LISA's POV
I stopped sleeping in the penthouse. I tried, but even with a full staff and the best entertainment money could buy keeping me company, It felt unbearably empty without Jennie. Everything reminded me of her—the dresses in the closet, the white lilies lining the hall, the lingering floral scent of her shampoo in our bed.
Instead, I took up residence in my office, where I already had a sleeping area set-up for all nighters I occasionally had to pull.
My phone buzzed with an incoming call. As always, my heart tripped over hope it was Jennie before disappointment set in.
Unknown number. It was the fourth such call today. I didn't know how they found my private phone number, which was unlisted and only available to a small group of vetted contacts, but it was getting damn annoying. I'd picked up the first time and heard nothing but silence.
If it weren't for Jennie, I'd get a new number tomorrow and be done with it.
It'd been two weeks since she showed up at the office and demanded I sign the papers. Her fucker of a lawyer kept hounding me, and no matter what I did, she refused to see me. Gifts. Calls. I'd even booked a damn session at Manhattan's top marriage counselor, which she hadn't shown up to.
I rubbed a hand over my face and tried to focus on the screen. I was still dealing with a SEC investigation into DBG Bank, which was picking up steam and throwing our office into chaos. Something about it bugged me, though I couldn't quite pinpoint why.
Finally, after thirty minutes of fruitless effort, I gave up and called it a night. Since it was only ten and I couldn't stand the thought of sleeping in the silent office this early, I grabbed my jacket off the back of my chair and headed to the one place that had any hope of making me forget about Jennie, it only for a little while.
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The New York branch of the Valhalla Club sat on a heavily guarded estate on the Upper East Side. That much private land was unheard of in Manhattan these days, but the club was founded extremely wealthy, extremely connected families to claim domination over a vast swath of real estate.
Valhalla hadn't changed in that it remained an exclusive society for the world's richest and most powerful, but it's reach had expanded past its New York flagship and into every major city across the globe, including London, Shanghai, Tokyo, Cape Town and São Paulo.
I wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of becoming a member had it not been for Kim Jisoo, a descendant of one of Valhalla's founding fathers.
"You look like hell," Jisoo said as I approached the bar where she sat with Trixx, whom worked as a doctor in the Presbyterian hospital.
"Great to see you too, Jisoo." I took a seat on Jisoo's other side and ordered a martini.
Jisoo had been one of my first investors. She ran the Kim Group, the world's largest luxury goods conglomerate, and a combination of luck, timing, and sheer perseverance had wrestled her away from her investment girl to my fledgling company. Where Jisoo went, the rest of high society eventually followed, including Trixx, who'd also became a good friend over the years.
I knew I was the odd one out in the trio. Both Trixx and Jisoo came from money so old, it belonged in a museum, whereas my billions were brand new, but at the end of the day, money was money. Not even the pedigree snobs at Valhalla dared snub me openly when I controlled the fate of their investments.
"She's right," Trixx said mildly. "You look like you haven't slept in weeks."
Because I haven't.
