On Wednesday afternoon, the note arrives.

I think it’s from Vivienne at first, and my heart leaps in my chest. It would be a clever answer to the white envelopes I like to send to her desk, either alone or with gifts—although I should probably be more discreet about the gifts, now that we’ve reached another level in our relationship. Even if that level is still hidden from prying eyes at the moment.

This envelope doesn’t have anything on it except my name in a neat print, which should be the first hint that it’s not from her. Vivienne always writes in cursive, and her penmanship is distinctive.

I tear open the envelope and a notecard falls out. Now I recognize the block print. It’s from Chris.

Things are ramping up at the Department, it reads. We’re seeing an uptick of activity—info moving from place to place. Not much longer.

—CO

I shred the note into fifty tiny pieces and tip them all into the trash bin next to my desk. I was knee-deep in contract negotiations with a potential partner in London, but I stopped everything when the note arrived. Now I wish I hadn’t.

I’m sick to death of this business with the FBI, and my jaw has clenched tight at the thought of it. I need to maintain some semblance of control over my company, and I can’t do it while there’s someone working for me who’s stealing. I don’t know what Chris thinks he’s playing at.

If I hadn’t promised him that I’d let them do their work, this could be resolved by now.

Well—resolved in that I’d fire anyone who came under even a hint of suspicion and move on. That would narrow the field for the FBI.

I swivel around in my chair and look out over the five o’clock skyline of New York City. Vivienne has plans with a friend tonight, so she’s ducking out as soon as she can, and I won’t see her until tomorrow.

The investigation nags at my mind.

How long has this been going on? What was it that Chris said at that first meeting?

This has been going on a few weeks…

I had met him at the bar right around the time I met Vivienne.

The two thoughts collide and then repel off one another in my mind. Vivienne arrived entirely by chance. People come in and out of the Executive Support Department all the time as executives choose new staff, people move up or out, or they take their skills and transfer to other departments. It can’t possibly be that—

It’s hard to even formulate the thought.

It can’t possibly be that Vivienne is involved with this.

If she was involved in this, it could only be in one of two ways, and I don’t know which would be a bigger blow to me.

She could be the inside person. She could be the person who’s handing off company secrets to the Chinese contact. But no—that wouldn’t make any sense. According to Chris, the investigation started, and it wasn’t long after that they put someone undercover on the case, someone inside the company.

But Vivienne couldn’t be working undercover for the FBI. She’d have told me. She wouldn’t upend what we have on a lie like that.

I pick up a pen to keep marking up a contract, turning back to my desk, but I can’t seem to formulate the letters on the page into anything readable.

The timing was very close. Too close. But it couldn’t be. Could it?

I tap my fingers against the surface of my desk. I’ve never looked up Vivienne’s personnel file, but I could, and it might put my mind at ease about this whole thing if I do. Because as long as Vivienne’s not involved in it, this whole thing is an inconvenience that will fix itself in time—whether I have to be the one to do it, or the FBI finally makes a move.

I jiggle the mouse next to my keyboard, waking up the computer. My login allows me access to everything there is to access on the Wilder Enterprises server. I rarely do this, so at first the filing system seems like a maze. I need to have someone from tech support come up here and refresh my memory. I don’t like having a weakness like that.

A few frustrating minutes later, I’ve finally located the personnel files for employees who hired on in the last three months. I scroll down, down…and there she is.

I hesitate, my mouse poised to click on the file to open it.

We might have an unspoken agreement that Vivienne likes some kink in the bedroom, that sometimes she wants to lose herself in a little bit of submission, but I have no doubt that this would be crossing the line in her mind. Not that the lines aren’t already blurred. They are. She works here and I own the company. What we’ve been doing already puts us in uncertain territory.

This is about protecting yourself. Once I have the thought, I can’t push it away. Have I really spent all these years building incredible wealth only to jeopardize it by falling for someone who’s playing a role?

My father comes to mind, living on a decent property in upstate New York, largely because of my own generosity. Even so, I don’t see him. We don’t speak. He’s not proud of what he did, and neither am I. It’s the elephant in the room any time we’re together, so we avoid that by never being together.

I don’t want that type of life for myself.

I open the file.

It starts with all the standard information—her staff ID picture, her name, her birthdate, her current address. The address matches up with the place I’ve dropped her off. No red flags there, and the sight of her face smiling out at me from the computer makes my heart thump hard against my ribs.

I scroll down through the file. She interviewed with someone in Human Resources—I don’t recognize the name—and they left glowing notes about how her personality is an excellent fit for the open position in Executive Support. Even her resume seems to be neatly in order, if a little sparse. I’d have expected someone like Vivienne to have more meat there, and I narrow my eyes at the document. This got through the HR system when she applied? I wonder if she knows someone in that department. She’s never mentioned it, but…

I scroll down again. Recommended for this position by Georgina Lillianfield.

Now that—that seems out of character. From what I’ve heard from the executives, Ms. Lillianfield is wickedly efficient, but not the kind to gush.

How does Vivienne know her?

My stomach lurches, and I abruptly click out of the file.

What the hell am I doing?

I trust Vivienne. I love her. If she knows Lillianfield, then she knows her. This isn’t the kind of thing to throw everything we have away over.

I push all of it out of my mind, pull out my phone, and send her a message.

Tell me I can see you tonight.

A few minutes later, she replies.

Only if I can see you first. :)

My heart settles down.

If only I could say the same for the creeping doubt in the back of my mind.