The Palm Reader's Warning

Mira stood at the edge of the infinity pool, the Caribbean water stretching toward an impossible horizon. Behind her, the corporate retreat hummed with forced camaraderie and multimillion-dollar deals. She shouldn't have come. She shouldn't have let Julian talk her into this weekend of strategic planning and strategic infidelity.

"You look like you're trying to decide whether to jump in or disappear into it," came the familiar voice.

She didn't turn. "What do you want, Julian?"

He moved beside her, close enough that she could smell his expensive cologne and the whiskey on his breath. "The board votes on Monday. I need your support on the merger."

Mira laughed bitterly. "That's why you pursued me for six months? Why you showed up at my office with those strategic 'questions'? Why you—"

His hand caught her wrist, his thumb pressing into her palm. "It wasn't all business."

She pulled away. "You're a fox, Julian. You're clever and you're beautiful and you eat everything in your path."

"Is that what she told you? Your sister?"

The question landed like a bullet. Mira finally turned to face him. His expression was unreadable, but something flickered in those clever eyes. Fear? Or calculation?

"What did you say?" Mira whispered.

"Sarah called me. Last week. She said you'd shown her the photos. She said she'd never seen her baby sister so gutted." He stepped closer. "What did your palm reader tell you about me, anyway? Before you stopped going?"

Mira's chest tightened. Lila, the psychic who'd read her palm every month for five years, had warned her about a man with a smooth tongue and a hollow heart. But Lila had died four months ago. Sarah was the only one who knew.

"You never loved me," Mira said, the realization rising like water filling her lungs. "You needed my vote. You needed information about the opposition. You needed—"

"I needed you," Julian said, and for a moment, she almost believed him. "I still do."

The water lapped at the pool's edge. Somewhere in the distance, other executives laughed. They had forty-eight hours left of this retreat. Forty-eight hours to decide who would betray whom first.

"I'll support your merger," Mira said, watching the hope flare in his eyes. "On one condition."

"Anything."

She looked at the water, at him, at the life she'd almost built with a fox who would never be tamed. "Resign. And I take your seat on the board."