Chapter 3 - THE MIDNIGHT AUDIT
The clock on the boardroom wall ticked past 11:45 PM. The rest of the executive team had long since fled the building, their tails tucked firmly between their legs after Nora’s brutal, lightning-fast financial audit of the previous fiscal quarter.
Underneath Celeste’s polished, high-spending surface, the boutique was rotting from the inside out.
“Look at this,” Nora murmured, leaning over a glowing laptop screen while rubbing her temples. The fatigue was beginning to catch up to her, but adrenaline kept her veins humming. “She wasn’t just rude to customers who didn’t look the part. She was systematically writing off damaged luxury goods as ‘inventory loss’ while secretly reselling them through secondary consignment networks in River North.”
Julian stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at the glittering lights of Chicago below, holding two cups of black coffee. He walked over, setting one cup gently beside Nora’s keyboard without a word.
“You’re adapting faster than anyone I’ve ever seen,” Julian noted, his voice softer now, stripped of the corporate armor he wore during the day. “Most people would have taken the severance package I offered in the alley and run straight for a safe, quiet bookkeeping job.”
Nora took a sip of the bitter, dark coffee and looked up at him. “Safe and quiet doesn’t pay my mother’s medical bills, Julian. And it certainly doesn’t protect kids like Lily from being treated like garbage by people who think money buys them a soul.”
“Speaking of Lily,” Julian said, pulling a folded cream-colored envelope from his inner pocket and placing it on the table. “Her father called my private office twenty minutes ago.”
Nora froze, the coffee cup halfway to her mouth. “Arthur Alistair? The real estate mogul?”
“The very same,” Julian replied, a wry smile playing on his lips. “It turns out Mrs. Alistair spent the last hour smashing crystal vases in their penthouse because her favorite boutique banned her from the premises. Arthur, however, has been trying to get his wife to understand that their daughter’s neurodevelopmental needs require patience, not designer armor. He saw the security footage of how you handled Lily during the sensory overload.”
“And?” Nora asked, her heart skipping a beat.
“And he wants to meet you tomorrow morning. Privately. Before the store opens.” Julian leaned down, resting his hands on the armrests of Nora’s chair, bringing his face dangerously close to hers. “He’s offering to drop four million dollars in corporate commercial leases exclusively through Bellamy & Vale... on one condition.”
Nora narrowed her eyes, holding his intense gaze. “What condition?”
“That you are personally the one to manage his family’s private styling account from now on.” Julian’s eyes flickered with a dangerous, unspoken challenge. “And... that you publicly humiliate his wife on social media for her behavior.”
Nora stared at him, the weight of a multi-million-dollar empire resting entirely on her next move. Before she could answer, the secure landline phone on the corner of the desk began to ring shrilly through the quiet room.
May you like
Nora reached over and picked up the receiver. “Bellamy & Vale executive office.”
“Ms. Quinn?” a panicked voice whispered through the line—it was the night security guard stationed at the ground-floor entrance. “You need to get down to the lobby right now. Someone just threw a brick through our front display window, and there’s a note wrapped around it written in red lipstick.”
