Let me give you some context.
Nathan Harlow is kind of a big deal. Like, a real one. He took over my mom's company three years ago, merged it with his own, and turned the whole thing into something that gets written up in the Journal. Cold, brilliant, untouchable — that's how the business world sees him.
But here's the thing they also all know: the man is absolutely gone over his wife.
We met in high school. He was seventeen, no parents, no money, no nothing. He'd just entered the foster system. I cried until my parents agreed to let him stay with us. He became family. Then he became more than that.
My dad liked to joke that Nathan had been quietly in love with me for years before he ever said a word. My mom would get this soft look on her face and say, "Some people just know."
We got married three years ago. He still looks at me the same way he did at seventeen.
So when I drive to Novarix — our company, his now — and walk into the lobby and let Jade take me upstairs, I'm already arguing with myself the whole ride up.
Jade's my college roommate. She's Head of HR now. I'm the one who talked my mom into hiring her, and she's been killing it ever since.
"Anything weird going on?" I ask, casual. Or I try to be casual.
She side-eyes me. "Revenue hit a new high last quarter. That kind of weird?"
We step off the elevator. The nineteenth floor. I look through the glass walls of the executive suite and my brain immediately starts doing math I don't want it to do.
"Did the secretary pool get any new people recently?"
Jade stops walking. Turns to look at me fully.
"Are you — Mia. You were literally Miss America at nineteen. You won a national beauty pageant. And you're standing here asking me if your husband hired a cute secretary?"
"I didn't say—"
"Do you know what Nathan said when Sienna Ross — the Sienna Ross, 'most beautiful woman in Hollywood two years running' — tried to ask him out at that gala last year? He said, and I quote, 'I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that so we can both move on with our evening.'" Jade shakes her head. "To him, there's you. And then there's everyone else. Those are the two categories."
I nod. I know. I know all of this.
I go to his office anyway.
There's a giant framed photo of me on the wall across from his desk. Campaign shoot from three years ago. He put it there himself.
I stand in front of it and feel like an absolute idiot.
Then a woman appears beside me with a cup of tea.
"Mrs. Harlow." She sets it down carefully. "Please."
I look at her.
Vanessa Cole.
Here. On the nineteenth floor. Twenty feet from Nathan's office.
My mouth goes dry.
* * *
