For a full second, I forgot about my hand.
Not because it had stopped hurting. Because the last line on the page had made everything else in the room reorganize itself around it.
Auston Wilde.
Principal candidate identity required: Ivy Carter.
Not assistant.
Not the ghost version.
Not the woman he had hidden behind keycards and garment bags and somebody else's scheduling mistakes.
Me.
My pulse kicked hard enough to make the splinted fingers throb in answer.
It was obscene. Elegant. Confusing. Precise in a way I didn't yet understand. And for one irrational second all I could think was: why would he put Auston on the panel?
By the time Helena knocked softly and opened the sitting-room door without waiting for permission, I was still standing in the same place with the contract in
