BEATRICE'S POV
The apartment overlooks Central Park.
Three bedrooms. Floor-to-ceiling windows. A balcony with a covered swing tucked in the corner, surrounded by plants someone has been maintaining long before I arrived. The living room is warm beige — intentional lighting, no overhead fixtures, just soft wall lamps that make everything feel like late afternoon even at noon.
The bathroom is the opposite. Black walls, black tile, a massive white undermount bathtub sitting in the center like a contradiction. Dark and light. Control and release. Whoever designed this apartment understood contrast.
I stand in the middle of the living room and try to feel like I belong here.
"Do you like it?"
Angel's voice — cold, unimpressed, precise as always. She arrived ten minutes ago with the keys, dressed in her sharp black suit, hair pinned without a single strand loose. She holds herself the way a woman holds herself when she wants you to know she's above you without saying it directly.
"Yeah. It's beautiful."
She looks me over. Something flashes behind her eyes — jaw tightening — and I feel it instantly. That particular gaze of being judged and measured and found insufficient.
Standing in this apartment, I feel like a weed placed in someone else's garden.
My chest tightens. This is supposed to be success. But there's nobody to share it with. Nobody who understands what it took to get here — the years of studying until friendships dissolved, working until my body gave out, counting every cent like each one carried the weight of my future.
"Must feel good." Angel extends the keys toward me. "I mean, for someone like you — you didn't have to pay a single penny to be here."
My pulse kicks hard against my ribs.
Didn't have to pay.
I paid with my childhood. My teenage years. Half my twenties. I paid with hospital visits from exhaustion and friendships I let die because I couldn't afford to be distracted. I paid by running barefoot through kerosene to save two hundred lives.
And she's saying I didn't pay.
"Angel." My voice comes out colder than I intend. I take the keys from her hand. "Are you jealous?"
Her shoulders stiffen. "Jealous?" A low scoff. "Are you worthy of my jealousy, Ms. Kenz?"
Worthy. Of course. I stand at the bottom of the power hierarchy on the thirty-second floor. A girl who came from nothing and got lucky.
Except that luck is made of blood and sleepless nights and sweat that never dried.
I smile at her. "Why not? I didn't pay a single penny, and here I am — standing in this apartment because the Vice Chairman saw value in me."
Angel's jaw locks. She's at least three inches taller than me, but I hold my ground, giving away nothing. Nobody needs to see the chaos behind my expression.
She steps closer. Her jasmine perfume floods my senses — sharp, overwhelming. I keep my chin raised.
"You're forgetting something." She tilts my chin up with one finger, eyes hard with something caught between contempt and something I can't name. "You are a mere advisor. Replaceable and forgettable. Whatever you get from Aurélien is temporary. One mistake and he will discard you like you never existed."
Each word stings more than it should.
Replaceable.
Temporary.
Easy to discard.
Every single thing she just said — I've spent my entire life fighting against. In an immigrant family scraping by in a city built for people with trust funds and last names that open doors, I turned myself into steel to survive.
And yet standing here, I have never felt smaller.
"Angel." I smile.
Her brow creases — surprised by the response she wasn't expecting.
"Of course I'm replaceable. But do you think I'm just some lucky girl who caught the Vice Chairman's eye?"
Her gaze flickers.
"If I were that unimportant, you wouldn't be wasting your time trying to remind me of my place."
The composure on her face fractures. She drops her hand from my chin like it burned her.
I look around the apartment. Sunlight fills the living room, warm wind carrying the particular scent of New York through the open balcony door.
"Men like the Vice Chairman don't invest in things without value. He saw something in me worth investing in. That's not luck. That's recognition."
Angel inhales sharply. Composes herself with visible effort.
"Aurélien asked me to drive you to him."
The abrupt shift in topic tells me everything about who won this exchange.
"Chairman Laurent wants to have lunch with the Al-Barak team," she continues, each word delivered through clenched professionalism. "Since you played a role in closing the deal, Aurélien wants you there."
