☗ 𝔇𝔞𝔯𝔦𝔞𝔫 𝔊𝔯𝔞𝔳𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔢 ☗
Morning arrives like a wound that forgot how to close—slow, cold, and aching in the exact same place it always does.
She's still warm beside me. Breath even. Chest rising and falling like some rehearsed rhythm I'd paid for. I glance over, just enough to check. Mouth slightly open. Hair—a mess of chestnut strands tangled in my pillow.
I don't remember her name.
Or maybe I never asked.
The sheet's slipped off her hip. My forearm grazes her thigh—cool, soft. I pull back. No rush, no guilt. Just detachment honed to precision. Rising from the bed, I plant my feet on the marble floor. It bites at my skin. Polished. Unforgiving. Expensive.
The mirror stretches across the wall like a quiet judge.
Naked.
A faint red mark on my hip. Nail traces on my shoulder. Neck.
All things that'll vanish in the shower. Unlike the noise that sometimes lingers in my head longer than it should.
I reach for my watch—6:07.
I never wake past that. My body keeps count even when my mind drifts elsewhere.
Underwear. Nothing else.
I move through the penthouse, steps soundless. Into the kitchen, past the silence. The fridge hums, cold and consistent. I take the water. One gulp. Then another.
And then—
That damn folder.
Still on the edge of the table. Clean white. Vanguard crest embossed in the corner. I should've filed it. Or passed it to HR like every other intern application that crosses my desk.
But it's still here. Still hers. I pick it up. Lighter than it feels.
Eris Moreau.
I flip it open.
Nothing special. On paper, anyway. No elite education, no powerful surname. A CV dressed in mediocrity.
But the photo.
Her face.
Brown eyes the color of burnt honey. A smile that tries to behave but doesn't quite succeed. Not shy. Not desperate. Just... calculated.
She knows she's beautiful. But doesn't weaponize it. Magnetic without asking for permission.
Sunshine that hides a storm.
That's what Vio said, wasn't it?
I close the folder. Should've walked away.
Didn't.
Fingers stay on the paper a second longer than they should. Like my mind's reaching for a reason to care.
What does she want?
Money? A foothold? A crack of light in a hallway full of locked doors?
More importantly—Why the hell do I want to know? Shit.
Back in front of the mirror. I stare. Cold. Controlled. Intact. But not empty. That's the problem.
—Water dripped slowly from the ends of my hair to my collarbone. Steam still clung to the air, fogging the marble mirror and blurring my reflection. I pushed my hair back, grabbed a towel.
The sweat from last night was gone. All that remained was the silence—intimate in a way no body beside me ever truly was.
"Hmm… You don't talk much, do you?"
Her voice came from the bed. Husky, lazy, flirtatious in the kind of way people use to hold onto dignity after selling it.
I walked toward the wardrobe. Chose a black shirt, grey slacks, dark leather watch. Everything light in my hands, precise on my body.
"But you're not rough either," she added, voice softer now. "Polite, even. If I didn't know you paid me, I'd think you—"
"Don't get it twisted." The words came out flat as I buttoned my cuffs. Neutral tone. But final.
She gave a small laugh—nervous. "Okay. Chill." She sat up, pulling the blanket over her chest. Then, hesitantly, "Should I take a shower first, or just go?"
I gave a nod. Just one. Not permission. Not refusal. Just enough ambiguity to keep her unsure.
My phone buzzed. Once. Then again.
Violette.
I hit accept. "Yeah?"
"You have five minutes to leave or I'll start deleting your meetings just to spite you."
That tone—cool, crisp, impatient. The voice of someone who's already held back too much sarcasm before sunrise.
"Good morning to you too, Vio." Deliberate. I laced it with just enough mock-laziness. Vio—she hates the nickname. But I love it.
"It's Miss Rianne during office hours."
Heels clicked against tile on her end. Probably walking the office hallway. Keyboard sounds. Someone spoke to her—she didn't answer. Just sighed. Then returned, lower.
"You're not late. Yet. But your 7:30 is already here."
"Mmm." I glanced at the bed. She was still there, checking her phone. Probably confirming payment. Or seeing if I followed her on Instagram.
(Disclaimer: I didn't. And won't.)
"Cancel it."
"You're skipping the Chairman's son?"
"Reschedule." I opened a drawer, took out my cufflinks. Slid them on, one by one. "Tell him something diplomatic. Or lie. You're good at both."
A pause. But I knew she wasn't surprised. Violette understood how I worked. I'm rarely late—but if I want to be, I will be.
"Fine. Ten o'clock. But don't ghost him."
