The pen felt heavier than it should have.
I turned it once between my fingers, the weight of it sleek and expensive, completely at odds with the hollow thrum in my chest. The contract lay open on the glass table, page after page of dense legal text glinting under the recessed lights. Somewhere below us, thirty-three floors down, the city screamed with traffic and neon. Up here, it was quiet enough to hear the air-conditioning.
"You can take your time, Ms. Bennett," Lucien Hart said smoothly from the far end of the room. "I don’t rush people into life-changing decisions."
It was a lie, but a beautifully dressed one.
I could feel him watching me. Not in a leering way; in that cool, evaluative way CEOs in glossy magazines were always photographed. He was sitting on the edge of the long black leather sofa, jacket open, tie loosened exactly one strategic inch. The skyline framed him like a curated backdrop.
Salary, health insurance, relocation stipend, signing bonus. The numbers on the top sheet still didn’t feel real. Six times what I’d made last year, and more than what my father had made… ever. My stomach tightened.
"I’m not used to…" I cleared my throat and tried again. "This level of generosity."
Lucien’s mouth curved, the practiced half-smile of a man who signed empires into being before breakfast.
"You’re not a charity case, Nora. I pay for value. Your references were exemplary."
My references were from two burnt-out executives and one nonprofit director who still owed me three months of back pay. I wondered what they’d said and how much of it had been desperate exaggeration.
My gaze slid back to the paragraph I’d stopped on, the words blurring at the edges:
"…hereby consents to full confidentiality obligations, including but not limited to any and all material, digital or otherwise, arising from the acquisition of—"
I blinked. "Eidolon Data Systems." The name sat there in the text like a quiet landmine.
"Is that the new company you bought?" I asked.
"One of them," Lucien said. "A subsidiary. High-risk, high-reward. You won’t be directly involved with their operations," he added, almost casually. "But for structural reasons, your contract references it. Standard practice for my inner staff."
Standard. Right.
I didn’t really speak contract. I spoke overdue notices and interest rates and the way it felt when your card was declined in a grocery store line. The woman in HR—no, she’d corrected me, she was "talent acquisition"—had already gone over the "high points" with a bright smile and a color-coded summary.
This part hadn’t been on it.
My hand went clammy on the pen. "It’s a lot of legal language for something standard."
Lucien stood, slow and unhurried, and walked toward me. His reflection traveled along the glass tabletop until he came to a stop across from me, hands in his pockets, posture loose.
"It’s the world we play in," he said. "Data, regulations, sharks. If someone decides to come after me through you, I need assurances that you won’t run to a journalist or a competitor with what you know."
My cheeks heated. "I wouldn’t. I mean, I’m not—"
"I know," he cut in, voice soft. "I’ve read your file, Nora. Loyal to a fault." Something flickered in his eyes—satisfaction, maybe. "That’s precisely why I’m comfortable with the package I’m offering. You deserve to be secure for once."
