"You will not screw this up."

My phone rests on the tray table. My father is too loud and insistent to hold to my ear, so I use the speakerphone. I'm not worried about my privacy. Anyone in the next compartment or the hall would be able to hear him without the speaker anyway. His voice cracks like a whip.

"I'm not going to screw this up," I reassure him.

"Have you studied the folder I gave you?"

"Yes." I groan.

"What did I tell you about that mopey tone you always use?"

I yawn. "I'm just tired. I need sleep."

"Sleep is for the weak."

I give the phone the finger. Thank the Lord for stingy parents. He may be fabulously wealthy, but he won’t spring for a good data plan. No face-time without wifi.

"I’ll let you go, now. Make sure you're ready for your interview."

The line goes dead, and I shove the phone angrily into my purse and prop my elbows on the table. I sweep it aside and lie back in the seat, yawning again as I open the folder. The train is a rolling lullaby, and I haven't slept since sometime yesterday—I wasn't home for twenty minutes before I was being packed off. I had to pack—supervised, of course—before I was shipped off to the train station to embark for Philadelphia.

Prepare for the interview. I snort, flipping through the portfolio of documents he provided for me to study. This is ridiculous. It's not some random job posting. My boss-to-be is my father's closest business associate. I expect it to be about as challenging as one of the mock interviews at the college career services office.

I know those all too well. My father makes me take them once a week. I once raised the issue to him that, technically, he has no right to see my grades or talk to my professors or put a minder on me to keep me out of trouble.

Once.

My fellow freshmen didn't have shadows. She's in the next sleeper cabin over—Mrs. Heemeyer, the wizened woman who was the nanny when I was young, the tutor when I was a teen, and followed me to college. He sent someone to follow and monitor me. Walking to class with a minder trailing after me was mortifying. Look up the definition of "sheltered" in the dictionary and you'll see my picture.

At least I’m a little free of her now. She’s not sharing my cabin. A few hours of blessed privacy.

The circular motion of my toes is more interesting than the information packet. I end up looking over the top of the folder until my chin drops against my chest. I snap up, catch the folder before the contents dump all over my lap, stuff it aside, kick back, and squeeze my eyes shut.

Few things do I hate more than being disturbed from a deep slumber. I can't remember the last time I woke naturally, on my own, from a full night’s rest. There's always an alarm or a bell or the claw-like hand of my minder digging into my shoulder.

She stands over me in professional attire, hair drawn back in a painful bun, dark eyes sharp and judging. Fighting off a yawn, I drag myself out of the seat and pull down my roller bag.

The air is different here. It has a peculiar scent. I'm no stranger to cities; Dad is one of the most powerful and prolific land developers in the country, and he's not developing hotels in Altoona. Every city has its own flavor. This is a new one. I can only briefly savor it before Mrs. Heemeyer motions me into the car that will take me to my destination.

The urge to just walk away and roll my bag down the street a ways is intense, but I push it down and climb from one bubble into another. The door slaps shut behind me, and the sounds of city hustle and bustle die down to a subtle thrum. Dark town-car windows dull everything. Mrs. Heemeyer's faint, wheezy breathing is as familiar as my own heartbeat. My spectacle-bedecked minder never says a word, but gives me a judging eye over horn-rimmed glasses.

The ride is long. I review the documents in my folder, fighting off the first stabs of a headache every time the car lurches in traffic. I glance at my watch. We had to arrive at rush hour. Dad will probably blame me for being late to the appointment he set, via travel he arranged. It's always my fault somehow.

The car wheels off the street and down a ramp, diving under a building so big I can't see all of it, like a submersible taking off for a deep ocean trench. The weight of the structure above hovers just over my shoulders as I step out into cool, oily air.

I take a final moment to adjust myself, to set every bit of my hair and outfit in place and push my glasses up my nose. Some childish impulse led me to think it'd make me look more professional to wear subtle rimless spectacles instead of contacts for this. I glance at my distorted mirror image in the car window and wonder if I'm pulling it off or look like a little girl that got into Mommy's clothes.

