QUINN FINANCIAL WAS a certified shithole. That was the first thing I noticed on my first day on the job as the company’s new CEO. I expected nothing less. If it wasn’t a shithole, then why was I being punished by being sent here? Of course, I wasn’t being punished. Not exactly. Guided? Encouraged? Strong - armed? This was the half of my inheritance conditions I’d framed in my own mind as the easy half. I had the experience and skill to be a turnaround CEO from my years of consulting, but that’s all I intended this to be. I’d turn this company around, set it right, and then be on my way. Life as a consultant had made me happy. I didn’t want to be tied down to this one flailing company. I wanted to be out in the world, making change, moving around. Happy thirtieth birthday, Rex. Here’s a company you’ve never been in volved with that’s a little rough around the edges and has had eight straight quarters of solid losses. Fix it.
It wasn’t getting married, at least. Turning around a flailing company was in my wheelhouse, so I would put my focus on that, for the time being. Quinn Financial had been in my family for many years, from my earliest memories. It was my father’s first company, but one he’d lost focus on and farmed out to others to manage long ago. A never - ending chain of CEOs had made their way through the company since then, but no one had taken real leadership of Quinn for a long time. Other than my sister, Rebekah, who worked there as the COO, none of the family seemed to care much about the company. It had been humming along on its own, functioning but not thriving, for most of its existence. I followed signs to the elevator and checked the time. Just before nine a. m., right when I’d told Rebekah I’d be there. The doors opened to reveal a woman leaned against the bar in the back of the elevator. She was petite, with long, dark hair and green eyes framed by impossibly dark lashes. She smiled softly at me. I noticed the shape of her lips. They were nice lips, perf ect lips. I nodded curtly at her because I didn’t care if she was beautiful or not. I was here to acc ept my fate and do what I was told before my mother could give me one more hopeful glance, begging me with her eyes not to argue with my father. That was it. No beau tiful women in volved. I jabbed at the tenth floor button and noticed none of the other buttons were lit up. Did she work on the executive floor? I hoped not. “Are you new here?” the woman asked me. I stood near the button panel, crossed my arms, and peeked over my shoulder at her. “You could say that.” “Oh, well, I’m Evie Day. I’ve — ” She stopped talking as the elevator shuddered, and my hand flew to the bar to hold on to something. “Don’t worry. It does that all the time.” “That’s far from comforting,” I said. “It won’t take you long to learn that this company hasn’t put a priority on fixing anything in this building in years. We all rattle up the elevator shaft every morning, and rattle right back down at the end of the day.” I grunted at her chipper tone of voice, unsure what to say to that tidbit. At least she had confirmed what I already knew. Quinn Financial was a shithole. The elevator shuddered again, twice in quick succession. It shuddered harder the second time, so hard that I staggered back a few st eps and then Evie tumbled into me.
Then the elevator completely stopped. We were standing too close to each other; her hand gripped my arm for support. I couldn’t look away from her graceful fingers on my forearm. They were just fingers, for God’s sake, but I was staring at them like I’d never seen fingers before. She looked up at me, and I noticed her beauty again, so close to my face — the green of her eyes, the playful curve to her delicate lips. “Well, that’s not normal, but I’ll bet it won’t happen again,” Evie said, a note of concern in her voice, but her tone still upbeat. I wondered what would have to happen to make this woman sound concerned. I imagined the elevator could plummet straight to the ground, and she might still offer some perky insight into the situation. I shook myself loose and backed away from her. She went on, a light smile on her face like she was telling an anecdote about a fun lunch date rather than a shitty elevator. “Although, it happened to me once before a few years ago, when this same elevator stopped and trapped me in here for two hours bef ore anyone could get it working again.” She looked completely unruffled by this elevator that had crawled to a stop and trapped us together. I whipped out my phone and swiped it awake, but did not have a signal. I shoved it back in my pocket. “No signal?” she asked. “None. You?” “It’s not like I’d know who to call if I did. Push the call button. The building maintenance guy will hear it and he can call someone.” She’d said this had happened to her once before, but I found no comfort in the idea that the elevator I would take every day was so faulty that an employee knew the ropes of what happened when it stalled. My first order of business would be to hire a competent elevator r epair company. I pushed the call button. A man’s voice came over a tiny speaker in the panel to take our information and promise that a tech would be right over. “No one will be right over. Right over means an hour, maybe two,” she said, taking a seat on the floor.
