Ivy sat with the phone pressed to her ear for a long moment, disbelief and excitement tangling together too fully to fully separate. "A partner. You want me as a partner."

"I want you as a partner," Kennedy confirmed. "You built the best crisis communication work I've seen in my career, entirely on instinct and hard work, no connections required. I don't want to lose that kind of talent to some other firm eventually poaching you once word gets around about how good you actually are. I'd rather build something with you from the ground up."

Ivy told Sterling the moment she hung up, still slightly stunned, and watched his...