Page 44 of Sexting His Assistant

Strategy, if named by me.

The result is the same.

At seven, Kazan Tower begins to empty. The executive floor quiets. Assistants leave in pairs. Lawyers disappear into elevators with loosened ties and dead eyes. Security shifts change. The building settles into its night rhythm, softer on the legitimate floors and sharper beneath them.

At seven-thirty, Meredith knocks once and opens my office door.

“Your car is ready, Mr. Kazan.”

I look up from a report I have not read in ten minutes. “Where is Miss Hale?”

“At her desk.”

My pen stops. “Still?”

“Yes.”

“Doing what?”

Meredith hesitates, because she is intelligent enough to know that my question is not professional. “I believe she is updating your social diary.”

I close the file. “Tell her to go home.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“She said you could tell her yourself if you were suddenly concerned about labor law.”

For the first time all afternoon, something close to a smile threatens me.

I suppress it.

“Thank you, Meredith.”

She nods and leaves.

I wait another fifteen minutes, because I’m not a man who runs from his office because a twenty-four-year-old woman has decided to test his patience from behind a desk.

Then I take my coat and leave.

Nina’s desk is empty.

The lamp is still on. Her bag is gone. The diary’s not visible, which means she’s either taken it with her or hidden it because she knows I might look.

Smart girl.

The elevator ride to the garage is silent.

I use the private lift, the one that opens directly into the secured level beneath the building. Concrete. Cameras. Low lights. Armored cars lined in black rows. Two guards near the entrance. Another at the ramp. My driver waits beside the sedan, but I dismiss him with a look.

“I’ll drive.”

He nods and hands me the keys.

I’m halfway to the car when a voice says, “So you are alive.”

I stop.