Chapter 7: Eleven Refusals

Dee's laptop sat on her kitchen table between a bowl of oranges and a stack of unopened mail.

I did not use my own computer.

I had never changed my work email password since the day Porter set it up for me.

I typed it in and the inbox opened at once.

Dee stood behind my chair in her Mets jacket with her arms crossed.

Byron leaned on the counter across the kitchen. He had followed us up from the car carrying a paper bag of takeout nobody had asked for.

The bag sat untouched beside the sink.

"Sent folder," he said quietly.

I clicked it.

There were messages in it I had never seen.

Eleven of them, spread across three years.

Each had gone to a different person, and each had the same polite, cornered voice.

An executive search firm in Boston. A developer in Chicago. A hotel group in London. A city planning office. Three from Costello Properties.

I opened the first one.

Thank you for thinking of me. I'm very loyal to Porter Aspinwall and could never leave him.

I'm honored, but I have everything I need where I am.

I opened the folder where the original offers had gone.

Porter had never deleted them.

I think it had never crossed his mind that I would be allowed to look.

Eleven offers. Salaries I hadn't known existed. Titles I had never been told I was worth.

Dee read over my shoulder and swore in a low voice.

"That's a CFO job in Chicago. That's a vice president in London." She put her hand flat on the table. "Tash. That's a whole life."

"I know."

"He kept you in a desk drawer for four years."

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