Chapter 7 — The Fashion Police

Tuesday morning, and the rumor mill had upgraded to industrial scale.

"Did you hear? Kalen Black put an ADMIN on his deal team." "No way." "Way. Irene Thorne. The one with the Target shoes." "What does she have on him?" "Maybe she's secretly rich." "Oh my god, imagine—" "Don't be stupid. If she were rich, she wouldn't take the F train with us."

Mila found Irene at the coffee station and circled her like a prosecutor finding new evidence. "So, Irene. Working with the deal team now. Very exciting. What exactly do you do for them, sweetie? Make copies? Get coffee? Fill out their—" she let the pause breathe, "—expense reports?"

Irene filled her mug. "Whatever they ask." "And what did Mr. Black ask you to do yesterday?" "He asked me to check a compact." Mila's smile froze. "You. Check. A compact." "It's a thing you do in financing," Irene said kindly. "I can show you. I have a YouTube video."

The office laughed—for the first time that week, at Mila, not at Irene.

Mila's face went through the four-color cycle again. "You know what? I'm happy for you, I really am. It's just—people are saying things. That you're a little too close to Mr. Black. That maybe you're—how do I put this delicately—" "Using my body?" Irene offered. "Is that the delicate way you wanted to put it?" "I didn't say that." "You were about to." Irene smiled, warm and mild. "Mila, sweetheart, you can tell everyone I'm a gold digger. But people who've seen my bank account know I'd be the worst gold digger in history—I'd dig for three blocks in the wrong direction and apologize for the inconvenience."

The room went very quiet. Nobody had ever heard Irene say more than five words in a row. Mila opened her mouth, closed it, and retreated to her desk like a flag withdrawing from a battlefield.

At noon, Dana appeared in Admin again. "Irene. Mr. Black. Lunch. Fifteen minutes." The floor erupted. "He's taking her to LUNCH?" Mila's voice was a warble. "That's not a meeting, that's a date!"

Irene followed Dana to the lobby. The Bentley was waiting. Kalen Black was already in the back, reading. He glanced up. "Get in." "Where are we going?" "Somewhere nobody from your office eats." He named a place. It was a hole-in-the-wall pizza place in the East Village with three plastic stools. Irene laughed out loud—the first genuine, unguarded sound she'd made in months.

"You laugh," he observed, "like a person who wasn't expecting to." "I wasn't." "Good." He handed her a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. "Neither was I."

They ate standing up, shoulder to shoulder, among students and cab drivers, and Irene, who had once dined in the presence of kings and chancellors, decided this was the best meal she'd had in five years. For forty minutes, she almost forgot she was hiding. She almost forgot the letter in her drawer, the countdown, the game. Almost.

"Ms. Thorne," he said, wiping his hands, "you looked at the compact, the funding gap, and the collateral documents like you'd seen them before. In another life, maybe. It made me curious." He studied her with those pale gray eyes. "So I ran you. Credit. Employment. Education. Social media—you don't have any, which is weird for a woman your age, and I don't believe in coincidence."

Irene's stomach tightened. She kept her face soft. "And what did your search turn up, Mr. Black?" "Nothing," he said pleasantly. "Which is the most interesting result I've ever gotten. I've run people with secrets before. They leave crumbs. You left nothing. No birth county, no high school, no childhood photos, no family. A woman with a clean past and no digital footprint is either a spy, a fugitive, or a ghost." He smiled. "I don't think you're a spy. I don't think you're a fugitive."

"Then what do you think I am?" "I think," he said, "you're someone who paid a great deal of money to disappear. And I think I should have been more careful before I got interested in someone who paid to disappear."

He said it lightly. But the weight of the sentence settled on her like a winter coat.

That night, Irene sat in her forty-square-meter apartment, and for the first time in years, she opened a file on her laptop she had sworn she would never open. It was a photo—a girl of twelve, standing in a marble hall, a crown of light in her hair, surrounded by faces she knew were family and not one of which she trusted.

She closed it. She looked at her hands.

"Ordinary life is the only luxury wealth can never buy," she whispered. "I haven't bought it yet, have I?"