I sighed. "Anything else?"
"Yes." Closer to the mic now. Voice dropped. Still sharp. "Stop calling me Vio."
Click.
Call ended.
I stood still for a moment. Then let a small smile slip—without any clear reason. She's annoying. But efficient.
And a little too smart for her own good. I grabbed my wallet, keys, phone. Gave the bed one last glance.
"There's food in the fridge. Get dressed. Don't steal my watch." She looked at me—half guilty, half offended. Then I left. And, like always, the world fell back into rhythm with me.
⇾ 𝖓𝖔 𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖆𝖑𝖘. 𝖏𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖞. ⇽
The main building of Vanguard Corp stood like a metal god—towering, cold, and too expensive to touch. Its glass façade was deliberately reflective, almost like it was meant to mirror the outside world as a warning: what's inside doesn't belong out there.
Eris took a deep breath and swiped her work badge at the security gate.
Beep.
Green light.
She was in.
Like a thief slipping into a museum.
Her steps were steady, the soft clack of her low heels tapping against the marble floor. Formal, but still comfortable. The beige dress she'd picked that morning hung a bit too loose at the shoulders—probably a laundry mishap. Still presentable enough not to raise any eyebrows.
"Good morning, Eris." A smooth, overly sweet voice for this early hour. Claudine.
Behind the reception desk, Claudine stood poised. Silver-blonde hair twisted into a flawless bun, navy blazer cinched neatly at the waist, that perfectly rehearsed smile she wore like it was part of the uniform. Eris returned it with a polite smile—slightly tilted, slightly disinterested.
"Morning, Miss Claudine."
They weren't close. Claudine wasn't the type to chat outside of protocol. And Eris—well, she didn't trust people who smiled too much for no good reason. Still, manners mattered. This wasn't the kind of office where you slipped up.
Then, as she turned her head toward the far side of the lobby—She saw them.
Darian Gravelle. Dressed in black from head to toe. Shirt, suit, watch, presence. All dark, all magnetic. He was speaking with a woman whose jet-black hair fell effortlessly over her shoulders, her face carved with cruel precision.
Violette Rianne.
From this distance, their conversation sounded like jazz—rhythmic, fast, too sharp to follow. But the way Violette leaned in just slightly toward Darian… and the way he didn't move away…
Hmm. They looked like… Yeah. Like a CEO and his secretary who'd shared a few too many schedules—and secrets.
Not her business. Still, her gaze lingered a second too long.
Darian let out a soft chuckle. Not wide—just a subtle shift at the corner of his lips. Controlled. Contained. But unmistakably real.
Shit.
He never smiles.
Violette replied with something quick and decisive. Then the two of them turned toward the private elevator, their steps perfectly in sync—like a business pas de deux: proud, elegant, and annoyingly in tune.
Eris quickly looked away. Seriously, what are you doing? Staring? She shook her head. Her mind should be on numbers, not lobby soap operas.
Waiting for the regular elevator—smaller, more crowded—Eris caught her reflection in the glass wall. Her hair frayed a bit at the ends—styling fail. Powder was too pale. Damn. But her eyes… sharp. Still sharp.
Good enough. Focus.
You're nobody here.
Not yet.
The elevator dinged. Eris stepped in with a few other employees, all busy with their phones or coffee. No one cared who stood next to who. No one noticed a CEO laughing just a few meters away.
But Eris did. And for some reason, that bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
The strategy team's workspace always felt like a meat locker. Too cold. Too clean. AC on full blast since seven a.m., like it had a personal grudge against warmth. White fluorescent lights buzzed above, casting a sterile glare on too-bright screens, half-drunk coffee, and the desperation of people pretending Monday wasn't killing them slowly.
Eris stepped in as quietly as she could. No use. Her heels betrayed her—click, click—sharp against the tile like gunshots in a morgue.
At the far end, of course.
Laurent.
Already there. Already upright. Already judging the world in that perfectly miserable shirt rolled up to his elbows. The tie hung loose around his neck, like even it had given up. Hair: chaos. Eye bags: Olympian level. He looked like someone who hadn't slept in a week and didn't plan to start now.
Eris swallowed. Does he even sleep? Or is he, like, some cursed soul who roams the building after hours?
Rumors said he slept under his desk. One intern swore they saw a rolled-up sleeping bag stuffed in the corner locker. Whatever the truth, one thing was certain: he was never late. Not on time. Early. Freakishly early.
"Morning." His voice, rough. Not weak—just exhausted in a way that had been weaponized.
"Good morning, sir." Her reply climbed half a pitch too high. Bright, but calculated. Laurent could detect emotional tone the way snipers read wind direction.
