on my blouse and one broken heel. I'd tried to fix it in the lobby bathroom with a strip of tape I found at the bottom of my bag. It held for exactly eleven steps before it gave up on me, the way most things in my life eventually did. So now I was walking with a slight tilt, like a ship that hadn't quite decided whether to sink or sail, and hoping to God nobody noticed. They noticed. The woman at the reception desk on the forty-third floor glanced at my feet the moment I stepped out of the elevator. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to. Her expression said everything — the small tightening around the eyes, the almost-smile that wasn't really a smile at all. It was the kind of look that translated, very cleanly, to: you don't belong here. I'd been getting that look my whole life. I'd learned to smile back. "Aria Wells," I said, keeping my chin up. "I have a nine o'clock with Mr. Kade." She typed something, unhurried. "Which Mr. Kade?" I blinked. "I — there's more than one?" The not-smile again. "There are two. Ethan and Roman. Which one are you here to see?" I pulled out the email I'd printed that morning — because my phone screen was cracked and some PDF attachments refused to open on it — and scanned the sender's name. E. Kade. That was all it said. Just the initial. "Ethan," I said, mostly guessing. She made a soft sound that might have been a confirmation or might have been judgment, then picked up her phone. I stood there with my printed email and my broken heel and my coffee-stained blouse, and I told myself, quietly, the way I'd been telling myself things for years: you've come this far. Don't you dare fall apart now. * * * The office at the end of the hall was the kind of room that made you feel small on purpose. Floor-to-ceiling windows. The whole of Velmoor City spread out below like something you could reach down and rearrange with your fingers. A desk that probably cost more than my mother's hospital bills — which was saying something. And behind it, a man. He stood when I walked in, which I hadn't expected. Rich men didn't usually stand. They sat and they waited for the world to come to them. "Ms. Wells." His voice was calm. Even. Like water over smooth stone. "Thank you for coming." Ethan Kade was not what I'd imagined. I'd built a picture in my head on the way over — someone cold, someone polished, someone who had never once worried about the electricity bill. And he was polished, yes. Dark hair, sharp jaw, the kind of suit that fit so well it looked like it had been sewn onto him. But his eyes were different. They were the eyes of someone who actually looked at you when you spoke. "I almost didn't," I said before I could stop myself. He tilted his head. "Almost didn't come?" "Almost didn't make it on time." I gestured vaguely at myself — the blouse, the heel, the general disaster of my morning. "Rough commute." Something shifted in his expression. Not pity. Something closer to amusement, maybe, or recognition. He gestured to the chair across from his desk. "Sit. Please." I sat. I crossed my ankles so the broken heel wasn't visible and I placed my portfolio on my lap and I reminded myself why I was here. Kade Industries was building a new residential tower on the south side of Velmoor — forty floors of luxury apartments. They needed a junior interior designer to work under the lead architect. The pay was three times what I was making at the firm where I currently fetched coffee and was occasionally allowed to suggest paint colours. I needed this job. My mother's next treatment was in six weeks. My brother Kofi's school fees were due in four. My landlord had already left two voicemails I hadn't returned. Don't think about all that. Just be good enough. Just be good enough to get this. "Your portfolio is impressive," Ethan said, flipping through the pages I'd spent three nights preparing. "Especially this one." He paused on the third page — a redesign concept I'd done for a community centre in the lower district. Not a paid project. Something I'd done because I'd wanted to. Because it mattered. "That wasn't a professional commission," I said carefully. "I know." He looked up. "That's why I like it. You weren't trying to impress anyone. You were just solving a problem." He closed the portfolio and set it on the desk between us. "That's the kind of thinking I need on this project." I didn't let myself smile too wide. I'd learned that one the hard way too — showing too much hope too soon had a way of inviting the universe to knock it out of you. "Tell me your concerns," he said. I blinked. "Excuse me?" "About the role. The project. Working here." He leaned back slightly, watching me. "Everyone has them. Most people don't say them out loud in an interview. I find it more useful when they do." I studied him for a moment. It could be a trap — the kind of trick question designed to make you talk yourself out of an offer. But there was something in the directness of his gaze that made me think he actually meant it. "The commute is long," I said. "I can manage it. I also want to be clear upfront that I'm not just here to hand over designs and disappear. I'll have opinions. I'll push back if I think something isn't right." I met his eyes. "Some employers say they want that, but they don't actually want it." There was a beat of silence. "I want it," Ethan said simply. And that was how I got hired by Ethan Kade — battered heel, coffee stain and all. * * * What I didn't know, standing in that elevator on the way back down, clutching my portfolio to my chest and allowing myself, finally, a small, private smile — what I couldn't have known — was that Ethan Kade would be on a plane to Singapore in four days. And that someone else entirely would be sitting behind that desk when I arrived for my first day of work. Someone with the same face. But not the same eyes.