The Redemption (Filthy Rich Americans 4)

I might as well have told him I was illiterate. His broad shoulders pulled back, and he looked down his sharp nose at me. “You are getting way ahead of yourself, Sophia.” He picked up the portfolio, tossed it down on the table with a loud thump, and it slid to a stop in front of me.

“What’s this?”

“A non-disclosure agreement.” He settled back into the couch and cast an arm along one of the cushions, looking like a beautiful advertisement for men’s bespoke suits.

I opened the folder. It wasn’t unexpected he’d present me with one—well, I had assumed it’d come from someone in human resources and not him personally—but this document was surprising. It was excessively long. I paged through it and shot him a glance that read, seriously?

His ice-blue eyes narrowed a degree. “This is not negotiable. If you want to work for me, you’ll sign it.”

Was this a tactic to scare me off? It wouldn’t work. “I get it. I know things you want kept secret.”

The muscle running along his jaw flexed. Was he grinding his teeth? “Whether or not that’s true,” he said coolly, “anything we discuss or any conversations you might witness during my employ cannot be repeated.”

I nodded my understanding and went back to skimming the document. I had no intention of leaking secrets—and every intention of him doing it for me. As I read, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. He’d reached into his interior coat pocket, produced a pen, and set it on the glass table with a quiet ting.

He wasn’t subtle in the way he tried to hurry me along, but I ignored it and kept reading.

Finally, I picked up the black pen accented with gold, scribbled my name on the line, and closed the portfolio. “Salary.”

His eyebrow arched. “You told me you have plenty of money.”

“I do, but I don’t work for free.”

“I’m not ready to make you an offer.” Macalister’s hand on the back of the couch was held loosely in a fist, and he ran the pad of his thumb over his knuckles. It was distracting, and kind of . . . sexy. I forced my attention back to his lips as he spoke. “I don’t know your qualifications,” he added, “nor have I seen your résumé.”

I sat up, my back going straight. “The job I’m planning to do for you isn’t something that needs a résumé, but I can prove I’m qualified.”

He looked bored. “How so?”

“I know why Mr. Shaunessy wasn’t at your house on Saturday.”

There was no change in Macalister’s demeanor, but he couldn’t control the way his chest lifted with a deep breath. “He had a prior commitment.”

“I bet he did.”

Liam Shaunessy sat on the board at HBHC and had an affair with Alice. He’d slept with his chairman’s wife. Now he lived in eternal fear of the day Macalister would come and destroy him for it.

This bombshell didn’t have the impact I was looking for, so I dug deeper in my arsenal.

“And I know what used to happen,” I lowered my voice to a hush, “when a man was promoted to the board at this company.”

It was as if I’d cracked a whip. Macalister launched forward, his spread fingertips on the glass as he leaned over the table and put his face just inches from mine. His expression filled with darkness and silent rage, and holy hell, it was gorgeous. “I don’t know what she told you, but I’d choose your next words very carefully.”

It took a second to figure who he was talking about. “Marist? No, she’s never said a word to me.”

Not that she would. We weren’t friends, and I wasn’t sure we ever could be. I’d had to make a name for myself at Cape Hill Prep, and I’d done part of it at Marist’s expense. We didn’t speak about our time in high school, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t forgiven me for it. It left us without friendship, but instead a partnership.

I helped her whenever I could. Sometimes it was beneficial, but it was mostly done out of guilt.

Macalister cautiously retreated to his seat, looking relieved this highly volatile information hadn’t come from her, but his curiosity took over. “Who, then?”

I wasn’t going to waste a bargaining chip. “I’m qualified, and now I want to talk about my salary.”

“All right,” he snapped. “One hundred thousand.” He switched gears so quickly, it made me uneasy.

This was a lowball opening offer, but Stephen Alby hadn’t raised me to be a fool. “That’s all restoring your reputation is worth to you?”

“You seem to think I’m incapable of doing that without your assistance.”

Macalister’s glare was a blade of steel, cutting me down to size, and my voice wasn’t as powerful as I wanted it to be. “It’ll be harder without it.”