Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Nick
The door slams open mid-sentence.
“Darling.”
Rebecca.
Perfect.
Chairs swivel. Interns stiffen. One of the junior VPs makes a choking sound. I finish my sentence. Then, and only then, I look up.
She’s dressed as if she’s a model. Tailored black blazer, long legs, red lipstick weaponized. She doesn’t enter the room. She takes it.
“Rebecca,” I say. Flat. Neutral. “We’re in the middle of a meeting.”
“Oh, I know,” she says, gliding forward. “But I couldn’t resist.”
She kisses my cheek loudly. A warning shot.
I don’t move. That’s the only defense with her: stillness.
The room tilts. The air tightens. Every eye pretends not to watch.
She turns to the table as if she just remembered it exists. “Don’t mind me. I won’t keep him long. Although…” she lets her gaze drift back to me, “you all do realize he’s allergic to rest, right? Exhausting just being near him.”
Someone laughs. Someone else pretends to type.
“I need a minute,” I say, rising. “Keep going without me.”
The tension unspools as I lead her out.
I don’t speak until we reach my office. I open the door and gesture her in, and she takes her time walking past me. She’s acting as if this is all hers.
Including me.
I shut the door behind us.
“This isn’t what we agreed on,” I say, voice clipped. “You said you’d find out who sent the photo, not stage a performance in my boardroom.”
She just smiles, unfazed.
“Was there a purpose to that little entrance, or are you just bored again?”
She turns in a slow circle, surveying the room. “Still so corporate. Doesn’t anyone in this building believe in art?”
“Rebecca.”
She drops into a chair across from me, crossing her legs, settling in for the day. “Relax. I was nearby.”
“You live in Tribeca.”
She shrugs. “Maybe I missed you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
She smiles, pleased I still know the difference. “You’re grumpier than usual.”
I don’t rise to it. “Why are you here.”
She tilts her head. “Can’t I say hello to an old lover without being accused of sabotage?”
“Not you.”
“Well.” Her eyes rake over me, amused. “Still sharp. Still unfairly attractive. Still pretending we weren’t great together.”
I take my seat behind the desk. “You’re wasting my time.”
She leans back, all mock offense and real provocation. “Don’t say that. We had fun in this office, didn’t we? All those late nights, that desk…”
We didn’t.
Maybe she made a habit of mixing business and pleasure, but I never did. Not here.
I don’t correct her. There’s no point.
“Is there a point to any of this?”
She shrugs again, casual as ever. “Maybe I just wanted to remind the room how far you and I go back.”
“Loud way to do it.”
She bares her teeth in something approximating a smile. “Subtlety was never my strong suit.”
“Neither was honesty.”
She places a hand to her chest, faux wounded. “Cruel. Cold. No wonder your little brunette looks like she’s in over her head.”
My jaw tightens. “Leave Sara out of this.”
Rebecca’s eyes glint. A predator scenting blood. “Did I say her name?”
“You didn’t have to.”
She leans in, voice dropping. “Relax, Nick. I’m not here to burn the house down. Just leaving breadcrumbs.”
“For who.”
She gives a shrug, sweet and venomous. “People talk. Assistants. Interns. Gossip has value. I’m just adding to the circulation.”
There it is.
It clicks, why she barged in, why she made a spectacle, why she kissed me, planting a flag.
It’s not about me. It’s about rattling Sara.
I rise. “We’re done.”
She follows, unhurried. “You’ve gotten so serious.”
“Get out, Rebecca.”
She adjusts her blazer, composed. “Fine. But do give her my regards. Context is everything.”
Finally, she exits, head high, heels sharp, performance complete.
The door closes behind her.
A beat later, Emily appears, hesitant. “She said she was just… dropping something off.”
“She wasn’t.”
“No,” she agrees quickly. “She was asking questions. About Sara. Where she works, her schedule…”
Of course she was.
“She’s not allowed back up here. Not ever.”
“Yes, Mr. Ashford. It’s just…” Emily hesitates. “She doesn’t exactly… take no for an answer.”
I grit my teeth.
This needs to end. Now.
I don’t wait. I walk past her, past the elevator, straight to the street.
If I know Rebecca, and I do, she won’t have gone far. She likes to linger. To observe the damage firsthand.
I find her two blocks away, exactly where I expect her.
Bleeker she doesn’t speak, only watches with wide eyes, aware enough to read the temperature without needing a forecast.
I enter my office and close the door behind me, the lights still on from earlier, undisturbed in my absence.
I cross to the cabinet and reach for the drawer, second from the top, left-hand side. The one I secured this morning before the board meeting, knowing exactly what it contained and why it needed to stay hidden.
The lock gives without resistance.
I open it.
The contents are missing.
Not displaced. Not buried under files or shifted by accident.
Removed.
The photograph, the single, glossy, undeniable piece of evidence I had kept buried beneath a stack of acquisition reports, is no longer there.
I had intended to revisit it only once I knew who was behind it, once I had enough leverage to ensure it couldn’t be used again. I had taken every precaution to keep it secured, out of reach, and beyond casual discovery.
Now it’s gone.
My pulse doesn’t surge; it constricts, methodical and unyielding, a precise tightening that signals control, not panic. I search again, methodically this time, removing every file, examining each layer of the drawer’s contents with the same scrutiny I’d apply to a contract I didn’t trust.
I run a hand along the underside as well, the concealed compartment I use when something needs to remain completely inaccessible, even from my own staff.
There’s nothing.
Whoever was here didn’t stumble onto it. They knew exactly what they were looking for, and they knew where to find it.
I press the intercom.
Emily answers without delay, her voice professional but strained. “Yes, Mr. Ashford?”
“Has anyone entered my office since I left for the conference room?”
There’s a hesitation, not long enough to be obvious, but long enough to matter, before she responds, her tone cautious. “Only the journalist. From Edge. She said there was a scheduled interview for the fall feature. I assumed it had been cleared.”
I remain still, not out of surprise but because stillness is the only thing preventing a sharper reaction.
“I never authorized an interview.”
This time the silence on her end carries weight, the kind that only follows a realization that comes too late. When she finally speaks, her voice is subdued. “Oh.”
There’s no need to answer. She already understands the implications.
My thoughts are already assembling the pattern with a kind of grim efficiency. Rebecca’s uninvited performance in the conference room, the photograph disappearing from the drawer it should never have left, and now a supposed journalist gaining access under false pretenses.
This wasn’t a misunderstanding.
It was orchestration.
I end the call without another word, the quiet that follows somehow louder than anything she could’ve said.
And for the first time in longer than I care to admit, I can’t tell whether the deeper fury is directed at Rebecca for lighting the match, or at myself for giving her the gasoline.