And right behind him is Edmund Gable. Tall, slim, wearing a gray pin-striped Kiton suit and an effervescent smile, he manages to look ten to fifteen years younger than his age despite his shock of white hair. The lines across his forehead are faint from lack of worry. He gives his son a jovial pat on the back as he walks past him.

With what I hope is a subtle movement I reach for the back of my chair. I need the support to help stabilize me as my stomach drops and acidic bile burns my throat.

Edmund smiles brightly at me. You’d think he was the nicest man in the world.

“Ah, you must be Jessica and Travis’s new personal assistant!” He offers me his hand. “You’ll have to forgive me, but Travis didn’t give me your name.”

I place my hand against his. It’s unlikely he’ll remember me. He hasn’t seen me in more than ten years. I was a child. Actually I had been less than that. I had been nothing more than a pawn, almost impossible to distinguish from any of the other dispensable pieces on his chessboard. On the face of it, the circumstances that led to our meeting back then couldn’t have been more benign . . .

He had called my mother personally, asking if he could hire her to clean his two-story penthouse. He said Nick Foley had referred him. That Nick had given him her number.

But it was a lie.

“Bell Dantès.” I say the words carefully. I can’t afford for any of my venom to carelessly spill out now.

“What a lovely name . . . appropriate for such a lovely woman.” His grip is firm . . . a little too firm. My fingers tingle as he releases me. “I’m Edmund Gable, Travis’s father.”

I see Travis shift uncomfortably as he stands toward the back of the room as if waiting for his father to give him permission to make himself comfortable in his own office.

“So tell me, Bell,” Edmund says, “are my son and daughter-in-law treating you well?”

“They’ve been wonderful, sir.”

My mother had brought me to Edmund’s house. She had nowhere else to leave me, but Edmund had been very understanding. He had video games left over from when Lander and Travis used to play. He let me occupy myself with that while he asked my mother to chat with him in the kitchen about the job.

“My father has taught me the importance of being a generous and respectful employer,” Travis says as he holds his place by the door. He’s wearing a smile, but it’s strained, and his posture has grown rigid, as if he’s a soldier awaiting inspection.