My eyes widen.
Lunch with Chairman Ludwig Dominik Laurent. The man who operates as shadow power behind economies the size of nations. A man who has rarely shown his face in public. Lunch with him means access into the inner circle of Laurent Corporation.
"Will you be there?"
"No."
"Others?"
"No. You're the only one present who doesn't belong to the C-suite."
My head spins. And suddenly Angel's hatred makes perfect sense. Her father is one of the Laurent family's closest military allies. She's ex-Special Forces. She's served Adrien faithfully for three years. And she isn't invited to this lunch.
But I am.
This isn't good.
***
Forty minutes of Manhattan traffic pass in silence. My stomach churns with anxiety so sharp I nearly ask Angel to pull over. But I don't. I sit still and swallow it the way I've swallowed everything else.
The car stops in front of the second-oldest steakhouse in New York. Angel speaks to the host in fluent French. He nods and leads me inside.
Dark wood everywhere — walls, beams, bar — all aged to a deep brown that only comes from decades, not design. The lighting is low and amber, casting everything in soft shadow. Above me, the ceiling is covered with tens of thousands of old clay pipes, hanging like relics of another century.
The host leads me upstairs through a maze of private dining rooms. Some faces I pass are ones I've only ever seen on screens. He opens a door, smiles, and steps aside.
I walk in.
Deep mahogany paneling. White tablecloths glowing under warm light. Seven men and two women seated around the table like they were born in rooms exactly like this one.
My eyes find Adrien first. Navy blue suit, wine in hand, the clean sharp lines of his face looking more like sculpture than man. He sees me. Something flickers behind those mismatched eyes — brief, unreadable — before it disappears.
Mr. Hamza pauses mid-sentence and smiles. "Ah, isn't this Beatrice?"
His warmth draws every other gaze to me. One of the women — dressed in Hermès, doll-like face, amber eyes catching the low light — turns toward me.
Olivia Ashcombe.
The woman who sent Sarah after me. She smiles. It doesn't reach her eyes.
"So this is Aurélien's new advisor. You didn't mention she'd be joining us, Aurélien."
Adrien sips his wine. Unhurried. "It's a lunch celebrating the successful partnership between Laurent Energy and Al-Barak. It's only logical she's here."
I give the table a small smile. The kind that takes everything I have to hold in place. I look at Adrien — almost pleading. Just tell me where to sit.
He doesn't.
But the man at the head of the table does.
Ludwig Dominik Laurent looks up from his glass. White suit. Salt-and-pepper hair styled back. Trimmed beard sharpening a jaw that could cut through corporate law. Icy blue eyes moving over me from head to toe with the unhurried assessment of a man who has never been afraid of anything in his life.
"Beatrice Kenz, is it?"
Smooth. Deep. Carrying authority so natural it doesn't need volume.
"It's an honor to meet you, Chairman Laurent."
The corner of his mouth lifts. He glances at Adrien — who doesn't spare me another look. As if my standing here means nothing to him.
Just like the boardroom.
"Take a seat." Ludwig gestures to the empty chair beside Adrien. "We're having this lunch because of your work, after all."
I tighten my grip on my bag strap. Walk to the chair. Sit down.
Adrien looks at me. Finally. No trace of the man who stood drenched at my door last night. Just the shadow of an heir. Cold. Measured. Professional.
"Another bait?" I ask, low enough that only he can hear.
His jaw tightens. He leans closer — close enough that I catch cedar and oud beneath the wine.
"Don't."
I nearly scoff. Don't what? Don't look at him like I don't trust him? Don't notice that he didn't introduce me to this room? Don't remember what happened last time he sat me down in front of powerful people without warning?
I press my lips together. Smile. Cold and clean.
"Sure, Aurélien."
This lunch is officially the beginning of me getting dragged deeper into a mess I never asked to be part of.
And I have a sinking feeling that by the time dessert arrives, I'll understand exactly why Angel looked at me the way she did this morning.
Not with hatred.
With pity.