Chapter 7 The Stepsister’s Game
I didn’t move.
Vivienne stood at Ms. Hana’s desk with that practiced smile on her face… the one she’d spent years perfecting in mirrors and deploying on people who didn’t know what it actually meant. Ms. Hana picked up her phone, spoke briefly and set it down.
“Mr. Morrow will see you shortly,” she said.
Vivienne nodded like that was simply the natural order of things and turned to find a seat near the waiting area.
Her eyes passed over me again.
This time they stayed for two seconds.
“Seraphine.” She said my name the way she always did — lightly, pleasantly, like we were acquaintances at a party rather than two people who had been circling each other our entire lives.
“Vivienne.” I matched her tone exactly. “What are you doing here?”
“Business.” She settled into the chair with the unhurried ease of a woman who had decided this space already belonged to her. “I have a meeting with Mr. Morrow. Gerald arranged an introduction.”
Of course he did.
Gerald had placed me in this building as Zael’s PA.
Now he was sending Vivienne through the front door as a potential business contact. Two pieces on the same board moving from different directions toward the same point.
I kept my face neutral. “I wasn’t aware of a meeting on his schedule.”
“It was arranged directly.” A small smile. “I’m sure you’ll update the calendar afterward.”
She said it pleasantly enough. But underneath the
pleasantness was the familiar architecture of everything Vivienne did… the small precise reminder of where she believed each of us stood.
I turned back to my screen without responding.
Zael appeared seven minutes later.
He came through the frosted glass doors with his usual economy of movement — no performance, no announcement, simply present in the way that immediately reorganized whatever room he walked into. His eyes moved to Vivienne first then briefly to me and back.
“Ms. Holt.” His voice was even. Professional. Giving nothing.
Vivienne stood and extended her hand with a warmth that was clearly calculated to feel spontaneous. “Mr. Morrow. Thank you for making time.”
He shook her hand once and gestured toward his office. “Five minutes.”
Not an invitation. A boundary delivered as courtesy.
Vivienne followed him inside.
The frosted glass doors closed.
I stared at my screen.
Five minutes. He’d given her five minutes. Which told me exactly how much interest he had in whatever Gerald had sent her here to sell.
Zael Morrow didn’t extend professional courtesy out of politeness — he extended it out of efficiency. Five minutes meant he’d already decided the outcome and was simply managing the process.
But five minutes was still five minutes alone with my husband.
And Vivienne knew how to use five minutes better than most people used hours.
She came out at exactly the four minute mark.
Walked past my desk without stopping. Paused at the elevator and looked back over her shoulder at me with an expression I couldn’t fully read — satisfaction with something careful underneath it.
“Nice building,” she said. “Gerald always did have good taste in placement.”
The elevator doors opened. She stepped in.
They closed.
I sat with those words for a moment.
Gerald always did have good taste in placement.
She knew. Not about the marriage… I was certain of that. But she knew Gerald had placed me here deliberately and she knew exactly what that meant.
Which meant whatever she and Gerald were planning together Vivienne understood her role in it clearly.
She hadn’t come here for a business meeting.
She’d come here to look at the board.
Twenty minutes passed.
Then Zael’s door opened.
“Callum.”
I looked up.
He was standing in the doorway with one hand on the frame and an expression that had shifted from its usual neutral into something cooler. More deliberate. The kind of look that meant he had been thinking about something and had arrived at a conclusion he didn’t particularly like.
“My office.”
I saved my work, stood and walked in.
He closed the door behind me.
The office was quiet. He moved to his desk but didn’t sit — stood behind it with both hands resting on the surface and looked at me with that direct unreadable gaze.
“Vivienne Holt,” he said.
“Yes.”
“She’s your stepsister.”
It wasn’t a question. He’d done his homework between yesterday and today, which meant he’d been investigating more than just the address connected to my name.
“She is,” I said.
“She came here today through an introduction arranged by your stepfather.” His voice was completely even. “The same stepfather who arranged your position in this office.”
“Yes.”
“So Gerald Holt placed you here as my PA and then sent your stepsister through my front door within forty-eight hours.” He let that sit for a moment. “That’s not a coincidence.”
“No,” I agreed. “It isn’t.”
Something moved behind his eyes… not quite a surprise. More like recalibration. He had expected deflection and I wasn’t giving it to him.
“What is he after?” Zael asked.
“I don’t know the full picture yet.” Honest. Precise. Giving him exactly what I actually had and nothing I didn’t. “But I’m looking.”
He studied me for a long moment.
Then the temperature in the room shifted.
“Whatever is happening between your family and mine,” he said quietly, “I want no part of it bleeding into this office.” His eyes held mine without wavering. “And I want no part of your stepsister being sent here as a social call dressed up as business.” A pause. “Stay out of my personal life, Seraphine.”
The use of my first name landed differently than Callum did.
Harder somehow.
“With respect,” I said steadily, “I didn’t send her here.”
“Your stepfather did.”
“Gerald Holt is not someone I control.”
The silence between us was tight and deliberate.
“Nevertheless,” he said. “Keep it out of my office.”
He sat down. Picked up his pen. The conversation was over.
I walked back to my desk and sat down carefully.
He thought I was part of whatever Gerald was running.
He had looked at Vivienne’s appearance, traced it back to Gerald, traced Gerald back to me and drawn a straight line through all three points.
He wasn’t entirely wrong about the connection.
He was entirely wrong about my role in it.
And somewhere underneath the cold professionalism of that conversation was a man who had sent me a divorce text yesterday and still hadn’t mentioned it once today.
Which meant he was waiting for something.
I just didn’t know what it was yet.