London Hearts, Billionaire Nights

The mirror was cracked in the corner, just enough to split her reflection into two imperfect halves. Eve stared at herself in it anyway, tugging the blouse down over her hips before deciding against it and pulling it back off. "No," she muttered. "Makes me look about forty-five." Behind her, Aiden sat cross-legged on the bed, working through a piece of bread that had gone slightly stale overnight. He held his plastic cup of water with both hands the way he always did, like it might spill if he stopped paying attention. He'd been watching her cycle through outfits for the better part of twenty minutes without saying much. "What about the blue one?" he offered, chewing. "Which blue one, the shirt or the skirt?" "The shirt." She looked down at the black pencil skirt already on her body and shook her head slowly. "Not with this skirt. It's too tight for an office." He considered this with the gravity of someone being consulted on something important. "Then wear the other black one." "It's got a tear in the back." "Oh." He took another bite of bread. "Right." The room went quiet. Outside, London was already awake and moving. The pipes in the wall knocked once, then settled. Eve turned back to the small pile of clothes on the bed and looked at them honestly. None of it was right for a place like Valmont Group. She knew that without needing to think too hard about it. But right didn't matter this morning — only good enough did, and good enough was going to have to be enough. They settled eventually on the black A-line skirt, the blue shirt tucked in at the waist, her block-heeled cover shoes, and the handbag whose leather had started peeling at both handles. She'd pressed the edges down as best she could, but up close it still showed. She stood in front of the mirror one last time and let out a long breath through her nose. Please don't let them take one look at me and regret it.Please.Obviously she was talking to no one particularly. She was reaching for her keys when she felt him beside her. "Mum." She looked down. Aiden had climbed off the bed and crossed the room without her noticing. He reached up now with both hands and straightened her collar, smoothing it down on each side with the focused, deliberate care of someone who had seen this done and filed it away for later. "You look beautiful," he said, still studying his work. "Like those women in the films. The ones with the big offices." The laugh came out before she could help it. "Do I?" "Yeah." He stepped back and gave her a once-over with full seriousness. "Actually prettier than them, I think." Her throat tightened. She pulled him in and pressed her lips to the top of his head, holding him there a second longer than usual. "Come on," she said quietly. "Let's get you to school." The cold hit them the moment she opened the front door — the particular damp bite of a London morning that got into your collar and stayed there. Eve kept hold of Aiden's hand as they moved along the pavement, both of them tucked slightly into themselves against the chill. At the school gate he stopped and turned and wrapped his arms around her waist. She felt him squeeze once, firmly, the way he did when words weren't quite enough on their own. "You'll do amazing today." She looked down at him. "And how exactly are you so certain about that?" He thought about it for a moment, completely earnest. "Because you always survive everything." She didn't have an answer for that. She kissed his forehead instead and watched him head through the gate, his bag bouncing against his back until he disappeared inside. Then she turned and started walking toward Valmont Group. The taxi pulled up and she saw it through the window first, before she'd even opened the door. *Oh.* She stepped out slowly, and the word that came out of her was barely a breath. "Wow." It was enormous. Dark glass panels ran the full height of the building, catching the morning light and throwing it back in long gold strips across the pavement. The cars parked along the front were the kind that didn't need badges to announce themselves. Red flowers lined the approach in perfect rows, and two fountains ran on either side of the entrance, the water catching the light as it fell. Eve stood there and became acutely conscious of the state of her handbag handles. She was still trying to work out which door employees were meant to use when someone appeared beside her. "First day?" She turned. A young man was smiling at her, openly, without any edge to it, the kind of smile that actually reached his eyes. "Is it that obvious?" she asked. "You've been staring at the building for about five minutes." She felt the heat go straight to her face. "I wasssn't " She stopped. "Yes. Okay. First day." He laughed. "I'm Rafael." "Eve." "Good to meet you, Eve. Come on, I'll take you in." He walked with an ease that suggested the building didn't intimidate him at all anymore, which she supposed meant it was possible to reach that point eventually. He told her he worked on the eighteenth floor, asked which department she was joining, and when she said administrative, he said they were practically neighbors. Inside was somehow worse than outside which was to say, more beautiful. The ceiling soared. A chandelier hung in the entrance atrium that probably cost more than her entire block of flats. The marble floors were polished to the point where she could see a blurred version of herself walking across them, and the whole place had a smell she couldn't name exactly, something clean and expensive and faintly floral. Everyone moved with quiet confidence in clothes that fit them properly and shoes that didn't make too much noise. Her heels, unfortunately, did. Each step clicked against the floor like a small announcement she hadn't asked to make. Rafael glanced over at her expression and smiled. "Nobody here is as frightening as they look. I promise." "Mm," she said, which was not exactly agreement. The elevator arrived and departed too quickly for her nerves to settle properly. When the doors opened onto her floor, she stepped out into an office that looked like it had been designed by someone with no interest in making people feel ordinary — wide desks in pale wood, low task lighting, plants that were actually thriving. The chairs had the particular quality of expensive things, the kind where you couldn't identify exactly what made them better, only that they clearly were. She was genuinely afraid to sit down. "You'll stop noticing it after a week," Rafael said. "I'll take your word for that." He paused before heading back to the elevator. "If you're not doing anything at lunch, I can give you the proper tour. Show you which coffee machine is actually worth using, where not to eat, all of that." "I would genuinely love that, yes." He smiled and left, and Eve turned to face her desk. She sat down with the careful, provisional posture of someone who wasn't quite sure they were allowed to be comfortable yet, and set her bag down beside her feet. "Hi." She looked up. A woman had appeared beside the next desk over — dark-eyed, her expression friendly and unhurried. "I'm Lucia." "Eve." "We're next to each other," Lucia said, gesturing between the two desks. She said it like this was a good thing, which Eve found immediately reassuring. "That's lucky," Eve said, "because I genuinely don't know what I'm doing yet." Lucia pulled out her chair and sat down. "I've been here eight months and I still have those days. Ask me anything." Eve looked around the office once more — the light coming through the tall windows, the quiet hum of the space, the small potted plant someone had placed on the edge of the desk beside hers. It was a lot. It was still a lot. But maybe, she thought, it wasn't completely impossible.