SLOANE'S POV
The contract was eighty-seven pages of pure evil.
I sat cross-legged on the cold bathroom floor, my back against the marble stall divider, the document spread across my lap like a dead animal. The other candidates were in the lounge, sipping cucumber water and practicing their "genuine listening faces." I'd been in here for forty minutes.
Page thirty-four. Clause 12b. Voluntary withdrawal or disqualification due to gross misconduct shall require full reimbursement of the fifty-thousand-dollar advancement bonus within fourteen calendar days.
Full reimbursement.
I read it again. Then a third time.
"Nope," I whispered. "Still says I'm fucked."
The stall door rattled. Someone jiggled the handle. "Occupied?" a voice trilled.
"Explosive diarrhea," I called back. "Super contagious. Probably airborne."
The footsteps retreated. I returned to my doom-scrolling.
Even if I accessed the fifty thousand—which I couldn't until "contractual obligations were fulfilled"—I'd already spent four hundred of my own nonexistent money on the credit card payment that kept my phone alive. My bank account currently contained nineteen dollars and a dream. If I tanked this on purpose and got flagged for "gross misconduct," I'd owe a billionaire fifty grand I didn't have.
I'd be sued. Garnished. Probably thrown into some kind of fancy debtor's prison with chandeliers and artisanal bread.
The only escape hatch was peaceful elimination. Make Declan Vance reject me organically. Convince him I was a disaster. A turn-off. A woman so fundamentally wrong for his weird, specific, vanilla-syrup-obsessed soul that he'd boot me out with a handshake and no penalty clause.
Problem: I was apparently his dream girl on paper.
Solution: I needed to become his nightmare in person.
And for that, I needed intel.
---
The employee corridor was empty. My ballet flats—already violating Mrs. Whitmore's "heels at all times"
decree—made no sound on the linoleum. I'd memorized the guard rotation by now. Ramirez patrolled the east wing from two to two-thirty. The security office was empty during shift change.
I rounded the corner near the vending machine and stopped.
There he was.
Dane.
He was leaning against the wall, phone in hand, still in that stupid security uniform—navy polo, badge clipped to his belt, boots polished to a shine. His sleeves were pushed up again. Forearms on display. Jaw sharp enough to cut glass.
My stomach did something annoying. A flutter. A squeeze. I told it to shut up.
"Hey." I grabbed his arm and yanked.
"What the—" He stumbled, phone clattering to the floor, as I dragged him sideways into the supply closet.
The door swung shut. Darkness swallowed us both.
The closet was approximately the size of a coffin. Shelves pressed into my spine. Something sharp—a mop handle? a broom?—dug into my hip. And Dane was everywhere. Chest against my shoulder. Breath stirring the hair at my temple. His body heat bleeding through my blazer like a fever.
"Sloane." His voice was a low rumble in the dark. "What are you doing?"
"Shut up." I fumbled for the light cord, yanked it. A bare bulb flickered on above us, casting everything in jaundice yellow. "I need information."
He looked down at me. The angle was absurd—him towering, me wedged between his chest and a shelf of industrial cleaning products. His face was half-shadow, half-light, all cheekbones and dark eyes and that mouth that used to trace constellations down my spine.
I ignored all of that.
"The CEO," I said. "You work here. You've seen him. You know what he hates."
One eyebrow lifted. "Do I."
"Don't be coy. You're security. Security hears things. Gossip. Complaints. The kind of stuff the assistants whisper about when they think no one's listening." I poked his chest. Hard. "I need the landmines. The dealbreakers. What makes a billionaire look at a woman and think absolutely not."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "Why?"
"None of your business."
"You dragged me into a broom closet."
"A supply closet. Much more dignified."
"Sloane." He said my name the way you'd talk to a child who'd just explained their plan to build a rocketship out of cardboard. "What are you trying to do?"
I weighed my options. Lie? Half-truth? Full honesty with a man who'd already proven himself a first-class deceiver?
