"Nice to finally meet you properly," she said, extending her hand toward me.
"Yeah. You too," I replied, though the words came out rougher than I intended.
I took her hand a little too quickly and shook it a little too firmly. Lucy laughed softly under her breath, not mocking, just amused enough to make heat creep into my face. Up close, she smelled faintly of pine and rain. It was distracting.
"So, apologies for not warning you about the company car," she said as she pulled her hand back. "I figured you'd had enough thrown at you already."
"I appreciate it," I admitted. "Honestly, I was planning to take a cab."
"Not anymore, Mr. Vale."
The teasing glint in her eyes caught me off guard.
"Please don't call me that."
"What, Mr. Vale?"
"Yeah." I shoved my hands into my pockets. "Makes me feel like my father's about to walk into the room."
Something flickered across her expression at the mention of him. Sadness, maybe. Or guilt.
"Alright then," she said quietly. "Ethan."
The way she said my name felt strangely personal.
She leaned lightly against the edge of her desk. "My job is to make this transition easier for you. Nobody expects you to walk in here and suddenly know how to run Vale Biodyne."
"That's good, because I definitely don't." I let out a breathless laugh. "I managed restaurants. The biggest crisis I dealt with was spoiled seafood and employees not showing up for shifts."
"And now you oversee one of the most influential biotech corporations in the world."
"When you say it out loud, it sounds insane."
Lucy smiled faintly. "Your parents believed you could handle it."
The statement landed heavier than she probably intended. I looked away toward the windows before she could see it hit me.
"How long have you worked for them?" I asked, changing the subject.
"Four years," she said. "They hired me straight out of college."
"And kept you around that long, so you must've impressed them."
A shadow crossed her face again. "We were close."
For a second neither of us spoke. Then she straightened slightly, returning to business mode with practiced ease.
"There are a few things they left for you."
My attention snapped back to her. Lucy opened the top drawer of her desk and reached inside. I turned away before it became obvious I was staring at her too much already. She really was very beautiful.
"First," she said, holding up a gold key between two fingers, "their penthouse."
I took it carefully. The metal felt heavier than it should have.
I hadn't been to my parents' apartment in years. Most of our time together happened in restaurants or during carefully scheduled dinners squeezed between meetings and flights. They were always moving. Always building something. Now they were gone, and all that movement had simply... stopped.
Lucy handed me a sleek black phone next.
"Company issue. Every important contact is already saved in."
I slipped it into my pocket beside the key, then nodded toward the final object resting in her hand. An old video camera. The thing looked ancient compared to the technology surrounding us. Scratched casing. Worn edges. Analog. Her fingers tightened slightly around the camera before she held it out to me.
"This is private," she said. "Your parents wanted only you to see it. Preferably when you are alone"
Something in her voice changed the temperature in the room.
The curiosity hit immediately, sharp enough to itch beneath my skin, but I forced myself to step back from it.
"If I take it into that office right now, I'm definitely watching it instead of doing any actual work. I can keep it here until you leave."
She slid the camera carefully back into the drawer, almost reluctantly, then closed it. The strange tension dissolved just enough for her usual warmth to return.
"Well," she said, stepping away from the desk, "you should probably see your office."
There was something infectious about her smile.
"Lead the way."
Lucy moved toward the double doors, then swung them open. The office beyond was enormous.
For a moment I just stood there staring.
Dark wood shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, packed with books, artifacts, and framed photographs. A massive desk sat near the far windows overlooking the city skyline. Rain drifted across the glass seventy stories below us, turning the world outside silver-gray. But it wasn't the size of the room that caught my attention. It was the wolves.
Paintings everywhere. Wolves standing beneath moons. Wolves running through forests. Wolves with teeth bared in violent snarls. Some looked ancient enough to belong in a museum. An uncomfortable chill crept through me.
"What's with the wolves?" I asked lightly, though something about the paintings unsettled me in ways I couldn't explain.
Lucy glanced toward one of them.
"I believe it had something to do with the company logo," she said after a beat. "Your parents liked consistency."
The answer came too quickly and not quickly enough at the same time. She was hiding something. I could feel it instinctively, the same way you sense tension before a storm breaks. I walked slowly toward the desk, running my fingers across the polished wood surface. The thought still felt unreal.
Lucy stopped near the doorway. "I am right outside if you need anything. The office line connects directly to my desk."
I nodded absently, my attention drifting back toward the paintings. One of the wolves stared straight at me from across the room. And for one impossible second, I could have sworn its eyes reflected gold.
"How come my parents never got you an office?" I asked.
Lucy looked genuinely caught off guard by the question. She glanced toward the open hallway outside, then back at me, suddenly interested in smoothing an invisible wrinkle from her sleeve. "I never really needed one," she said with a small shrug. "I'm fine out there."
"Four years working directly under the founders and they still kept you at a desk in the hallway?" A quiet laugh escaped me, though I wasn't entirely joking. "My parents believed in earning things the hard way. Believe me, I know. But four years is still four years."