I shake that off and stride to the elevator, wobbling on my heels for the first few steps until I get used to it. I hate heels.

Another woman meets us. She looks past me to Mrs. Heemeyer. "I’ll take it from here."

She makes a dismissive motion with her hand, and I study her. Tall, overtopping me by six inches, she has a high-fashion model's severe beauty, sharp features, hard blue eyes, and flowing platinum blonde hair worn over one shoulder.

"Maria Pierce. I'm Aiden's executive assistant. I'll take you upstairs."

She motions into the elevator, and I step inside. I cough and fiddle with my hair. Maria leans over, offering a conspiratorial whisper as the doors close. "You look fine."

I suppress a smirk. "This is already a little tiresome."

She quirks an eyebrow. "How so?"

"It's pantomime. Everyone knows I'll be working here. Mr. Byrne and my father are as thick as thieves. I wish we could just get to the point."

Her expression sours. “I see. Well, at least you sound like a go-getter.”

Before I can answer she turns a key at the bottom of the elevator panel and it rises, so smooth I barely feel a push.

The express elevator ascends through the forty floors in less than two minutes, but it feels like an eternity. Maria has me off-kilter, worried now. I haven't seen Aiden Byrne in quite a while, since I was fifteen or so. I wonder if he'll recognize me.

When the doors open, I bump into Maria trying to step out. She gives me an annoyed look and takes the lead, offering me a look around. "These floors are only accessible to—"

"I'll take care of the tour."

I almost jump out of my skin at the powerful voice of Aiden Byrne.

He overtops me by a foot, but is graceful and fluid in his muscular movements. His dark suit is so well tailored that it conceals the firm, hard lines of his body, as men's clothing does—except he's wearing a vest and no jacket, and the material of his white shirt does a poor job of hiding the bunching muscles beneath as his arms move.

Suppressing a smile, I nod. "Doctor Byrne."

"Aiden," he corrects.

He offers me his hand. I shook hands with him once before, but I can't remember when, and the faded memory is swallowed up in his firm but gentle grip and calloused skin, more like a workman's than an executive’s. He has an impish half-smile, waves of dark hair, and eyes as sharp as their steel color. When he looks at me I feel like his gaze opens me up somehow, and goose prickles erupt along my arms.

"Aiden," I repeat. "My father always insisted I call you by your title and last name."

"Your father isn't here," he says. His voice carries a rich tone of perpetual amusement, like this is all some diversion to him, and yet he’s concentrating all his attention directly on me. "So you're here for your interview."

I nod, and yelp as my glasses, already perched on the tip of my nose, slide right off.

His hand moves so fast it blurs, and he catches them neatly by the bridge, takes the earpieces in both hands, and settles them back into place. His fingers brush the sides of my head as he tucks the hair behind my ear.

"There you are. No need to be so intense. I won't bite you."

I'm grinning like a fool until I stop myself. "Yes. Right. Shall we get to it, then?"

"Patience," he says, a hint of scolding schoolteacher in his voice.

Scolding from a man always raises my hackles, but the impression of command in his tone is like a spectral hand brushing the back of my neck, more a caress than a lash. I shift on my feet and end up struggling to fight off a wobble from my forgotten stiletto heels.

He notices, his eyes trailing down my legs to my toes. "Who put you in those ludicrous shoes?"

I feel the blood drain from my face and look for something to say—whatever inane reply ripples up from my subconscious. He stops me with an apologetic look.

"Forgive me. I forget how sensitive young women can be about their clothing." He cocks his head to the side. "They won't do, though. Not at all. Maria, I think she wears a size six. Go fetch a new pair of sneakers for her."

“Anything further, sir?” she purrs, eyeing him as intensely as I am. She looks different when she sets her eyes on him, her normally sharp expression melting. From stern-faced career woman to smoky, seductive, blonde femme fatale.

