Chapter One
THE REVOLVING DOOR of Cannizzaro Tower deposited Chelsea Regis into the lobby on a Tuesday morning, and she stood still for just a moment, letting her body catch up.
Three steps in. Then reassess.
Her physiotherapist had taught her that, back when three steps was genuinely the whole achievement.
These days it was more habit than necessity, a small private rhythm she'd carried out of the rehabilitation ward the way you carried certain things, not because you still needed them exactly, but because they'd become part of how you moved through the world.
So...one, two, three.
Then reassess.
So far, so good.
The lobby was vast and pale and very intentional, the kind of space that had opinions about itself.
All soaring glass and stone the color of January, with a ceiling so far overhead it stopped being a ceiling and became something more like a weather system.
The flower arrangement on the central table was sculptural and severe: white blooms she couldn't name, arranged to be impressive rather than loved.
She found herself wondering, briefly, who watered them, and whether the person who did had any feelings about it either way.
Movement was everywhere.
Not the gentle kind, either. Not the kind she'd grown used to in the ward, where nurses moved with careful softness and the loudest sound was the squeak of sensible shoes on linoleum.
This was a different animal entirely. People cut across the lobby floor in sharp diagonals, phones pressed to ears or eyes locked on tablets, walking at the speed of people who had somewhere extremely important to be and would really prefer it if Chelsea could figure out what she was doing before they had to walk around her.
A man in a suit that looked like it had been ironed while he was still in it passed so close that the draft of his movement ruffled the skirt of her dress, and Chelsea had to resist the urge to apologize.
For what, she wasn't entirely sure. Existing in his path, maybe.
Taking up space in a lobby she clearly didn't match.
But oh, the energy of it. Chelsea's chest actually expanded as she took it in.
Eight months of rehabilitation rooms with their fluorescent lighting and their careful quiet, and before that, three years of nothing at all, and before that.
..well. She couldn't remember what the world had sounded like before.
But it sounded like this now: the percussive click of heels on marble, the low murmur of voices that knew what they were talking about, the pneumatic sigh of an elevator opening somewhere just out of sight, and underneath it all, a hum.
The hum of a building that was working, that was alive, that was doing things she didn't understand at a speed she couldn't match.
The reception desk was a long curve of the same pale stone, staffed by two women in charcoal blazers. One of them was already looking at Chelsea with a professional smile, the kind that Chelsea used to find terribly intimidating.
Now it just made her want to smile back.
How could she not when there was this study she read about how hard it was for people working the front desk to just smile all day even when their jaws had started to hurt, just keep smiling even when they had just broken up with a boyfriend or learned that their best friend had been diagnosed with cancer?
Chelsea started walking, but with just two steps in, she had to immediately adjust.
Slow down, Chels!
She wondered if there would ever come a time she'd remember that the old her was gone, and she might always have this limp for the rest of her life.
That the left leg that used to carry her through high school corridors and up library stairs now had its own opinion about things like speed, and that opinion was: absolutely not.
Still, she was walking. She was here. And even if it took her three times longer than anyone else in this lobby to cross from door to desk, she was crossing it.
Chelsea smoothed her dress as she walked, and she had to fight back a rueful smile when she saw how its pattern of blue flowers seemed to offend everyone she walked past. Apparently, black was still the new black in the corporate world, and the way they were looking at her reminded Chelsea of how Francine would call her taste in clothes. ..provincial.
Back then, such words hurt. But after everything that happened, or couldn't happen, in the past three years?
Everyone had a right to their own opinion, Chelsea thought placidly, and since provincial to her meant she dressed like Belle in Beauty and the Beast, didn't that mean Francine was actually giving her a compliment?
A woman with a particularly strong perfume, the kind that arrived somewhere a full three seconds before its owner did, strode past and gave Chelsea's dress a look of such open bewilderment that Chelsea almost laughed.
She had a sudden, ridiculous vision of herself as a small blue-and-white flower that had somehow sprouted through a crack in the marble floor, and everyone was trying to figure out how it had gotten there and whether someone from maintenance should be called.
