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The walk-in closet felt like a private chamber sealed in cedar and saturated with the overpowering trace of Mark’s Santal 33—an indulgence that cost more per ounce than the strict grocery allowance he enforced on me. As I folded an old college sweatshirt, his voice sliced through the quiet. He stood there immaculate in a tailored navy suit, arrogance clinging to him as naturally as the Patek Philippe on his wrist. He scoffed at my scuffed suitcase, calling it a “thrift-store disaster,” and reminded me that image was everything ahead of his crucial Helios Energy meeting in London.
I didn’t respond when he mocked my “simple habits” or implied my days were spent knitting and watching daytime television. I didn’t mention that while he lifted weights at the gym, I had been orchestrating the strategic expansion of Vanguard Holdings—the investment powerhouse quietly absorbing European tech firms and logistics networks. I zipped my bag and followed him to the waiting Uber Black. As we left, he warned me not to linger near his executive assistant, Tiffany—a sharp-eyed twenty-four-year-old whose ambition was as precise as a blade.
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