There’s something about her that presses against memory, something half-remembered and dangerous.
But I can’t place it.
Not yet.
Chapter 7
Roxy
Aweek in Bar Harbor, and I still can’t sleep.
The studio apartment smells like old paint, ocean air, and the walls are too thin. Across the street, a bar calledThe Last Clamhums with life every night. Music, laughter, and the clinking of bottles fill the air. It seeps through the cracked window along with the salty wind, reminding me that I’m not home, not really.
If you’d told me a month ago that I’d be working for a man likehim—living in a borrowed apartment over a bakery with a neon sign that flickers until dawn—I’d have laughed. The plan was to stay with Kat, but she killed that quickly enough. I shouldn’t be surprised.
Mom keeps texting me, excited about Bar Harbor. She doesn’t have to say it; I know she’s imagining a future here if I decide to settle in.
I can’t complain. The pay is more than good. It’s…criminal.
Or at least, the things I’m overlooking are.
How else could Mr. Medvedev afford to pay me this absurd amount for taking meeting minutes, tracking his schedule, and updating him on anything his managers, Jesse and Lauren, reach out about?
It’s only temporary, I tell myself with my eyes pressed shut under the comforter. Just until I find something better for Andi and me.
By day, everything feels ordinary enough.
I wake early, make cheap coffee from the tin on the counter, and drive fifteen minutes inland toUrsa Arcane’sheadquarters; which is also Makari Medvedev’s home.
To me, it looks more like a fortress.
The compound sits behind high iron gates, a sprawling property of glass and stone hidden by forest. At the center, the main house rises like something from another century—columns, terraces, balconies draped with ivy. Beautiful. Intimidating. The kind of place that makes you straighten your shoulders before you even step out of the car.
Most of my work happens inside the administrative wing when Mr. Medvedev doesn’t need me: coordinating communications, drafting press releases, making sure the company’s charitable arm looks as polished as it is profitable. It’s exactly the kind of work I’m good at—clean, quiet, behind the scenes.
Except there’s nothingcleanabout this place.
There are too many guards. Too many locked doors and coded elevators. Even the air feels guarded.
And him—Mr. Medvedev.
He’s everywhere and nowhere at once.
I see him in passing, at meetings, crossing the main hall, standing by the windows with that stillness that makes everyone stop talking for a beat too long. He doesn’t raise his voice, doesn’t need to. People bend around him like gravity.
Sometimes I catch him looking at me the way a predator studies its prey. It’s torn between devouring or ignoring.
It does something strange to my pulse.
I tell myself it’s nerves. That it’s the stress of starting over, not attraction. He’s significantly older than me, at least into his forties, the silver at his temples telling. But there’s no doubt that there’s strength under those tailored trousers and safari jackets.
The first time I hear it, I’m in the staff kitchen pouring coffee. Two men stand by the window, their voices low, but casual.
“The Bear’s in a mood today,” one says.
“Yeah, shipment delays again. Wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that call.”
When they notice me, they both go silent.
