CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

I CLUTCHED THE strap of my shoulder bag as I waited for the elevator to reach its floor. I was far more nervous than I should be, given that I was prepared—if not overly prepared—for this.

The adrenaline in my veins was more energizing than any hit of caffeine, more electrifying than any shot of whiskey. It flooded me now, making it impossible for me to stand still. Thankfully the elevator was empty, so I had no audience as I bounced on the balls of my feet as I waited. And waited.

I would never dare show even a hint of nerves, excitement or any other emotion in a public space, where the media might take it and spin it out of control.

Florence Clare is a Head Case! We Knew it All Along!

Clare Heir Succumbs to Feelings!

Are Women Too Emotional To Be CEOs?

I would rather die.

Okay, not die . But I’d hate it.

The floor number illuminated on the panel. A sound chimed. I checked my reflection.

Not a hair out of place. I could never risk being anything like a human woman. I had to be CEO Barbie. Just pretty enough, just soft enough, just tough enough. It wasn’t fair, but nothing in life was. I was privileged and I knew it. So I wasn’t going to waste time whining about the inequality I experienced when there were other women in much more dire straits than I. All I could do was try to change it by succeeding.

This was for a NASA contract. The press would be there.

And they were expecting a show.

I was ready to give them one.

I stepped out of the elevator and swept down the hall. I knew I looked flawless in my black suit, perfectly tailored, perfectly pressed. Not a wrinkle to be seen.

I’d better. I spent the whole drive from the hotel lying down flat in the back seat to keep everything from creasing. I’d practically rolled out of the car in the private garage my driver had pulled into.

For the last five years every move I’d made had been so high profile I couldn’t even risk a sneeze at the wrong moment. Even that could be spun into a story about me. A badly timed photo could result in a headline about me crying or yelling at someone.

A photo taken at midsneeze painted a thousand lying words.

I knew this for certain.

Ever since my father had died and I’d taken over Edison Inc, I’d been under a microscope. But I’d trained for it my whole life.

And the truth was, I loved it.

All right, not every part of it. But enough of it.

I liked to imagine this was what it must be like to be a bullfighter. To be a boxer. An MMA fighter, even. To get high on adrenaline, anticipating the battle. To be enthralled by the roar of the crowd.

To crave the fight. The impact of your fist hitting your opponent.

Oh, yes, I craved that most of all.

I moved closer to the doors of the conference room.

My heart surged. I smiled. Flawless, like I had to be.

Invulnerable.

That was the image I had to portray. As a woman, possessing beauty was useful. But beauty was a mask that could be put on in the morning and taken off with makeup remover. Beauty was in the way clothing was tailored.

The real trick, the real necessity, was to never, ever show them a weakness.

As a woman who ran one of the single largest conglomerates in the world, I had to be feminine, beautiful, and give the idea that I might be soft. I also had to essentially be a man in lipstick. I could never have real, female attributes. I couldn’t have a pimple lest someone guess I was nearing my period, nor could I ever have an emotional outburst for the same reason. I had to be a woman in name and appearance only or my competence would be called into question.

I never allowed that to happen.

Two men flanking the doors moved to open them as I drew near, and time stood still.

This was the pause before the battle began to rage.

I would meet my enemy in that room for the first of a series of presentations where we tried to get the lucrative NASA contracts based on the rocket technology our individual companies had cultivated.

The media seemed to think I might be upset to have to go up against him again.

In truth, I relished it.

I never wanted to fight below my weight class.

I might hate him with very nearly the whole of my being. But he was also the only man who was strong enough to make it war.

In business, war was the only way it was fun.

My foot crossed the threshold of the room and time returned to normal. Cameras were raised, my photo was taken. I turned my head, and there he was.

Hades Achelleos.

The devil himself.

He was dressed all in black, just as I was, his dark hair swept back from his forehead. He had a fallen angel face, so beautiful he was almost unnerving to look at—or so many in the media had written in prose bordering on purple, I thought.

It was true, his cheekbones were sharp, his jaw square. He was tall and muscular. All of the things considered conventionally attractive in a man.

I had first met him when he was seventeen and I was fourteen. A massive charity event we’d been dragged to by our fathers. Our fathers, Theseus Achelleos and Martin Clare, had hated each other. As much as they had loved to fight one another.

The rivalry between their companies was the stuff of corporate legend.

Both starting out with hotel chains, expanding to travel—cruise ships, airlines, energy. What one did, the other would follow and try to improve on. Until they’d arrived where they were now. Unquestionably at the top of the industry with their children at the helm. Carrying on both their legacies and the vicious, cutthroat rivalry they had so cherished.

I’d been prejudiced against him before the first meeting. He had, all the years since, made certain that I hated him not simply because of his legacy, but because of everything about him.

Arrogant.

Insufferable.

The actual god of hell.

“Hello, Miss Clare.” He stepped forward and reached out his hand.

I shook it. As I’d done a thousand times before. “Mr. Achelleos.”

The room was filled with scientists, engineers, media and investors. It was set up for a panel-style talk, which would make it something like a debate.

Excitement ignited in my blood. Hades and I both made our way to the front of the room and took our seats. I looked at him. My stomach churned. Even his profile was arrogant.

He looked at me out of the corner of his eye, and the glint there, the certainty, it made me want to fight him even harder.

We were introduced to the crowd by a moderator—the introduction a formality. Everyone knew who we were.

And then it was time.

“Edison Inc is in the perfect position to pioneer the next wave of space exploration. Our commercial space travel has been successful, with our next prototype indicating that it will be possible to increase the accessibility of space flights.”

