Chapter 1 - Larkin stopped three feet in front of me.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Around us, the Solstice Gala continued beneath chandeliers the size of small cars.
Crystal glasses chimed.
A string quartet played near the windows overlooking Central Park.
Men in dark suits held quiet conversations beside women draped in diamonds, while waiters moved between them carrying silver trays.
Yet Larkin looked as though the ballroom had somehow emptied.
His gaze traveled over my face, my hair, the black silk dress, then returned to my eyes.
“Miss Woods.”
“Mr.
Steves.”
Another pause.
“You look…”
He seemed genuinely irritated by his inability to finish the sentence.
I lifted one eyebrow.
“Employed?”
Something almost happened at the corner of his mouth.
Almost.
“Different.”
“So do you.”
He glanced down at his tuxedo.
“I wear this twice a month.”
“Then perhaps I simply never noticed.”
That did it.
For half a second, Larkin Steves smiled.
Not the thin corporate expression he used for investors.
Not the faint, humorless curve I had occasionally seen when Thomas made some particularly ridiculous comment.
A real smile.
It transformed him enough to make me uncomfortable.
I had spent three years convincing myself that Larkin was best understood as a collection of facts.
Thirty-two.
Unmarried.
Chief executive.
Dangerous family.
Black coffee, no sugar.
Never late.
Never raised his voice.
Never apologized.
Facts were safe.
A smile was not.
Then Thomas appeared beside him.
“Penelope?”
I turned.
Thomas looked openly bewildered.
I enjoyed that for exactly three seconds.
Then I remembered that enjoying his discomfort too much would mean I had spent five thousand dollars and six hours just to prove something to a man I did not respect.
That realization was surprisingly freeing.
“Good evening, Thomas.”
He recovered.
Mostly.
“I nearly didn’t recognize you.”
“That has been a recurring theme tonight.”
His gaze dropped toward my shoes.
“Those look expensive.”
“They were.”
“You spent your own money?”
I looked at him.
“Whose money were you expecting me to spend?”
Larkin coughed into his hand.
Thomas frowned at his cousin.
“Are you laughing?”
“No.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m breathing.”
“You don’t breathe like that.”
Before their argument could develop, an older woman approached.
She was perhaps sixty-five, silver-haired and elegant in a navy gown.
Unlike most of the people in the ballroom, she wore almost no jewelry except a simple pearl ring.
“Larkin,” she said, “you have been standing here for four minutes while three board members attempt to get your attention.”
“They can attempt longer.”
She gave him a dry look before turning to me.
“And you must be Penelope Woods.”
I blinked.
“You know who I am?”
“I know who everyone is.
It’s what happens when people stop assuming an older woman is listening.”
Thomas muttered, “Aunt Maeve listens to walls.”
Maeve Steves ignored him and offered me her hand.
“Larkin’s aunt.”
“Penelope Woods.”
“I know.”
Something in the way she said it made my stomach tighten.
Her eyes remained on my face.
Not the dress.
Not the hair.
My face.
Then her expression changed.
“Woods,” she repeated softly.
Larkin noticed.
“Aunt Maeve?”
She looked away.
“Nothing.”
But it clearly wasn’t nothing.
I had spent too many years studying people from behind computer monitors.
When powerful men believed their secretaries were invisible, they forgot that invisible people still had eyes.
Maeve Steves knew my name.
More importantly, she knew something about it.
Before I could ask, a man near the stage called for Larkin.
He glanced toward him, visibly annoyed.
“I’ll be back.”
“That sounded ominously like an instruction,” I said.
His attention returned to me.
“Would you prefer a request?”
“I would prefer clarification about why I’m here.”
For the first time that evening, his expression changed completely.
The amusement vanished.
“You think you know why.”
“I have a theory.”
“And Thomas is involved in this theory?”
Thomas suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
Larkin looked at his cousin.
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.”
“Thomas.”
“I may have suggested this evening could be… educational.”
“For whom?”