"It honestly doesn't bother me." She tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear, almost self-conscious now. "There were more important things to focus on."
I studied her for a moment. Lucy clearly hated attention when it was directed at her. Which was strange, considering how effortlessly she carried herself. She looked like someone who belonged in magazine ads and corporate galas, yet the thought of having her own office seemed to make her uncomfortable.
Still, it felt wrong. I stood inside a massive executive suite overlooking half the city while she worked from a desk outside the door like a gatekeeper. I made a mental note to change that later. Not today, though. I'd already managed to unsettle her enough.
"So," I said, steering the conversation elsewhere, "what's the plan for today?"
Relief flashed briefly across her face before she slipped back into professional mode.
"The board wants to meet you," she replied. "Conference level. Floor eighty."
Lucy moved around the desk and opened a leather notebook filled with handwritten notes and color-coded tabs.
"I put together profiles for everyone you'll be dealing with regularly. Personalities, responsibilities, internal politics, things you should probably know before walking into a room full of executives."
I gestured down at myself. "Do you think they'll care that I look like I'm here to fix the Wi-Fi?"
Lucy laughed softly. "You own the company, Ethan. If you decided hoodies were mandatory, they'd all show up tomorrow wearing hoodies."
"That's a terrifying amount of power."
"You'll get used to it."
I doubted that.
She flipped a page in the notebook. "The people you're meeting today make up your inner board. They're the ones who worked closest with your parents."
I perched on the edge of the desk while she spoke, forcing myself to focus on her words instead of the way morning light caught in her hair.
"At the top is Adrian Blackwood," she began. "Chairman of the board. He's been involved with Vale Biodyne longer than almost anyone. Extremely intelligent and careful. He'll decide whether he trusts you within the first five minutes."
"Okay.."
"Next is Evelyn Ward. Vice Chair." Lucy's tone shifted slightly, respectful but cautious. "She and your mother were very close. She's sharp enough to dismantle someone without ever raising her voice."
"Sounds terrifying."
"She is."
I smiled faintly. "Who else?"
"Daniel Mercer handles treasury operations." Lucy rolled her eyes slightly as she turned the page. "He likes power more than people."
"That sounds promising."
"He assumed he'd gain more influence with your parents and that he'd become CEO after they died." Her green eyes flicked up to mine. "Your existence complicated that."
"So he hates me already."
"I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to."
That earned the faintest smile from her.
"And last is Lexi Peterson," she said. "She's the Board Secretary and deals with agendas, scheduling, accountability, things like that."
I folded my arms. "That's my welcoming committee?"
"For now." Lucy closed the notebook gently. "The larger board comes later. The others thought it'd be better not to throw you into the deep end immediately."
"The others?"
She hesitated again. I was beginning to notice that look. Tiny pauses. Carefully selected words. Like there were conversations happening beneath the ones we were actually having.
"Your parents prepared for emergencies," she said finally. "A lot of systems were already in place in the event of their ... their demise."
I looked toward the windows overlooking the city. "Sounds like them. Always five moves ahead."
Lucy's voice softened. "Ethan, I really am sorry."
The sincerity in it hit harder than condolences from reporters or lawyers or strangers at the funeral.
"Work helps," I admitted quietly. "Keeps my brain from going places I don't want it to."
"And I'll help however I can."
I glanced back at her. "You already are."
For a moment neither of us spoke. Sunlight spilled through the windows, catching gold in her hair and scattering reflections across the office walls. She looked almost unreal standing there among the wolves and shadows and glass. Then her smartwatch buzzed sharply, breaking the moment.
Lucy looked down at the screen. "They're ready whenever you are."
I exhaled slowly. Truthfully, I wasn't ready at all.
These people had spent decades building an empire while I spent the last few years arguing with restaurant suppliers and scheduling late-night shifts. One wrong sentence in that meeting and they'd know instantly I didn't belong here. But maybe they already knew. Maybe they were just waiting to see how badly I'd fail.
Lucy must've noticed the tension tightening in my shoulders because her expression softened again. "You don't have to prove anything today."
"Feels like I do."
She stepped closer before I could think too hard about it. Her hand slipped into mine, warm and steady. The contact grounded me instantly.
"You'll be fine," she said quietly.
The elevator ride down to eighty passed too quickly. When the doors opened, another marble hallway stretched ahead toward a set of closed conference doors. Lucy gave my hand one last reassuring squeeze before letting go.
"The boardroom's straight ahead."
"And this is the part where they decide whether I'm qualified to inherit a biotech empire?"
"They already know you inherited it," she said with the faintest smile. "Now they're deciding who you are."
That somehow felt worse. I stepped out into the hallway while she remained inside the elevator.
"Go get them, tiger," she said lightly. "Then come back upstairs."
I nodded once. "See you later, Lucy."
"Good luck, Ethan."
The elevator doors slid shut, taking her with them.
And suddenly the hallway felt much colder without her there.
