Buying the Boardroom

Nadia Okonkwo is the youngest VP in her firm's history, which is what they say when they mean she is in the way. The assignment is supposed to end her career quietly: run the numbers on the hostile takeover of Vell Systems and make them say what the partners want them to say. Nadia runs the numbers. The numbers refuse. Bastien Vell is on the other side of the deal. Forty-eight, ruthless, guarded, and the only person who has read the same report the same way. When a leak puts his company on the block, he assumes she is the one who did it. She isn't. She finds him to tell him so. She should not have gone. Six weeks, one shareholder vote, one ultimatum she cannot win without betraying somebody. When the vote is over, one of them will be holding the company. The other will be holding a choice. Neither of them expects to still be standing.