The Favor

The elevator climbs sixty-two floors, and with every passing number, I wonder if I've lost my mind.

Damien Holt doesn't see people without appointments. He doesn't grant meetings to strangers who show up at his building unannounced. And he certainly doesn't remember random women from a decade ago who happened to be in the right place at the right time.

But I'm out of options. And desperate people do desperate things.

The elevator doors open to a reception area that screams money—sleek marble floors, abstract art that probably costs more than my apartment building, and a blonde receptionist who looks at me like I'm something stuck to the bottom of her Louboutin.

"May I help you?" Her smile is polished plastic.

"I need to see Mr. Holt."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No. But he'll want to see me. Tell him Isla Vance is here. Tell him I'm collecting on a debt."

Her perfectly shaped eyebrow rises. "Mr. Holt doesn't have debts."

"He has this one."

She looks me over—my department store blouse, my secondhand designer bag, my hair that hasn't seen a salon in six months—and I can see her calculating. Deciding I'm either crazy or pathetic or both.

"Wait here." She picks up her phone, speaks in low tones, her eyes never leaving me.

I stand in the center of the room, refusing to fidget, refusing to show weakness. I've spent three weeks tracking him down, another two working up the courage to come here. I won't back down now.

The receptionist's expression shifts. Surprise. Then something closer to curiosity.

"Mr. Holt will see you. Through the double doors, end of the hall."

I force myself to walk, not run. My heels click against the marble, each step echoing in the silence. The hallway seems endless, lined with closed doors and frosted glass.

Then I reach the end, and the doors open before I can knock.

And there he is.

Ten years hasn't diminished him. If anything, time has honed him, refined the raw edges into something more dangerous. He's taller than I remember, broader through the shoulders. His dark hair is shorter now, his jaw sharper, his eyes—those slate-gray eyes that haunted my dreams for months after that night—harder. Older.

But I'd know him anywhere.

"Isla Vance." My name in his mouth is a revelation. Low, rough, like he's tasted it before and found it interesting. "I wondered when you'd come."

"You remember me."

"I remember everything about that night." He steps aside, gesturing me into his office. "Including the fact that you saved my life and refused to let me thank you."

The office is floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the city that makes my stomach drop. Minimalist furnitur...