I was sure my face showed every ounce of horror I felt at her action. Who sat down on an elevator floor? “I can’t stay in here for an hour, maybe two,” I said. I spun toward the button panel and pressed the Door Open button. I heard her laugh behind me, a delicate laugh that was far too lovely for the situation. “Do you think the doors will just pop open and let you out?” “I have to try.” “And then what? This thing could be between floors. You can’t crawl out. What if it starts working right then? It would cut you in half. It’s better to be patient and wait this out.” “I can’t wait,” I said, biting out the words harder than I intended. “I have an important day ahead of me.” “What do you do here?” she asked, her tone so sincere that I was a little taken aback. I found I didn’t want to tell her I was the new CEO. She seemed the type to gush about meeting the CEO or drill me with questions, and I was in no mood. “It’s complicated,” I said instead, and I poked at the Door Open button again regardless of whether or not it was a sound plan. “What kind of job here is complicated?” she asked, sounding far too intrigued. “How about we focus on getting out of this elevator?” “There isn’t much to focus on. We have to wait while someone else fixes it.” I stared at her, wishing I could be stuck in an elevator with someone less chatty. “Okay, fine. You don’t have to tell me what you do,” she said. “I’m actually starting a new job today. I was really excited about it until this happened, but this seems to be how things go. You get a really awesome opportunity, then you get stuck in an elevator. I’m hoping my new boss will understand when I’m late. It’s not like I sl ept in, but managers at this company don’t exactly have a r eputation for understanding anything. Oh, maybe I shouldn’t say that. You’re new, and I don’t know what you do here.” She narrowed her eyes at me, and they were striking — so vividly green. Everything about her was striking. But I had stopped noticing her looks because of the stream of words coming out of her mouth, as well as their unending cheeriness. We were stuck in a goddamn elevator. She was talking about how this was not an unusual occurrence, how she hoped her boss would understand if she was late, how the managers at
the company had issues — but every word she said had that same oddly cheery tone. Like she took everything in stride. I didn’t need that kind of thing in my life right now. I never needed that kind of thing in my life. Taking things in stride was not something I believed in. I believed in finding problems and fixing them. I needed the elevator to work, so I could get upst airs and dive headfirst into my latest and biggest problem, so I could fix this damn company and get out of here. At least she was giving me some tips on why Quinn’s profits had been on a steady decline. Managers and infrastructure both sounded like they needed improving. Noted. Maybe Pollyanna would spill some more helpful details before we got rescued. “You look familiar,” she said. “Do I know you?” “I don’t think you do,” I said. And yet she probably had seen my picture before. I wasn’t about to tell her that now, though. The last thing I wanted was for her to recognize me. “You’re not very talkative, are you?” she asked. “Not when I’m stuck in an elevator and late for an appointment,” I growled. “I figured it would help the time go faster if we chatted.” “It won’t.” She stopped talking then, but only a few minutes later, she started humming. I didn’t recognize the tune, but didn’t doubt it would be stuck in my head all day. Was she kidding me? Humming? Who hums happy tunes in a broken elevator? Fortunately, not long into Hummapalooza, the elevator doors opened. A man from the maintenance team and what must have been an elevator tech greeted us. “You two are in luck. There’s a new elevator servicer a block away,” the maintenance man said. “Are you guys all right?” “We’re great,” I said, and shoved my way past the two men. I needed to get away from that woman and her chatter, so I asked where the stairs were and jetted before she could follow along behind me with more questions. I heard her call out bye to me, but I didn’t turn back to say goodbye to her. We weren’t friends. We had gotten stuck in an elevator together. End of transaction. MY SISTER REBEKAH was a year younger than me. She had graduated right behind me at Stanford, also with an MBA. Right out of college, she developed an odd fascination with Quinn Financial. She had worked in several d epartments to learn everything she could about the company, including a couple of years as the head of marketing. Now, she was the COO.