"Fine." I crossed my arms—well, tried to, but my elbow hit his ribs and his hand came up instinctively to steady my waist. His palm settled just above my hip. Warm. Broad. I ignored it with heroic effort. "I want him to eliminate me. Peacefully. No penalty clause."
His thumb moved. A single stroke against the fabric of my blazer. "You want to fail."
"I want to fail strategically. If I withdraw, I owe the money back. If I misbehave badly enough to get booted for misconduct, I owe the money back. But if he just... doesn't like me?" I shrugged. "That's chemistry. No penalty. I walk away with fifty grand and no lawsuit."
The silence stretched.
Then Dane laughed. Low and rough and completely unexpected, the sound vibrating through his chest and into my hand—which was still pressed against his sternum, I realized, because I hadn't moved it after poking him. My palm was flat against his heartbeat.
"You're serious," he said.
"Deadly."
"You want me to give you insider information. On my boss. So you can sabotage your candidacy."
"Five hundred dollars," I said.
His laughter stopped. "What?"
"Five hundred. Cash. PayPal. Venmo. Whatever you want." I tilted my chin up, meeting his eyes. "You're a security guard, Dane. You're not exactly rolling in it. The watch is fake, right? The shirt's a rental. You probably eat ramen six nights a week."
His jaw tightened. Something flickered behind his eyes—amusement? irritation? I couldn't tell.
"Five hundred dollars," he repeated, "to betray my employer."
"It's not betrayal. It's... consulting. I'm paying for your expertise." I patted his chest. "Come on, big guy. You owe me. Consider it partial restitution for two years of emotional damages."
"Oh, I owe you." His voice had dropped. The hand on my waist tightened, just barely. "Is that what we're calling it."
"The information, Dane. What does he hate?"
He studied my face for a long moment. The bulb hummed above us. Somewhere in the distance, a door opened and closed. His eyes traced the line of my jaw, the curve of my throat, the pulse point that was absolutely, definitely, one-hundred-percent not racing.
"Flat shoes," he said finally.
I blinked. "What?"
"Declan Vance. He hates women in flat shoes. Thinks they look lazy. Unfeminine. A woman who shows up in ballet flats might as well spit in his face." He leaned closer, his breath ghosting over my ear. "And he hates a mouthy woman. If you talk back—if you sass him, challenge him, push back even a little—he'll drop you faster than a bad stock. Silence is everything."
My heart was pounding. This was gold. Pure, actionable, five-hundred-dollar gold.
"What else?"
"One more thing." His lips were at my ear now, voice a low rumble that I felt in my molars. "Coffee. He's a purist. Black only. No sugar. No cream. No flavored syrups. And if you ever—ever—put cinnamon near his coffee, he'll have you escorted from the building."
Cinnamon.
Cinnamon.
The word detonated in my brain like a firework. Cinnamon in black coffee. The exact concoction I used to make Dane when his stomach was acting up—bitter coffee, enough cinnamon to choke a horse, the special brew that made him gag and curse and chase me around the kitchen threatening revenge. I'd called it my
"go-away juice." He'd called it "culinary terrorism."
And Declan Vance hated it.
"Got it," I breathed. "Flat shoes. Sass. Cinnamon coffee."
"Guaranteed elimination."
I grinned up at him, all teeth and triumph. "You're a lifesaver, Dane. A lying, cheating, secretly-employed lifesaver." I slapped his chest—friendly this time, no poke. "Five hundred. I'll transfer it as soon as I'm booted."
"Can't wait."
I reached for the door handle, then paused. Glanced back over my shoulder. "Hey. Why are you helping me?
Really?"
His expression was unreadable. "Maybe I want to see you fail."
"Ouch."
"Maybe I want to see you try." His mouth curved. "You've always been entertaining when you're scheming."
I didn't know what to do with that. So I did what I always did—I turned it into a joke. "Enjoy the show, then.
Try not to cry when I'm free of this circus and fifty grand richer."
The door opened. I slipped out.
His voice followed me into the corridor: "Good luck, Sloane."
I didn't look back. But I could feel him smiling.