“All well and good,” Hades said, cutting me off. “But does space need to be accessible to the masses, or does it need to remain the bastion of scientists? It isn’t as though British tourists can go lay on the sands of Mars.”

He infuriated me.

“That is not the intent of space travel, and I think you know that. Surely, Mr. Achelleos, you are not so out of touch that you believe education is the province of the überwealthy?”

“I don’t believe that’s what I said, Miss Clare, rather I am simply suggesting that, like the Great Barrier Reef and the Arctic, there is merit in keeping masses of humans from crawling all over something unspoiled like ants at a picnic.”

I hated him for that. As much as his acidic words ignited a fire in me. A fire I loved. A fire I needed.

I sometimes wondered if it would be possible to function as well as I did if it weren’t for the sheer hatred of him. The electric excitement of having a nemesis.

“Are you bringing something to the table, Mr. Achelleos, or are you simply here to insult what I’ve brought?”

He shifted, directing his focus to the audience. “I am not putting resources into the commercialization of space. Rather what Mercury is focusing on is creating spacecraft with the very highest standard of scientific instruments on board.”

As if I hadn’t thought that NASA was going to need scientific instruments. Which I said, though not like an indignant teenager. Even if that was how I felt. How he made me feel. Like all my emotions were just beneath the surface of my skin. Reckless, unwieldy, like they never otherwise were.

We went back and forth, each shot like a blow in the ring. The slice of a knife.

“Arrogance. The assumption that access is equal to loss is the very height of privilege.”

“Idealism that science can’t afford.”

Left hook. Right hook.

“Idealism is part of space exploration, Hades.”

Uppercut.

“And practicality is what prevents catastrophe, Florence.”

Finally our hour had concluded. The room exploded with applause and flashes, and my vision blurred for a moment as my heart beat a wild cadence that left me feeling dizzy.

Everything slowed. I looked at him. He looked back.

Those black eyes were always fathomless.

I could hear my own heartbeat. For a moment I thought I could hear his.

Then everything sped up again.

“Miss Clare!” came the shout of a reporter. “If you don’t win the contract with NASA, will that halt the space arm of Edison?”

I turned my full focus to the reporter. “Absolutely not. We’re committed to staying on the cutting edge of what’s happening in the world of travel. The groundbreaking science we’ve employed in our rocket program has led to things like longer commercial airline flights, faster airplanes. It is research that has resonance in other parts of the industry.”

“Mr. Achelleos! If you get the contract what will that mean for the Super Ship set to be unveiled in four years’ time?”

Hades slashed his hand to the side as if he was cutting through vines in the jungle. “The funding for the Super Ship is entirely separate. We are equipped and have the resources to make multiple breakthroughs at once.”

“I see that the ocean is not as sacred to you as space, Mr. Achelleos?” I asked.

“I don’t see a press badge, Miss Clare.” His eyes dipped to my breasts, as if he were searching for credentials. I ignored the way his dark gaze made my skin burn and my breasts feel heavy.

“I would like to ask you a question,” I said, turning from Hades and to the reporter who had just spoken to us both. “Why is it you asked me what I’d do if I lost, and what he would do if he won? Does his gender make this a foregone conclusion for you?”

The reporter sputtered. “No, not at all, only...”

“Perhaps it was the quality of my performance,” Hades said.

“Or perhaps what you have in your trousers,” I said, icy.

He stared at me for a breath. Then another.

You know what I meant. I thought that, as if he could hear me.

I wasn’t thinking about his... I was only saying it was a sexist line of questioning and Hades should well know it.

Questions came fast and frequent after that and we could barely get a breath. By the time it was done I was stratospheric. It was unlike anything else. Riding into battle to face Hades.

Iron sharpened iron. And we were both as inflexible as the hardest steel.

We rose from the table and shook hands again. I walked ahead of him down the aisle and got into the elevator. The doors closed behind me.

The silence was like a blanket, settling over me. Smothering me.

My ears buzzed. It was so jarring to be in the quiet, the stillness, after such a frenetic hour.

We wouldn’t know about the contract until we had another few presentations. The next one wouldn’t be public. I already had everything prepared.

The elevator reached the bottom floor and the doors opened. I walked out of the building and straight to the black car that was waiting for me.

I opened up my phone and checked the details. “The Tomlin.”

Penthouse One.

The virtual key was already on my phone so I would be able to go straight up without stopping at the front desk. Good.

Traffic was hellish, but that was DC.

I opened up my compact and refreshed my red lipstick. I eyed my overnight bag, considering changing en route, rather than getting out of the car in what would now be a rumpled suit. But now with the meeting behind me, some of my edges had been dulled. I didn’t want to wrestle with getting the suit off, especially not with the elaborate undergarments I had underneath. No thanks.

While the car crawled through traffic, I replayed the whole thing in my mind.

The way he’d looked when I’d gotten a shot in. The relish when he’d lobbed one back.

I felt my adrenaline start to peak again as the car pulled up to the historic building in Georgetown. Red brick with stark white windows.

I took my purse and my overnight bag and got out of the car, assuring the bellhops that I did not need assistance as I went inside then into another elevator. It only took a moment to get to the top level of the building—there were only twelve of them—and I stepped out and onto the glossy marble floor, making my way to the room all the way at the end of the hall and unlocking it via my phone.

It was gorgeous. The chaise lounge by the window was plush and perfect. I moved into the bedroom and saw a giant four-poster bed. I walked inside and dragged my fingertips along the velvet. Then I touched the glossy wood on the bed frame.

I heard a sound in the next room and paused.

I turned and walked back into the living room, just as the door was closing.

And there he was. Dressed all in black.

My heart leaped into my throat.

“Hades.”

It was time for the real battle to begin.