She was still smiling at this image when she finally reached the counter, and she made sure to check the name tag before speaking. "Good morning, Rhea. I was wondering if it's possible to have a meeting with Olivio Cannizzaro?"
"Do you have an appointment?"
"I'm sorry, I—-"
"Good morning, Rhea."
The other woman cut her off for the second time, saying briskly, "Mr. Cannizzaro's schedule is fully committed through the end of the month. But you can leave your details with us if you'd like."
"I'm sorry, I don't have a business card—-" And this was mostly because she hadn't anything to write on a business card other than Chelsea Regis, Miraculously Recovered Street, 3 Year Coma City. "—-but I was, um, wondering if it's possible I could at least speak to someone from his office?"
An older woman standing on Rhea's right joined them. "I'll handle this. Your name, please?"
"Oh, thank—-"
"Name?"
Chelsea supplied it in a hurry. These women must be so terribly busy, with how they wanted everything to get moving fast.
The call took just a minute, and the older woman informed her that someone would be down shortly to speak with her.
"Thank—-"
The older woman didn't wait for her to finish, having walked back to her spot behind the counter. Rhea, on the other hand, was looking at her with a bored expression. "Please have a seat while waiting."
"Thank you." Third time was the charm, and wasn't it so nice of Rhea to let her finish speaking even though everyone behind the counter was quite busy entertaining the endless influx of visitors coming in?
Chelsea made her way to a low seating area near the elevator bank, which was really more of an arrangement of leather and chrome that looked like it had been designed to be admired rather than sat on.
She lowered herself carefully, the way she'd learned to do, testing the depth and firmness before committing her weight, and found that the seat was exactly as uncomfortable as it looked.
Fancy.
Still, she'd sat in worse. Hospital chairs held the undisputed record in that department, and at least this one didn't have a mysterious stain and a broken armrest.
Johnny came down in search of the "pushy" nobody that he was supposed to deal with and was taken aback upon seeing the girl in a flowery blue-and-white dress. Maybe she was just lost?
"Um, hi." Johnny cleared his throat. "I'm Johnny from Mr. Cannizzaro's office."
"Oh, hi." Chelsea gripped the chrome armrest and pushed herself up, her left leg taking a moment to find its footing before the rest of her followed.
Her smile, though, was already there, bright and immediate.
"I'm Chelsea Regis, and I'm truly sorry for all the trouble, but I was just wondering if it's possible to speak with Mr. Cannizzaro? "
"Um..." Johnny couldn't remember hearing anyone speak with such a delicate voice. "Today's a little hard..."
Chelsea perked up at this. "Hard, but not impossible, right?"
Johnny couldn't get over how lovely this girl's voice sounded, but this only made his job more difficult. He was supposed to turn her away. He was even sternly instructed by the front desk manager to put her in her place. But how did one do that when this girl was just so...nice?
"So—-" All Johnny could do was clear his throat as he fumbled for the nicest words to say. "If you could come back on Thursday—-"
"I can, absolutely," Chelsea promised, "but is it alright if I still wait here? Just in case there's a spot in his afternoon that opens up? Who knows, right?"
If she was seriously asking if there was someone who knew about the chances of his billionaire boss agreeing to meet a virtual stranger, never mind if she had the voice of an angel (or at least this was how he imagined it would be, if angels were real)—-
The answer would be a big, fat...zero.
There were zero chances for someone like Olivio Cannizzaro to meet with her, but instead of giving her the cold, hard truth—-
"It's alright for you to wait here," Johnny heard himself say lamely, "if you're sure."
"Thank you so much!" Chelsea beamed at him, and even though she was far from being the prettiest girl he had ever seen (and he had seen a lot of them in person, since his boss dated some of the most beautiful women in the world)—-why did that smile have him feeling a little dazed as he walked back?
Blond beauties with big personalities had always been his type while Chelsea was the exact opposite, with her air of old-fashionedness, braided dark hair, and a voice as delicate as a nightingale's.