Chapter 10: Above His Name

I opened the folder standing up, in his robe, with my coffee going cold beside me.

The first page was the contract I had signed on the first night, with the salary I had named.

The second page was new.

It gave me ten percent of Costello Properties' stake in the West Side tower, in my own name.

It was dated this morning.

Under it was the line for his signature, and above that, the line for mine.

My name was first on every page.

"You woke up."

Byron stood in the doorway to the terrace in running clothes, his hair wet with sweat and his phone in his hand.

He looked at me, and then at the open folder, and the expression on his face went carefully blank.

"What is this?" I asked.

"It's what you're worth."

"You didn't ask me."

"I didn't want to be told no before you'd read it."

I put the page down.

"I've been in a lot of rooms with men who give me things," I said. "I know what it looks like when a man hands me something so I'll owe him."

"It doesn't carry anything with it."

"Everything carries something with it."

"Not this." He crossed the kitchen and stopped on the other side of the island. "Read the third page."

I turned it.

If Byron Costello dies or is incapacitated, the seat goes to Natasha Brennan outright. It is not tied to him, and not to Costello Properties.

My name again. Above his.

I looked up.

"I don't own a seat," he said. "You do. It was always going to be yours. I only needed you to see it before I was in a position to take it back."

My throat closed.

For a moment I could not say what I felt, because it was not one thing.

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