THE SECRETARY'S REVENGE

CHAPTER5

LEAH MORGAN

"Leah. You're smoking hot." Sylvia's eyes trail from my head to my feet, a sly smile spreading across her face.

My hands run down the fabric; red silk, cool against my palms, hugging my frame tighter than anything I usually let myself wear. I watch it catch the light in the mirror and try not to think about how long it's been since I dressed like someone who still believed good things happened to her.

"I know just the thing you need." Sylvia rushes to one of my drawers and comes back with a ruby pendant: my mother's. She fastens it around my neck before I can tell her not to.

It catches the light, and for a second, I can't breathe around it. I haven't worn this since the funeral. I remember my mother's hands clasping it shut at the back of my neck, the same motion Sylvia just made without knowing it.

I press my fingers to it once, just once, and let myself have that much.

"You've been given a second chance, Leah." Sylvia pulls me into a hug. "This time, the odds are finally on your side. You can reclaim what's rightfully yours."

I pull away, grab my purse, and clip my office ID to my blazer.

I've planted the seeds. Now it's time to water them.

Alexander's eyes light up the moment I walk into his office. It's gone before I get a second look: his lips press into a thin line, and color rises faintly under his cheeks.

"Good day, Mr. Holton." I set the manifesto I've spent all night on across his desk. "These are the official statements from Castle, naming you their new CEO."

I tap the file once, my nail clicking against the cardstock, and push it toward him. He squares it against the edge of his desk before lifting his eyes to mine.

"Good work, Leah." His voice comes out softer than I expect, and a scoff nearly escapes my throat. Who knew a man like him could sound almost kind? "The Board at Castle is meeting this afternoon, and I'm heading over." He lets his eyes move over me, just briefly. "Since you're already dressed for it, you're coming with me."

Heat spreads through my chest before I can stop it. This is exactly what I've been working toward.

"Yes, sir." I nod and step back as he rises from his chair.

Someone knocks at the glass door and lets herself in.

Zoya.

Her face goes pale the second she sees me. Her lips part, then close, fast, the moment my eyes narrow at her. Lucky for her, Alexander's still flipping through the manifesto and doesn't notice.

"Forgive the interruption, Mr. Holton. Castle's asking for you."

He turns to me. "Shall we?"

"I'll meet you in the garage, sir. I just need a minute with my purse." I press my lips into something close to a smile. "Lady things."

He nods and walks out. The second the doors close behind him, I turn to Zoya.

"I swear, I haven't said a word to anyone, Leah." Her voice is as small as the rest of her. “Please." The word comes out fast, almost tripping over itself. "My mother's surgery is in two weeks. I can't lose this job, Leah, I can't…"

"Then don't give me a reason to take it from you." I step closer anyway, because softening now would cost me more than her mother's surgery is worth to me. "Worst case for me, I get evicted. You? You're not walking away from this with anything less than ten years."

Her jaw drops. Something in her face folds in on itself, and for half a second, I almost feel it. I don't wait around to watch the rest of it land. I'm already heading for the garage.

Alexander's checking his watch when I get there, sunlight cutting across his face.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, sir."

"Get in." He says it before I've even finished the sentence.

The drive isn't long, but I make the most of it anyway.

I cross one leg over the other, letting the dress ride up just enough. My eyes stay fixed out the window. I don't need to look to know he's watching; some things a woman just knows.

The moment I turn my head toward him; he looks away fast enough that I catch the motion anyway. His throat moves in a slow swallow, and his fingers find his tie, adjusting something that was already fine.

The car rolls to a stop.

The boardroom at Castle is colder than Alexander's office: all glass, hard angles. Jax is already leaning against the table when we walk in.

"Leah Morgan." He says it slow, eyes dragging down and back up. "Didn't know secretaries dressed like this for board meetings. Should've taken the job myself."

"She's out of your league, Bolton. Always has been."

The voice comes from behind us, and I know it before I turn around.

"Jake?"

He's grinning before I've even fully turned, and I cross the room without thinking, pulling him into a hug that feels like five years collapsing into one second.

"What are you doing here?"

"Castle's newest board advisor." He laughs against my shoulder, then pulls back just enough to look at me properly. Something in his face shifts for half a second, not surprise exactly, more like a man double-checking something he already suspected. "Small world, apparently. Holton Group secretary. Didn't expect that."

"It's a job, Jake."

"Sure." He says it easily, like he's let it go already, but his eyes flick once toward Alexander before coming back to me. "Just funny, is all. You spent four years telling me you'd rather die than work for people like this."

I catch Alexander's face for half a second before he looks away, something sharp and unguarded, gone the moment he realizes I've seen it.

"Focus, Leah," Alexander says lightly, and I can't tell if he's talking about the meeting or about Jake.

"Mr. Holton." Jake extends a hand, easy, like he hasn't just disrupted the entire temperature of the room. "Heard a lot about you. Didn't expect Leah to be on your payroll."

"Small world," Alexander says, flat, and doesn't elaborate.

The meeting moves fast after that; papers, signatures, the formal language of a company changing hands. I keep my eyes on the documents, not on either of them, and try to ignore how aware I am of exactly where Alexander is standing the entire time, and how Jake's eyes never quite stop tracking the room, even when he's supposed to be reading a contract.

By the time we're back in the car, the sun's dropped low enough to turn the windows gold.

"Friend of yours," Alexander says, eyes on the road.

"University."

"Close friend."

"Close enough." I don't look at him. "Is that a problem, sir?"

"No." A pause, just slightly too long. "Should it be?"

I let it sit there, because answering either way feels like losing something I haven't decided how to spend yet.

The car has gone quiet, Castle's papers signed, Jake and the Boltons both behind us now. I let myself breathe for the first time in an hour.

"You're good at this," Alexander says. "Reading rooms. Reading people."

"It's the job, sir."

"It's more than the job." A pause, longer than it needs to be. "I knew that the day you walked into my office."

Something in his tone shifts, and whatever warmth has been sitting in my chest all afternoon turns cold in an instant.

"There was a line in your file," he says. "Something so specific, so deliberately placed, that I knew within the first page someone had written it for you to be hired. Not by you. For you."

I don't move. I don't trust my own face right now.

"I've spent three weeks deciding whether that made you dangerous, or just desperate." He glances at me, finally, and there's nothing soft left in it. "I still don't know which. But I know who you are."

The car feels smaller than it did a second ago.

"Covey."