“Thank you, that will be all,” he says with a smile.

"Take them off," he says, turning back to me.

I glance down, and surrender four inches of height as I step out of my heels. I crouch and scoop them up.

Aiden takes my shoes, his hand brushing against mine. He takes two steps and throws them in a wastebasket.

"High heels are against the dress code here."

I have to almost crane up to look at him.

“Those were expensive.”

"You'd know such things if you read up on my company."

A prickle of alarm tickles through my body. This almost feels like a real job interview. He has a way of making this farce seem like it counts.

"I'm sorry. I haven't slept since I found out you were interviewing me. Yesterday, to be exact."

He nods. "Short vacation, then."

"Vacation isn't a word in my vocabulary."

He laughs. "That's a wonderful magic trick."

"What is?"

"You talk, and your father's voice comes out."

I frown, stung.

That’s the last image I wanted in my head. His words conjure a vision of my father, mummy-like, slipping into my skin. I shudder.

Aiden cocks his head to the side. “Did I offend you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

He nods with a smile. "We're delaying the tour. Come on, let's look around."

He turns, expecting me to follow. I take long strides to catch up and walk beside him, feeling awkward as my stockings slip and slide with the carpet on every step. I half wonder if he made up the shoe thing to take me off guard.

The top floors of the building are an open rectangle around an atrium. Until he leads me to the inner window, I can’t grasp how big a space it is. Half the building is hollow, reaching down a good twenty floors to an artificial park, complete with trees and a running stream, far below. It’s all lit by blazing morning sunlight. Vertigo makes me sway as I look down, my nose almost touching the glass.

Aiden must be used to it. He's too busy watching me.

"I'm leading a green space initiative in the city," he says. "We're adding plantings like this to the rooftops of all the apartment buildings and high rises we own. It's wonderful for the air."

"It's beautiful," I say, my voice drifting. "Doesn't this make you nervous? Looking down so far?"

"Afraid of heights?"

"A little," I admit.

"I'm not. Spiders."

"Spiders?"

"Hateful little things. Suffer not the arachnid to live, Delilah."

As absurd as that sentence sounds, the way he says my name sends a shiver down my back. De-lih-lah, like he's tasting the words as they pass his lips.

"Lilah," I correct. “Please.”

"Lilah," I repeat.

I never knew she preferred that over her full name. Looking at her, I forget myself. Or rather, I forget her. I forget that she's Roland's first-and-only, my friend's daughter. All of that is distant, muted by her radiance.

Beneath that prim outfit she has a body of a man’s dreams, lush curves and strong limbs both. The rich fullness of her backside keeps drawing my eye, and when I force my eyes back to her face it's a battle between losing myself in her liquid-blue eyes or following the creamy lines of her delicate throat to the subtle hint of cleavage in her button-down blouse. Her casual, sloppy updo and rimless glasses give her a distinct ingénue look that makes me feel guilty for how much I'd like to taste her soft lips and knot my fist in her dark river of inky black hair.

I thrust my hands in my pockets, and hope she doesn't realize I'm doing it to spread the fabric of my trousers and conceal the growing erection that's drawing all the blood from my brain. It's hard to think with her standing there, the awe of the atrium lighting up her lovely face. She could be a painting.

Pretty. Such a strange word. People say it like it's lesser than beautiful, purer than hot or sexy, purer than the one and more innocent than the other. She is pretty. It's the perfect word for her.

Her voice is like honey poured over warm bread. "I've spent my whole life around buildings like this, but this is the first time I've felt awe. When they’re always there you forget how strange it is that people can build something this big."

"Architecture was always a love of mine," I tell her. "More of a mistress. Medical school was my wife."

She glances at my hand—checking for a ring? A shiver grips my neck and drains the blood from my brain. Has she ever fantasized about me before, I wonder? On an intellectual level, I know that this is Roland's daughter I'm talking to, the offspring of a close business associate. I should be ashamed, but what's shameful about noticing a woman's beauty?

