Chapter 2 - The Boss’s Daughter
The sun had barely risen over Boston Harbor, casting a dull pewter light across the cobblestones of the Financial District, when Grace stepped out of the freight elevator on Northlight Heritage’s executive floor.
Her cheek was swollen, bruised a deep plum purple beneath a careful layer of concealer, but she hadn’t hidden the split on her lip. She wore her favorite charcoal-gray wool trousers, a crisp white button-down shirt, and flat leather oxfords built for twelve-hour days. Under her arm, she carried a thick leather binder containing fifty pages of spectral analysis, microscopic fiber breakdowns, and ink-density tests on the Cabot charts.
She hadn't slept more than two hours. After Roman Kessler had left the vault the previous night, Grace had worked until four in the morning, verifying every square centimeter of the vellum. She knew that Roman’s offer wasn't charity. Men like Kessler didn't give away two-million-dollar retainers out of pity for a bruised woman. He wanted precision. He wanted absolute, indisputable perfection.
And she had delivered it.
Before she could reach the double mahogany doors of Malcolm Harrow’s corner office, the door to the VIP viewing salon swung open.
Celeste Harrow stepped into the hallway.
At twenty-eight, Celeste was a vision of curated Boston aristocratic elegance. Tall, impossibly thin, wearing a cream cashmere turtleneck and a camel-hair pencil skirt, she looked like she had stepped off the deck of a yacht in Martha’s Vineyard. But her eyes, cold and pale blue, swept over Grace with the disdain of a landlord surveying water damage.
“Grace,” Celeste said, blocking the corridor. “I hear you turned my basement into an episode of a trashy reality show last night.”
Grace stopped three paces back. “Good morning, Celeste.”
“Don't ‘good morning’ me,” Celeste snapped, crossing her manicured arms. “The night security guard told my father that three police-level security operatives were seen escorting some screaming drunk out of the loading dock at eleven p.m. And that Roman Kessler was down in the vault with you.”
“The screaming drunk was Trevor Baines,” Grace said evenly. “He used an expired guest pass that your department failed to revoke six months ago. He assaulted me. Mr. Kessler’s team handled the situation before Northlight’s private security even noticed the perimeter alarm.”
Celeste’s eyes flicked to the dark bruise on Grace’s cheek. Instead of sympathy, a thin, cruel smirk touched her lips.
“Well, you always did pick winners, didn't you?” Celeste scoffed. “Honestly, Grace, bringing your domestic squabbles into Northlight’s high-security conservation wing? It’s completely unprofessional. If a client like Roman Kessler had been offended by that vulgar display, we could have lost a seven-million-dollar commission!”
Grace felt a heat rise in her chest, but she didn’t raise her voice. She had learned long ago that screaming at Celeste was like throwing stones into mud.
“Mr. Kessler was not offended,” Grace said, her tone smooth as polished marble. “In fact, he was entirely satisfied with my progress. The authentication report for the Cabot charts is complete.”
Celeste’s eyes dropped to the leather binder under Grace’s arm. Her gaze turned ravenous.
The Cabot charts were the crown jewel of the upcoming fall catalog. Northlight stood to take an eight-percent buyer’s premium on the transaction. More importantly, Celeste had been trying to get herself named as the lead curator on the Kessler account for six months. Roman Kessler had repeatedly refused to meet with her, dealing only through sealed bids and Malcolm Harrow’s direct line.
“Give it to me,” Celeste ordered, extending a hand tipped with oxblood polish.
Grace held the binder firmly against her ribs. “No.”
Celeste’s hand froze in midair. “Excuse me?”
“This authentication requires the official signature of the lead conservator,” Grace stated. “I am the lead conservator. I am delivering this directly to your father, after which a copy will be delivered to Mr. Kessler at eight o'clock.”
Celeste’s face flushed pink beneath her bronzer. “My father is currently having breakfast at the Somerset Club. I am the Vice President of Acquisitions. Everything that leaves this department passes through my hands first. Give me the file, Grace.”
“Your title doesn't grant you the metallurgical or chemical certification to sign off on seventeenth-century oak gall ink, Celeste. If your name goes on this document, Kessler’s attorneys will reject it in ten seconds.”
“How dare you!” Celeste took an aggressive step forward, her voice rising to a shrill hiss. “You forget who you are in this building! You’re a lab technician, Grace! My father pulled you out of an obscure museum archive, gave you an office, and paid you a salary while you spent six months moping over your sick mother!”
The hallway seemed to freeze.
Grace didn't blink. The mention of her mother didn't break her this time. It only crystallized the absolute disgust she felt for the woman standing in front of her.
“Your father paid me forty percent below the market rate for a senior paleographer,” Grace said, her words dropping like iron weights onto the carpet. “And my mother’s illness didn't stop me from working eighty-hour weeks to cover up the three forged Dutch maritime logs that you tried to slip into the spring catalog to make your quarterly bonus.”
Celeste gasped, her pale eyes widening with panic. She glanced frantically down the empty hallway toward the executive suites.
“You shut your mouth,” Celeste whispered, trembling with rage.
“I kept my mouth shut then because I needed the health insurance for my mother’s chemotherapy,” Grace said, taking one deliberate step forward. She was broader, taller, and possessed an innate physical authority that Celeste’s starvation diet and designer clothes could never match. Celeste instinctively stepped back. “My mother is gone now, Celeste. I don’t need your health insurance. And I don’t need Northlight.”
Celeste recovered her venom, sneering as she leaned against the mahogany wall. “You think you’re walking away? Try it. My father owns every antiquities board in New England. If you leave this company without our permission, we will blackball you from every gallery, museum, and private collection from here to London. You won't be able to authenticate a comic book, let alone a historic manuscript. You’ll be ruined.”
“We’ll see about that,” Grace said calmly.
She walked straight past Celeste, her shoulder brushing against the younger woman’s arm with enough solid force to send Celeste stumbling into the salon doorway.
“Grace!” Celeste shrieked behind her. “Give me that binder! That’s company property!”
Grace didn't look back. She walked directly down the hall, pressed the button for the private street-level elevator, and stepped inside. As the brass doors slid shut, cutting off Celeste’s furious glare, Grace checked her watch.
Seven-fifteen.
She had forty-five minutes to reach Roman Kessler’s residence on Louisburg Square.
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And for the first time in four years, Grace felt like she was breathing clean air.
***