Thomas lifted his glass.
“Everyone.”
Larkin closed his eyes briefly.
That tiny movement confused me more than anger would have.
He wasn't amused.
“Miss Woods,” he said, “I did not bring you here to entertain anyone.”
My confidence wavered.
“Then why did you bring me?”
His gaze shifted toward the stage.
“Because sometime tonight, I need you to look at a set of numbers.”
Of course.
I had bought a four-thousand-dollar dress to do accounting.
I nearly laughed.
“You brought your secretary to the Continental Hotel on a Friday night because you needed a spreadsheet checked?”
“You aren’t my secretary.”
I stared at him.
“You literally call me your secretary.”
“You manage the financial reporting of seven companies.”
“And your coffee.”
“Because nobody else remembers it correctly.”
“Black coffee is not difficult.”
“Apparently it is.”
Thomas said, “This conversation has become distressingly domestic.”
Larkin gave him one glance.
Thomas walked away.
I should have felt triumphant.
Instead I looked at Larkin.
“What numbers?”
“Later.”
Naturally.
Larkin Steves could turn two syllables into a locked door.
He disappeared toward the stage.
Maeve remained beside me.
For a moment we watched him.
“He’s more nervous than he looks,” she said.
“Mr.
Steves?”
“Yes.”
“I have worked for him for three years.
I have never seen him nervous.”
“That means he hides it well.”
Her words stayed with me.
An hour later, I understood why.
The Solstice Gala was not merely a gathering of influential people.
It was a fundraiser.
The Solstice Foundation financed scholarships, employee assistance programs, and small-business grants throughout New York.
That surprised me.
I knew about almost every company connected to the Steves organization, but I knew remarkably little about the foundation.
Then I saw the portrait beside the stage.
A dark-haired woman in a simple cream dress.
Eleanor Steves.
Larkin’s mother.
“She started it,” Maeve said.
I hadn’t heard her approach.
“The foundation?”
“Twenty-one years ago.”
I studied the portrait.
Larkin had her eyes.
“She believed money should eventually find its way somewhere useful,” Maeve continued.
“Her phrase, not mine.”
“What happened to her?”
“She died eight years ago.
Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
Maeve nodded.
“She was my sister.
I still find myself wanting to telephone her whenever someone in this family behaves foolishly.”
Her gaze drifted toward Thomas.
“That must happen frequently.”
“You understand quickly.”
I smiled.
Then a number on the donor display caught my attention.
$147,500.
Something inside my mind shifted.
Numbers had always done that to me.
People occasionally assumed accounting was about remembering figures.
It wasn’t.
It was about recognizing relationships.
Patterns.
Things that appeared in one place and echoed somewhere they shouldn't.
I looked again.
$147,500.
Three weeks earlier I had processed a consulting payment for exactly that amount.
Different corporation.
Different recipient.
I moved closer to the display.
Another donation.
$82,250.
I knew that number too.
“Something wrong?”
Maeve asked.
“Probably nothing.”
But there was another.
$63,800.
All familiar.
Not similar.
Exact.
I found Larkin fifteen minutes later speaking with two men near the windows.
He saw my expression and excused himself immediately.
“What?”
“You said you wanted me to look at numbers.”
“Yes.”
“I already did.”
He studied me.
I lowered my voice.
“Several donations tonight match consulting payments from subsidiaries I reconcile.”
His expression remained still.
“How many?”
“I’ve noticed four.”
“Could be coincidence.”
“Four identical amounts down to the dollar?”
“No.”
That was one thing I respected about him.
Once something became obvious, he didn't waste time pretending otherwise.
He motioned toward a corridor.
“Come with me.”
The hotel library was empty.
Larkin closed the door, opened his phone, and handed it to me.
On the screen was a financial statement from the Solstice Foundation.
I scrolled.
Then stopped.
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
“These transfers.”
“What about them?”
“They’re moving in circles.”
May you like
His face sharpened.
I enlarged the screen.
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