She’s off limits, I remind myself.

I motion for her to follow me.

"Let's head to my office, shall we?"

She nods and walks beside me. For some reason, I find the lack of deference appealing. I'm used to everyone automatically falling in a few steps behind, even Maria, who should know better.

I almost wish Delilah wasn’t so close. Every time I glance at her I forget how long it's been since I've had my hands around a slender waist, felt the warm softness of a woman's touch molded against my body. Her scent is like strawberries. Not perfume, something else. Perhaps a shampoo, or perhaps she smells as sweet as she is.

When I approach my office, a sensor in the doorframe reads a key fob in my pocket, and the doors swing open as smoothly as they would a cheesy haunted-house movie. For the barest moment, Lilah grins.

"Neat," she says.

Her breath catches in the next room.

When I said office, she no doubt conjured a prosaic image in her mind. I'm an executive, so I must have a large desk, some bookcases, and comfy chairs. The anteroom to my main workspace houses my collection of arms and armor.

"What is all this?"

"Antiques," I say. "Most of my collection resides at the Art Museum, on loan. I only keep my favorite pieces here."

She glances at me and says, almost sheepishly, "I'm a bit of a history buff."

"I didn't know that. Usually that's an interview question. Glad we knocked that one out."

She smiles and blushes prettily, probably unaware that it's happening. "Can I look around?"

I brush past her to the first display case and pull on a pair of linen gloves, then swing it open and lift out a four-hundred-year-old Toledo steel blade, letting it rest on my hands with the greatest care.

She almost touches it before pulling her hand back, holding her palm near the surface for a moment.

"It's so weird seeing you handle that. It feels sacriligious. If my dad knew I'd touched a museum piece he'd skin me alive." She nearly sounds aroused, the way her lips curve around the words.

I return the sword to its resting place and close the cabinet. Lilah is already walking the room, staring at the other items in my collection, her eyes alight with fascination.

"You're an undergrad. History major?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "Maybe in grad school," she says, absently. "If I'm allowed to go."

"You know, it's funny," I say, stepping up behind her. "The resume I received said you were majoring in business."

She turns pale and slips her arms around herself. “I am,” she admits. “Wasn’t my choice. I’d rather have majored in history or education, but…” She shrugs.

I quirk an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

She suddenly looks ashamed, and a little queasy.

"Is this the interview?" she blurts out with a challenging glare.

"Let me tell you something," I say in a soft, conspiratorial tone. "In life, everything is the interview. Should we step into the office proper?"

I swing the doors open, and Lilah gasps. She wasn't expecting the windows, floor to ceiling on every side of the room. The glass behind my desk slopes to make it easier to look down into the atrium.

Everything is glass or acrylic. My desk is glass, the frames of the chairs are a clear polycarbonate.

"Are those safe to sit in?" she asks.

"They’re made of a clear composite, as strong as steel. Perfectly safe. The floor is the same material. Would you like to see a magic trick?"

Lilah glances at me, wary. "Magic trick?"

I slip my hand in my pocket and press my finger into the button on my key fob, and the floor turns transparent.

Lilah shrieks and almost throws herself on top of me. I catch her, bursting out in an involuntary laugh as she wraps her arms around my shoulders and grips my hips with her thighs. I have to snap my arms up to catch her.

"What the hell?" she shrieks.

I look down through the now-clear floor to the atrium below.

"A little trick to scare the new hires," I reassure her, patting her back as she lowers her feet to the floor.

She looks down, panting. "How?"

"The floor is the same material as the chairs, sandwiched in layers. Between the composite material is a reactive chemical that turns opaque when electricity is applied."

"Like a calculator," she says, her voice turned breathless.

"Yes, that's right. Same principle, but it's a different material."

She continues to stare down, flinching when her stocking feet slip. I press the button, and she visibly relaxes.

