“Mr. Aldridge is ready for you now, Ms. Celine. And just a reminder—the Chairman prefers a direct approach. No fluff. No typical agency jargon. He’s… sensitive to the environment.”

The executive assistant, a woman in a suit so sharp it looked lethal, pulled open the double frosted-glass doors of the Aldridge Global boardroom.

Celeste Harper took a breath, a long, grounding expansion of her lungs that she had practiced a thousand times in the sound booths of Silverbird Studios. She adjusted the strap of her leather portfolio, the weight of it a physical anchor. She wasn’t wearing the borrowed silks of a dead woman today. She was draped in a...