I should have turned around the second the private elevator doors opened onto the penthouse floor.
Everything about the place screamed money I had no business touching—black marble floors so polished I could see the cheap scuff on my only decent heels, floor-to-ceiling windows framing the city like it was something the owner could buy and sell before breakfast, and the faint scent of cedar and something darker that made the back of my neck prickle. My résumé felt flimsy in my clammy hand. Three years as an administrative assistant, one brutal breakup that left me with half the rent and all the debt, and a bank account that had started sending me threatening little emails. I needed this job. Desperately.
The man who stepped out of the shadows at the end of the hall looked like he had neve