"Please never do that again," she says, pressing a hand to her chest. “I think my heart skipped a beat.”

I tear my eyes from her, cursing myself. I know why I did that. I can still taste her delicious scent, feel the soft brush of her hair, the warm weight of her in my arms. I should be ashamed.

As I watch her adjust her glasses and hair I wonder, why?

I snatch her portfolio from the floor and move to offer it to her, but instead zip it open.

"Hey!" she starts.

"Bit of an artist, are we?"

That's an understatement, I realize, as I free a charcoal drawing of a mill, the old kind with a water wheel situated along a stream.

"It's a hobby." She offers, smirking. "It beats working."

I snort. "Why don't you have a seat, and we'll get started for real."

She slips into a guest chair. I lean back in my own, hands folded over my lap.

Can't be too careful.

Is he…?

It has to be my imagination, which has been active ever since I set eyes on him. This is different. I was always nervous around him, but it was the typical nervousness I always felt in the presence of one of my father's associates—he was far from the only one, even if he was the only one that stuck out in my memory. The only young and handsome one, the only one a teenage girl might moon over.

I could swear he's been looking at me. When I was standing outside I felt his gaze like fingers walking up my back. My legs. My throat. At once I regretted leaving the top two buttons on my top undone, and regretted not undoing another one or two more.

I know, objectively, that men look at me. Being undressed by eyes usually brings mild disgust. This is intriguing, exciting, and stirs something down low in my stomach I had no idea was there until it woke up.

He's sizing me up, I think.

He lays my portfolio, which he sort of stole, on his desk. I'm more than a little annoyed about my art. I've always been prickly about it. Dad called it a waste of time, and I had to beg and plead for art supplies until he started giving me an allowance. Being self-taught, whenever I finish something I can see nothing but the imperfections. Sloppy technique, bad perspective. It hurts for Aiden to look at it. I feel even more exposed than usual when someone looks at my art.

I can hear my father’s voice snarling from the back of my skull. “What a waste of time. Drawing’s useless. You need a drawing, you pay someone for it. You’ve got better things to do.”

Dad most certainly never had them hung on the fridge. The fridge at home is a dull monolith of stainless steel, as imposing and bland as the rest of the kitchen, with nary a magnet in sight.

Aiden undoes the top button on his shirt and loosens his tie, spreading it open. It's not warm in here, at least not to me, but he looks like the silk was suddenly choking him.

With forced composure he says, "This is always the first interview question. Tell me why I should hire you?"

I draw a complete blank, and my throat might as well be a blob of half-cured cement.

"I have a great deal of experience for someone my age," I choke out, repeating the same memorized flotsam the career services desk drilled into me every week all semester long. "As you can see from my resume, I have several volunteering—"

"I don't care what you've done. I care what you can do. So what do you do?"

"I can write a mean paper on the Civil War," I say, trying to recover. What am I supposed to say? I just finished my freshman year. I have lots of experience with earth science and English 202?

He smirks. "I know you think this is a joke, but I don't, Lilah."

His voice is firm and serious.

"Most of my experience is working with children," I offer with a shrug. "I did volunteer work with underprivileged students when I was in high school, and this year I spent my Saturdays at a literacy program."

"Ever see yourself making a career out of that?"

"Maybe.”

"So you're here for an internship position. What am I going to do with you?"

That prickle comes back. I must be imagining the edge in his voice when he says that. It's a silly little hint of fantasy; it must be. If my father had any idea Aiden might think like that about me, he'd have shipped me off to a summer workshop in Tibet.

Boys are pretty much off limits, and I pretty much don't mind.

Aiden is no boy though, is he? His eyes are sharp, like a hand teasing my cheek for an answer. I wonder what it would be like if he touched me. How would it feel if his fingers brushed my chin while he undid my blouse?

I quirk my eyebrow.

Let's play hardball.