So why shouldn’t she be the one to get the CEO position? Who knew? Our father didn’t seem to want her in the role, and had put down a few of her ideas on how to turn this company around. She was a little bitter, and so was I, but Reginald Claremont was a c ontrolling father with strong opinions about what each of his children should do. When I got to the tenth floor, a middle - aged blond man in a suit that wished it was a designer suit stood up to greet me. Lochlan. I’d met him before when I’d stopped by for lunches with Rebekah, but I always wished I hadn’t. Even though the man appropriat ely greeted visitors with a smile, as he should as the rec eptionist, there was something unpleasant about him. I had never trusted that he was actually happy to see anyone, but now that I was walking in as the CEO, he made sure that his nose was firmly up my ass. Which made me like him even less. “Good morning, sir,” he said, hurrying toward me. “Allow me to show you to your office.” “I know where it is, Lochlan,” I said. “Of course. Can I get you anything? Coffee? Breakfast?” “No, thanks.” I breezed past him toward my new office at the very back of the tenth floor. I was here to work. Not socialize. Especially not with Lochlan. When I walked into my office, Rebekah was tidying up and arranging my desk for me. “Wishing this office were yours, huh?” I asked, walking in. She glanced at me. “You know I am. It should be mine. How exactly are you supposed to just waltz in and magically make this place shine when this is literally your first day here?” “Because I’m a man and obviously that makes me a better choice as the CEO.” She feigned gagging. “You know I’m kidding, right?” “Of course I know,” she said, and pulled the massive desk chair back for me. “But my point still stands that you have no idea what’s going on here. I can’t believe this was your inheritance condition. I can’t believe we have conditions at all.” “If you had a fortune to leave to your children, would you give it to them with no thought for what they’d do with it, or their responsibility levels?” I was thinking of our youngest siblings with that last comment, but they had a few years left before the y hit thirty, so perhaps they would get their lives together by then.
“Personally, yes, I would. I’d be dead when it went to them, so I wouldn’t see what they did with it. I certainly wouldn’t want to control their lives.” Rebekah was my closest sibling by far. We understood each other and always had. She was the only sibling I had mentioned my second inheritance condition to... and she had laughed at me for a good five minutes when I had. Frankly, I found it embarrassing that our parents thought they could make me get married on a schedule. Doubly embarrassing that they thought their oldest son couldn’t find someone on his own to date or marry. No, I did not date often. No, I had not been w ith anyone for more than a few dates. I didn’t like women trying to date me for my fortune or my family connections. “It’s entirely possible I’ll never see a dollar of my inheritance,” I muttered. “Nonsense. I can’t imagine they will actually go through with this.” “Have you met them?” Our father had founded Quinn Financial as a young man right out of college. He had built it from the ground up, and then later moved on to developing hotels and luxury properties. He was in all ways a self - made man. I was sure that on some level he resente d his children, who would all be the opposite of self - made. Even those of us who had our own careers paled in comparison to what he had accomplished at our ages. “You’re going to help me, right?” I asked. “Yes, I’ll help you because I care about this place, which is more than I can say for anyone else in our family. And when we get it to a place where we’re the premier financial firm on the West Coast, you can st ep aside and let me take over the position that really should be mine.” “You’ve got a deal. I just need you to tell me where to start.” “Where we start is that you’ll need an assistant,” she said. “Fortunately, I’ve already hired one for you.” “I can hire my own assistant, Rebekah.” “Too late. I found the perfect one. She’s an internal hire whom I’ve worked with before. She knows the company well, she’s sharp, and she’s extremely sweet.” “I do not need a sweet assistant,” I said, wondering where I had gone wrong in life. My parents were deciding my near future, and now my sister was picking out assistants for me.
She ignored me and jabbed at the phone on my desk. “Lochlan? Has Mr. Claremont’s new assistant arrived?” “Yes, ma’am,” Lochlan’s voice came over the speaker. “Shall I bring her back?” “Please do,” she said, and then hung up. Moments later, Lochlan opened my office door and in walked my new assistant. Evie. From the elevator. Ms. Pollyanna Mc Chatty herself. Fuck me.