He glanced at his screen. Clicked something. Typed. "Break this down for me." A chime. Email received.
"Occupancy projections. Zurich. Q3 and Q4."
She opened it. Numbers. So many goddamn numbers.
Formulas nested in other formulas. Advanced Excel witchcraft. Weighted calculations she usually avoided like unpaid taxes.
"…Okay." Her smile cracked a little at the edges. Laurent narrowed his eyes. Stood up.
Silent.
He moved like static—unannounced, too fast, too close. "Problem?" Not mocking. Not kind. Just a statement, like he was logging data.
Eris hesitated, then nodded once. "A bit… the weighted average occupancy part."
And then he was behind her.
Right behind her.
She froze as he leaned down, one hand on the desk, the other ghosting toward her touchpad. His breath skimmed her shoulder. Not touching, not quite. But there.
"Hold the cursor here."
She did. Fingers obeyed, but barely. A tremor betrayed her—subtle, but humiliating.
This wasn't new. She'd had supervisors hover before. But this—him—was different.
And then—His hand. Over hers.
Not harsh. Not tender. Just… confident. Sure. Like her hand was an equation, and he already knew how to solve it.
Skin grazed skin.
Her pulse lost rhythm.
She inhaled sharply, pretended it was focus. Tried to ignore the scent of burnt espresso on his breath. The faint chill from his shirt sleeve brushing her arm. The way the keyboard clicks suddenly felt louder, closer, like they were pressed against her spine.
"Your mistake's here." His voice close enough to tilt her bones. "You're dividing by total rooms, not total room nights."
"Oh. Right." Her voice slipped out, small. Too small. Damn it. He didn't step away. Not immediately. Still there. Still watching. Still felt.
"Try it again."
Only then did he pull back. Two steps. Not far, but enough to breathe again. Barely.
Eris typed.
Each keystroke deliberate. Mechanical. Her fingers stiff as hell. And she knew—knew—his eyes were still on her. Watching her back like he could read through her skin.
Being watched shouldn't feel like this. It shouldn't feel like he was inside her head, rewriting equations.
And maybe, just maybe—Laurent was the kind of dangerous she hadn't prepped for.
Goddamn it. Eris wasn't the type who struggled to keep up. Normally, she was faster than half the idiots who got paid ten times more. Sharp. Quick. Efficient. But right now?
"…The formula's correct," Laurent said, tone flat. "You just placed it in the wrong sheet."
Barely there, but she caught it—that little exhale at the end. Not quite a sigh. More like restraint in a suit and tie.
She retyped the formula, fingers trembling just a bit. Okay, maybe more than a bit.
Get a grip, Eris. It's just a man. Just a grown-ass man with a voice like a six-foot grave and shoulders that clearly didn't skip gym day. Just some guy with slightly messy blond hair that made him look more kissable than he had any right to. Focus, for fuck's sake.
"I'll walk you through it again." Laurent leaned in. Again. His voice didn't raise. Didn't scold. But it had that sharp edge—like a teacher who knew you were smart but watched you choose to be stupid.
Eris held her breath as the space between them vanished. Again.
He reached forward. Fingers brushed the back of her hand. One second, maybe less—but it seared. A quiet, accidental fire.
"Pull down from this cell," he said lowly, fingertips guiding the touchpad. "Don't press enter yet. Watch—it pulls the data automatically."
—Click.
The door swung open. No knock. No warning.
Violette stepped in like a storm in satin heels. Effortless. Precise. Dangerous. Two coffee cups in hand. Silver lids. Stylish. Sharp.
One: black, bitter.
The other: soft beige, frothy—milk-heavy.
She froze.
Her gaze flicked straight to them—Eris at her desk. Laurent behind her. Too close. Hands still brushing. Eris, mid-breath, spine locked up like a deer who just realized the car wasn't stopping.
One beat.
Two.
Three.
Violette didn't look at Laurent.
She looked at her.
"Morning," Violette said coolly, head tilting the way a snake does before it strikes. That smile? Razor-thin. Didn't reach her eyes. "Hope I'm not interrupting."
Laurent replied slower. "Morning."
His eyes lingered on Eris for a second too long before shifting to Violette. One brow arched—subtle, unreadable.
"Eris," Violette said again, like she was confirming a rumor, not greeting a colleague.
"Good morning, Miss," Eris answered, voice too neutral to be natural. Her fingers still hovered over the mouse. She didn't dare move.
Violette stepped forward, heels crisp against the tile. She placed the black coffee beside Laurent's laptop. Deliberate. No words. No context.
