I wore a charcoal Saint Laurent suit, my hair pulled back in a severe twist.

My grandmother’s pearls gleamed at my neck. I sat perfectly still, hands steepled under my chin.

Daniel looked like a walking corpse — his suit wrinkled and sweat-stained, days of stubble on his jaw, a dark bruise purpling along his jawline.

When his eyes met mine, his brain simply refused to process it. His mouth opened, closed, opened again.

“Emily?” he whispered, his voice cracking into a pathetic squeak. “What… what are you doing in the CEO’s chair?”

“I own the chair, Daniel,” I said evenly. “I own the table. I own the carpet you’re standing on, the elevators you rode up here, and the seventy-two floors beneath us.”