Page 1 of It Starts With A No

Chapter 1

“No.” Clary Fiore drummed her fingers against the steering wheel. “How many times must I turn down Seth Anderson?”

“I guess the billionaire isn’t used to hearing ‘no,’” her assistant said on the other end of the call.

Clary sighed.

Seth Anderson wasn’t the only one. The management she was supposed to be managing certainly didn’t take her ‘no’s seriously either.

Maybe everyone was already in the Christmas mood. Maybe that was why nobody was interested in dealing with the sudden change in leadership.

Clary laughed once. She should stop lying to herself.

Maybe … the mess was just too big for her to handle.

Clary might be the new CEO at EB Co., and have been for two weeks, but no one in the upper management was treating her seriously. “Well, it’s a no.”

“I’m not sure if I should tell you this …”

Clary swallowed a groan, because she knew where this was heading. Patience, Clary. Jesus died for you to have it.

“He did speak with Mr. Eolenfeld a couple of times,” her assistant continued.

Mr. Eolenfeld—Mr. E—Edward Eolenfeld. One of the top five richest men in the world, and the person who’d dropped Clary into this gigantic mess.

EB Co. had started out as a small, elite bank catering to an exclusive clientele. Only the top one percent could bank with EB Co. But over five years ago, Mr. E changed the bank’s direction. Not because business wasn’t good. It was.

God simply changed his heart, and Mr. E decided he wanted to do more for the public.

That was the first shakeup of EB Co.

The second? Mr. E removing Hugh Eolenfeld—his own grandson—and putting Clary in charge.

Clary Fiore—an orphan Mr. E had taken into his care. Well, sort of.

To everyone else, she was a nobody. So naturally, everyone assumed she was Mr. E’s mistress. Why else would the old man choose a nobody to take over, right?

“Mr. Eolenfeld was amenable to him,” her assistant added. “And I heard Mr. Anderson thanking him. I think he really might’ve agreed to give Mr. Anderson the loan.”

“It’s my decision to make, and it’s a no.”

Mr. E had given Clary one specific instruction: to do only what she believed was right. That was precisely what she wanted to do—to make things right for the customers whose lives were affected by the bank’s unscrupulous grab for money.

It would take a miracle to accomplish that by Christmas, which was only two weeks away. So this is all you, Jesus. I need a Christmas miracle. All the Hallmark movies show this is how it works, and I don’t even need a guy thrown in.

Because who had time for that?

“Have you spoken with Mr. Eolenfeld?” her assistant asked.

“Not since three weeks ago.” Which was when he’d made the FaceTime call and given her a week to move to San Francisco.

Mr. E had recently escaped the watchful eyes of his money-grubbing descendants, who were all waiting eagerly for him to die. As it turned out, he wasn’t ready to head to heaven just yet. Instead he escaped, and was now playing a game of hide-and-seek with them.

Now, no one knew where he really was.

Be brave, he’d told her during the FaceTime call.

Clary hadn’t been able to respond then. She wasn’t even sure how serious Mr. E was. She actually wondered if she’d been pranked by one of those deep-fake videos.

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