TOM POV Selene Brooks doesn’t look like a woman who begs for anything. When the hostess leads me toward the corner booth at the back of Mercer’s, Selene is already standing to meet me, smoothing down the front of a sharp, ivory silk blouse tucked into high-waisted black trousers. Her dark hair is pinned up at the crown of her head, a few loose strands curling against her jawline, and even in the dim amber glow of the restaurant’s sconces, her hazel eyes are laser-focused. I’ve seen her from across crowded conference halls before. Usually standing at a podium while Vivian glared at her from the front row, but up close, the sheer intensity rolling off her is startling. "You actually came," Selene says, extending her hand across the white tablecloth. Her grip is firm, her palm warm against mine. "Honestly, after call number ninety, my assistant started taking office bets on whether you’d block my number or file a restraining order." "I was tempted," I admit, sliding into the curved

TOM POV My back still stings where Vivian’s nails raked into my shoulders, the scratches pulling tight against the crisp cotton of my dress shirt as I step out of the elevator onto the top floor of Brooks Systems. It’s eight-fifty in the morning. The glass-walled corridor smells like roasted espresso and rain, and every junior engineer who passes me does a double take. I don’t blame them. For five years, the few times I was photographed behind Vivian at charity dinners, I was wearing faded jeans and whatever sweater was clean. In a custom charcoal three-piece suit with my hair swept back, I don’t look like Vivian Baudelaire’s quiet househusband anymore. In my pocket, my phone vibrates for the sixth time in twenty minutes. I stop just outside the frosted double doors of the executive suite and pull it out. Vivian. A text message pops up right beneath the incoming call banner: Tom, where the hell are you? I woke up and the kitchen was cold. Pick up the phone right now. I almost

TOM POV "Tom?" Selene steps closer to my stool, trying to catch a glimpse of my screen before I lock the phone and slip it back into my trouser pocket. Her hazel eyes are narrow. "You didn't answer my question. Why is the president of Northstar Cloud standing in my lobby begging to hand us free server capacity?" "Because monopolies are terrible for the local economy," I say smoothly, picking up my suit jacket from the back of the chair and sliding my arms into the sleeves. "I made a phone call to a friend at Aegis Infrastructure and reminded him that Northstar leases their fiber-optic trunk lines from Aegis. Apparently, Aegis frowns on sub-lessors rigging an Apex Global tender." Selene stares at me for a long beat, "A friend at Aegis." "An old college acquaintance," I lie without blinking, adjusting my cuffs. "Come on. You have twenty-two minutes before the five o'clock filing deadline. Don't keep Mr. Vance waiting." When we step out of the elevator into the fourteenth-floor