CHAPTER ONE

      ‘HE’S COMING!’

      Mia James’s stomach clenched unpleasantly as she hurried to stand behind her desk, shoulders back, chin up, heart pounding.

      ‘He’s in the lift now…’

      The numbers above the silver doors glowed, one after another. Two…three…

      Mia watched out of the corner of her eye as her fellow colleagues at Dillard Investments did the same as she had, scurrying to desks, standing up straight. They were like schoolchildren awaiting an inspection by the head teacher. A particularly strict and perhaps even cruel head teacher…the notoriously ruthless Alessandro Costa, self-made billionaire and, as of yesterday, the new CEO of Dillard Investments.

      Yesterday the company had been taken over by Alessandro Costa in a calculated and clever manoeuvre that had shocked everyone involved in the company right down to their toes, including Mia’s boss and the CEO, Henry Dillard. Poor Henry had looked terribly shaken, aging ten years in a matter of minutes as he realised there was nothing he could do to stop Costa International from gaining controlling shares; it had all happened before he’d even had a chance to realise, Costa stalking the company the way a ruthless predator would a prey.

      Four…five… The lift doors pinged open and Mia drew her breath sharply as the new CEO of Dillard Investments stepped through them. She’d seen photos of him online, having done an exhaustive internet search last night when the news had been confirmed that Dillard’s had been taken over. What she’d learned had far from reassured her.

      Alessandro Costa specialised in hostile takeovers and then stripping the companies of their assets and employees, to be absorbed into his behemoth of a corporation,