Hartwell Capital's trading floor hummed like a neurosurgeon's operating theater. Clara massaged her sternum, hunger pangs knife-twisting beneath her Calvin Klein sheath dress. Stupid, she cursed herself. Stupid to refuse breakfast while watching Sebastian dissect a kiwifruit with surgical precision. Stupid to return his blood money.
Stupidest of all: Hoping the man who'd marked her throat like territory might see her as human.
"You're grey," Sophie Reed murmured from the adjacent terminal. The junior analyst slid a foil-wrapped bar across their conjoined desks. "Organic oat. Almond butter core."
Clara's fingers brushed the offering—
Tap-tap-tap.
A vermilion fingernail rapped Clara's Bloomberg terminal. "Hartwell's paying you to graze?"
Clara looked up into oversized Tom Ford shades. Beneath them, Vivienne Chuang's famous pout—fresh from Vogue's "Most Kissable Lips" spread—curved in mock disapproval.
"None of your damn business, Viv."
The shades lowered. Sophie gasped. "Vivienne Chuang? From 'Eternal Garden'?"
The actress ignored her, stabbing a finger at Clara's uneaten bar. "Since when do you skip meals? And why the fuck do you look like you wrestled a poltergeist?"
Sophie blurted, "She got slapped yesterday! By Bianca Sterling!"
Vivienne's Prada clutch hit the desk with a gunshot crack. "Sterling put hands on you?"
"Keep your voice down!" Clara hissed, dragging her toward elevators. "Sebastian's on floor 80."
Vivienne yanked free. "I don't work for your ice-king! Now spill: When? Where? Why?"
Corner booth at Le Jardin Secret. Vivienne scanned the room through polarized lenses. "Relax. My decoy just checked into The Peninsula." She shoved menu at Clara. "Order the truffle risotto. Carbs heal trauma."
Over San Pellegrino, Clara summarized Bianca's tantrum. Vivienne listened while dismantling a bread basket. "Sterling's desperate," she mumbled through brioche. "Her father's shipping empire just got Hartwell-ed into scrap metal."
"You knew?"
"TMZ knew. Sebastian didn't tell you?" Vivienne snorted. "Typical. Keeps you obediently ignorant." Her phone flashed—a paparazzo shot of Bianca leaving rehab. Viv forwarded it to her agent with caption: Burn her.
Clara snatched the phone. "Don't! It's not worth your Emmy campaign."
"The hell it isn't!" Vivienne reclaimed her device. "That bitch clawed your face at Wellington's winter formal because you slow-danced with Ethan. Now she's graduated to corporate assaults?" She leaned close. "Let me play, Clara. I've got six million Twitter followers hungry for scalps."
Clara sighed. Vivienne's loyalty—forged over stolen cafeteria chocolate—remained her only uncorrupted relic from Wellington. The day the Chuang heiress plopped beside the "scholarship orphan" had rewritten Clara's social death sentence.
"Just eat," Clara deflected. "You're wasting away."
Vivienne attacked her duck confit like a starved hawk. "Two months liquid diet for 'Gilded Cage'. Director called my hips 'problematic'." She swallowed. "Guess who came begging to Daddy last week? Ethan fucking Windsor."
Clara's fork froze mid-air.
"Yep." Vivienne dabbed béarnaise sauce. "Seems Windsor Capital needs a Chuang bailout. Daddy told them to peddle their ponzi scheme elsewhere." She mimed a headline: "Fallen Aristocrats Seek Sugar Daddy."
Clara's stomach clenched—not from hunger now. Ethan's desperation should taste sweet. Instead, bile rose. "They contacted me too. Ethan proposed... merger terms."
Vivienne choked on her Montrachet. "Tell me you brought pepper spray."
"I brought common sense." Clara pushed her plate away. Sweat prickled her nape despite the bistro's climate control. She twisted her hair into a messy bun—
Vivienne's champagne flute shattered on the marble floor.
Three distinct love bites bloomed beneath Clara's jawline—purple as storm clouds against winter-pale skin.
"Mother of—" Vivienne lunged across the table, fingers probing the marks. "Who? Tell me it wasn't some Tinder rando. Tell me it was literally anyone but—"
Clara shoved her back into the banquette. "Code Scarlet. Don't scream."
Vivienne mouthed soundlessly before hissing, "Hartwell?"
Clara's nod was microscopic.
The actress collapsed against velvet cushions. "How? When? Why?"
"The 'how' involves his penthouse. 'When' started two nights ago. 'Why'..." Clara traced her water glass's rim. "I made the mistake of surviving him."
Vivienne's gaze swept Clara's exhaustion-bruised eyes, the tremor in her ringless left hand. "He forced you?"
"Not the way you mean." Clara recounted the transactions: $400k transfers, returned funds, the ointment application that blurred medical care with possession.
"Christ." Vivenne signaled for Veuve Clicquot. "This requires alcohol. Heavy alcohol."
They drank in silence. Vivienne finally spoke: "You know what this makes you?"
Clara braced for "mistress" or "victim".
"His kryptonite." Vivienne refilled their flutes. "Sebastian Hartwell doesn't fuck employees. He terminates them. The fact you're vertical proves you're different."
Clara recalled Valentina Dubois' expulsion from The Imperial. "Different or disposable?"
"Listen." Vivienne gripped her wrist. "When I filmed 'Crimson Dynasty', the lead got addicted to painkillers after Hartwell Capital bankrupted his family. Sebastian personally oversaw liquidation—then visited set to watch the bastard beg for his Rolex back." She lowered her voice. "That man collects broken things just to hear them shatter. But you..." Her thumb brushed Clara's bite marks. "He's not breaking you. He's branding you."
Clara's phone buzzed—Hartwell Capital extension. Her spine snapped straight. "Sir?"
"My 2pm with Petrobras is relocated." Sebastian's voice could freeze magma. "Conference Room 3. Notes prepped?"
"On your desk since 9am, sir."
"Good." A pause. "Stop starving yourself. There's bánh mì in my minibar."
Click.
Vivienne arched a perfectly threaded brow. "Minibar cuisine? How domestic."
Clara stood on shaky legs. "I'm his employee, not his—"
"Oh, honey." Vivienne rose, adjusting her cashmere wrap. "You're the dragon's chew toy." She pressed a Hermès lipstick into Clara's palm. "Cover those war wounds. And eat the damn sandwich."
Outside, a black Maybach pulled curbside. Vivienne blew a kiss. "Dinner at my place tonight. We'll plot Sterling's demise over caviar."
As the limo vanished, Clara touched her throat. Vivienne was wrong. Chew toys got discarded.
Sebastian Hartwell buried his fangs in treasures.