"You want the truth? I don't know. I'm here because if I wasn't, I'd be looking for something to do in Dad's company, or hanging around the house, or who knows what? The problem is I'd be there, and that's not what he wants."

Aiden rocks in his chair, studying me. "So why not take summer classes?"

"They have breaks," I offer. "I think the goal here is that I spend less than twenty-four hours at home before I'm shipped back off to school."

He sits up and looks at me over his desk. "I'm used to applicants throwing themselves all over me to demonstrate how enthusiastic they are for any spot in the company."

"You're very famous for being a good place to work. I guess."

"You guess?"

I glance at him. "I read the packet Dad gave me."

He must have sensed the bitterness in my voice. He grunts. “Did you now?”

“Skimmed it. Like reading, but with less comprehension.”

He smirks. “You’re a snarky one, aren’t you? I have a use in mind for you."

"However you use me, I'll do the best I can," I say.

We stare at each other as I process what I just said, fighting the creeping heat on my neck and cheeks. I look away and snort. "This is the worst interview ever."

"Pretty much," he says with a smirk. "What were you expecting?"

"Weird riddles. The interviews here are supposed to be incredibly hard."

"Oh, I can ask a few of those. Why are manhole covers round?"

I chew my lip for a moment. "So they don't fall in?"

He laughs. "Right."

I blink. "Seriously? That's it?"

"What else would it be?"

"I don't know. Conserve materials? A circular cover would be smaller than—"

He raises his hand. "A good answer, but it's not the reason."

"Let's cut the crap," I say.

He blinks, and a hint of a smile ghosts across his lips. "All right."

"You already knew what you were going to do with me before I got here. What is it?"

He sits up and folds his hands in his lap again. "I have two children, both boys, aged twelve and eight."

My mouth falls open. My teeth click as I force it closed again. "You want me to babysit?"

He bursts out laughing. "I'd suggest you put something on your resume like governess, or tutor."

"Or nanny," I say, bitter.

"I could always ship you back where you came from. Why is Roland so adamant you spend the summer away? He never told me."

I shuffle uncomfortably in my seat, strangely reluctant to tell him. "My grades were below expectations."

“How far below?”

“I got a B+ in American Politics 110. 3.8 average. The plus doesn’t count for the numbers.”

Aiden observes me for a moment, rocking in his chair. "I'm going to have Maria bring you another pair of shoes and get you oriented in your new position."

He has a funny way of looking at me every time the word position escapes his lips. He's already on his feet, striding around the desk as I stand. His presence is much larger than his body. As he stands beside me I feel swallowed up, and I keep telling myself he's not undressing me with his eyes, and even if he were, it means nothing.

The moment lasts a little too long. I stand, a challenge forming on my lips, only for the words to fade away when the door opens behind me. His assistant enters, carrying a pair of plain white sneakers in her hand. I take them and crouch to do up the laces.

When I rise I catch the way she looks at him almost longingly, but she might not as well not even be in the room. His eyes are drawn to me the way the moon is drawn to the earth. There's a distant look on his face until he realizes I'm looking at him, and he comes into focus again, suppressing whatever it was he was thinking. He steps past Maria, and her eyes track him, boring into the back of his head. She gazes at me, and she ices over, radiating cold.

"I follow a schedule, and I like things tight."

I watch his expression for any hint of a smirk or a wink, but his face remains neutral.

He’s not hitting on you, silly girl. Get over yourself.

"So when should I expect you?"

"Six o'clock," he says. "You should be settled in by then. You'll be joining me for dinner."

It doesn't sound like a request. Something about that leaves me bristling even as it strokes the back of my neck. He thinks he can order me around that way? Or am I protesting too much?

I'm just standing here, I realize, and scurry into the weapons collection outside. A grimacing samurai's demon mask stares me down. Maria catches up a moment later, after a whispered conversation with her boss.

"I'll be taking you to Aiden's city apartment," she tells me.

Glowering, she turns and stomps off, expecting me to follow.