---
The assessment room was a stage, literally. Black curtains. A single spotlight. A long mahogany table where three judges sat like a panel of disapproving owls—Ms. Kruger in the center, Hayes fidgeting at her left, and some stone-faced woman I didn't recognize at her right.
"Final practical examination," Kruger announced. "You will each prepare and present afternoon coffee for
Mr. Vance. This assesses your attention to detail, your composure under pressure, and your understanding of his personal preferences."
A cart of supplies waited at the edge of the room. Coffee beans. Grinders. French presses. Pour-over setups. A galaxy of syrups and creamers arranged in crystal decanters.
Tinsley went first. She floated to the cart in her Valentino heels, selected a single-origin Ethiopian roast, and spent fifteen minutes crafting the perfect pour-over. Golden ratio. Precise temperature. A porcelain cup pre- warmed with steam. She presented it with a whisper-soft voice and a curtsy so deep her forehead nearly touched her knees.
"Lovely," Kruger murmured.
The second candidate—Miranda, a willowy blonde with a trust fund and zero personality—offered an espresso with a heart-shaped dollop of foam. "Caffeine is the heart's language," she simpered. Hayes wrote something on his tablet.
Then it was my turn.
I stood.
I walked to the cart.
And I committed culinary terrorism.
Instant coffee. The cheapest shit on the table—I ignored the French press entirely and reached for the pre- ground foil packet someone had left half-hidden behind the artisanal beans. Two scoops into a chipped mug.
Boiling water splashed in with all the grace of a gas station dispenser. No sugar. No cream. And then—with the flourish of a conductor leading an orchestra—I grabbed the cinnamon shaker and dumped.
And dumped.
And dumped.
The powder billowed up in a brown cloud. It crusted the rim of the mug. It freckled the saucer. The coffee beneath it was a swampy, gritty, apocalyptic mess.
I walked to the judges' table. My ballet flats made no sound on the stage—flat shoes, just like he said, the cheapest, ugliest, most aggressively unsexy flats I owned, scuffed at the toe and frayed at the heel.
I slammed the mug down. Coffee sloshed onto the tablecloth—a brown, gritty stain spreading across white linen.
"Coffee," I announced. "Drink it."
Hayes flinched.
Kruger's face turned to stone.
The third judge looked like she'd swallowed a wasp.
"Ms. Beckett," Kruger began, her voice arctic. "This is highly—"
She stopped. Her hand flew to her ear—a subtle gesture, but I caught it. The earpiece. The tiny flesh-colored bud all three judges were wearing. Someone was speaking to them. Someone watching from behind the one- way glass.
Hayes's eyes went wide. His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. His hand trembled as it reached for the scoring paddle.
"Ten," he croaked.
The room went silent.
"Excuse me?" I said.
"Ten out of ten." Hayes's voice cracked on every word. He looked like a man who'd just been ordered to defuse a bomb with a butter knife. "Mr. Vance says... Mr. Vance says this coffee has unparalleled soul. He says it reminds him of... of home." He swallowed. "Ms. Beckett passes with full marks."
My stomach hit the floor.
"No," I whispered. "No, that's not—the cinnamon—the flats—"
"Perfect score," Kruger said, her voice tight with something between confusion and fury. "Congratulations,
Ms. Beckett. You advance to the final round."
I spun around.
The room was a blur of black curtains and shocked faces and Tinsley's mouth hanging open like a carp. Past the stage. Past the judging table. At the back of the room, near the service entrance, where the shadows gathered thickest.
He was there.
Leaning against the doorframe. Arms crossed. Black uniform blending into the dark. The same fake security badge. The same infuriating jaw.
Dane was looking directly at me.
And he was smiling. Not a nice smile. Not a friendly smile. The smile of a man watching an elaborate prank pay out in dividends. The smile of a man who'd just watched a mouse sprint gleefully into a trap and pause to thank the cheese.
His lips moved. Two words. Silent.
You're welcome.
My vision went red.
My fists clenched.
And somewhere in my chest, underneath the fury and the humiliation and the sudden, dawning horror of what I'd just done, a tiny, traitorous voice whispered: You just walked right into his hands. Again.
