Chapter 1

(Jill Matteo's POV)

People thought working for a billionaire meant champagne desks and diamond paperweights. It didn't. It meant coffee stains on twelve-hundred-dollar Italian suits and three A.M. phone calls about "urgent" meetings that were just power plays in disguise. It meant remembering who he was supposed to be nice to this week and who he was pretending didn't exist.

And me? I was the one who kept it all from catching fire.

Fox Global's headquarters was twenty-nine floors of glass and money. My desk sat right outside Teddy Fox's office, front row to the circus. From there I saw everything: the interns tripping over themselves to impress, the board members with their wolf-smiles, the PR girls with phones glued to their hands like they were born that way. I kept a tight stack of Teddy's schedules, a backup stack for when he inevitably ignored the first one, and a bottle of aspirin I guarded like gold bullion.

Most mornings started the same. I arrived before the cleaning crew had even finished pretending to clean, opened my inbox to a flood of flagged emails, and wondered if that would be the day I walked out. Then I remembered rent, bills, my mother's hospital invoices, my sister's divorce lawyer, and the fact that I had exactly seventy-three dollars and twelve cents left after last month's chaos. So I logged in. I answered emails. I survived.

It wasn't that I hated my job. It was that it was slowly eating me alive while smiling for the cameras.

That morning's highlight was a call from Mr. Calhoun, the CFO, asking me to "remind" Mr. Fox that the board meeting was in exactly forty-three minutes. Translation: drag him out of whatever he was doing because apparently his presence was optional until it wasn't. The subtext? If Teddy skipped this meeting, someone would bleed for it, and that someone wouldn't be him. Spoiler: that someone was me.

I checked the time. 8:17 a.m. The meeting was at nine. I tapped my pen against the desk and watched the elevator lights flicker up the floors. No sign of him yet.

Around me, the office was already in its usual state of polite panic. Phones ringing. Shoes clicking across marble. That low corporate hum like everyone was whispering secrets at once. You got used to it, until you realized you'd started breathing to its rhythm.

Bianca called me on my break. I put her on speaker while I typed.

"You sound chipper," she said.

"I'm at work, Bianca. The happiest place on earth."

She snorted. "You're in the devil's lobby. Different thing."

She wasn't wrong. Teddy Fox was... a reputation. A rumor people repeated in boardrooms and country clubs. I'd worked for him for two years and still couldn't tell you which parts were true. That he was cold? Yes. That he was brilliant? Definitely. That he once walked out on a meeting with the mayor because the man's handshake was weak? I never asked, because honestly, I believed it.

I finished answering an email from a partner in London and glanced at the clock. 8:36. If he didn't walk through those elevator doors in the next ten minutes, I'd have to go find him, which usually involved tracking him down in some expensive corner of Manhattan that wasn't technically open yet.

Bianca was still talking. "...you should just quit. You could start that events company you keep talking about. You're good with people."

"I'm good with billionaires," I corrected. "And billionaires aren't people."

"Exactly. So quit. Work for humans."

I smiled, even though she couldn't see it. "I can't quit."

I didn't say why. I didn't have to. She knew.

At 8:43, my phone buzzed. Private line. I picked up.

"Matteo," a voice said, low, clipped, the kind of tone that meant whatever came next would ruin my day.

"Good morning, Mr. Calhoun," I said.

"Where is he?"

"I'm about to find out."

"You have six minutes."

The line went dead.

I shoved my phone in my pocket, grabbed my notepad, and headed toward the private elevator. If Teddy was in the building, this would find him. If he wasn't... well, let's hope he was. I'd had exactly one boss in my life who could get away with skipping a board meeting. He was the one who signed my paycheck.

The elevator doors opened and the first thing I noticed was the scent, faint cologne, expensive, the kind that smelled like an argument you couldn't win. The second thing I noticed was the man leaning against the mirrored wall, looking at me like I'd just interrupted his thoughts.

Sharp suit. Sharp jaw. Eyes that could slice glass.

Teddy Fox.

And he was smiling.

Which was never a good sign.