Chapter 2

It started my first day.

My name is Amber Shaw. Twenty-six. New in Ops at Tidewell. My job was writing the lines for Echo, the AI livestream.

Morning rush. The elevator was packed.

The crowd shoved me into the corner. One shoulder hanging in open air. Coffee jumped onto my cuff and burned, and that was enough to ruin me.

The man beside me was tall, cold, and good-looking in a way that should have been illegal.

Sharp brows. Pale skin. Shoulders that took more room than they had paid for. Standing in a rush-hour elevator like a quality inspector who had wandered into real life to grade how pathetic the rest of us looked.

Kieran Holt.

Our boss. Founder of Tidewell. The rumor said he didn't drink coffee in an acquisition. He drank the other side's blood. The rumor said he was thirty, unmarried, and possibly allergic to women.

I didn't know if the rumors were true. I knew he was taking up three people's worth of space, and his face wasn't doing anything about it.

I kept my head down. Inside, it was popping.

Quit shoving. Do capitalists bring their own force field into an elevator?

Did you ring the IPO bell with those shoulders? They take up the whole car.

Shove me again and this coffee goes on your designer jacket. We'll both be on the evening news.

Kieran Holt turned his head.

That look was the red warning that pops when the numbers in the back end go wrong.

I put on the office smile. "Morning, Mr. Holt."

He stared for two seconds. "…Morning." Low. Rough. Like he hadn't slept.

Eighteen. The doors opened. The crowd broke apart.

I clutched my soy milk and went, still going. Unbelievable. Even a capitalist's breathing sounds like a meeting.

Behind me, his step hitched.

I didn't know it then. That wasn't in my head.