The beige one? Still in her hand. She didn't offer it. She turned and walked out with it like a trophy.
Each step away echoed like a slow burn to the face. Not rushed. Not lazy. Just… choreographed. Every click of her heel said: I see you. And you're replaceable.
Door shut.
Silence sucker-punched the room.
Laurent didn't move. Didn't speak. His eyes stayed on the door. Jaw—just a bit tight. "…Well." It slipped out of him like smoke. Barely a word. But Eris caught it. Every letter.
He didn't explain.
Didn't clarify.
But something in his eyes had shifted. Not guilt. Not anger. Just… calculation.
Eris? Yeah, she had no damn idea what just happened. Was that about coffee? Or a warning shot? Jealousy? Territorial bullshit?
No. No no no. Hell no. Do not tell me I just landed in a fucking love triangle. It's literally week one.
Enough.
Okay? That's enough.
Eris shifted back, fast—like the mouse under her palm had suddenly caught fire. She plastered on a grin—fake, way too wide, but hey, at least she tried.
"Oh! I get it now. Thank you, sir Laurent," she said, nodding like a bobblehead on crack. "I'll finish it myself—it helps me memorize better."
Bullshit. And she knew he knew it.
Laurent didn't like fake. Didn't like stupid, either. But fake-smart? Yeah, that was probably a special kind of sin in his holy book of spreadsheet perfection.
She felt it. That shift in his gaze. Not loud or dramatic—just... sharper. Like a scalpel, not a blade. He didn't say anything, didn't correct her. But he looked. One beat too long.
Then he walked away.
Silent footsteps. Silent judgment.
Eris exhaled slow, fingers tightening around the mouse like it was her emotional support animal. Don't panic. You need this job. You don't need a mental breakdown at your desk. Not today, Satan.
Across the desk, Laurent sat down—straight-backed, shoulders squared like he'd been carved from some painfully expensive Italian marble. His fingers flew across the keyboard. Not too fast. Not work-fast.
Different rhythm.
She squinted.
Not a spreadsheet.
Not PowerPoint.
Not numbers.
He was typing like someone chatting. Or worse. Flirting.
And then—A twitch at the corner of his mouth. Barely there. Blink and you'd miss it. But Eris didn't blink.
She stared. Not on purpose. Okay, maybe a little on purpose. Sue her.
And of course he noticed. Laurent looked up. Eyes locking. That detached, unreadable shade of ice-blue.
"Is there a problem?" Smooth. Too smooth.
The kind of voice that didn't raise volume, just pressure.
Like a soft hand on the back of your neck. You don't know if it's affection or a warning.
Eris snapped upright. Fingers flew to the keyboard, typing absolute nonsense. She might've just opened a blank Notepad. Couldn't tell. Didn't care.
"Nope," she chirped, half an octave too high. "Just... waiting for the formula to load."
God, could she sound more suspicious?
He stared. Again. Like he could see the chaos in her frontal lobe. Then, back to his laptop. Typing. Still that same calm rhythm.
Still that same goddamn smirk. Eris glanced at her own screen. Then his. Then hers again.
Focus, Eris. Come on. You've faced worse. You've survived men with knives. You can survive a man with a smirk.
And yet—That smirk.
That stupid little pull of his mouth like someone just texted him something really good.
God, who was he even talking to?
Why do I care? Why the hell do I care? She clenched her jaw. It's not jealousy. It's not. Except... why did it feel like someone cracked open her chest and let the cold in?
Like heartbreak, but dumber. Like catching feelings during a fire drill. Like catching a virus. And now she was spiraling.
Awesome.
⇾ 𝖓𝖔 𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖆𝖑𝖘. 𝖏𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖞. ⇽
Break time.
Chairs scraped. Papers left in chaos, abandoned like they meant nothing. Clara shot up from her seat with the energy of someone two seconds away from spilling hot tea and hotter gossip.
But then—halt. "Ah—wait. Shit." She spun around, heels squeaking on the polished floor.
"Eris," she called, digging into her tiny glitter-sticker-infested bag, like a five-year-old with unresolved aesthetic trauma. "Can you drop this off upstairs? Meeting room." A flash drive. Silver. Innocent-looking. Suspiciously light.
Eris blinked. "Me?"
"Uh, yeah? Who else? I'm this close to cardiac arrest. My heart had, like, two espressos too many. You'd be a literal angel."
The smile Clara gave her was the kind you put on when you've already decided to manipulate someone but want it to look cute.
Eris didn't bother arguing. Wasn't worth the calories. She just took it.
The elevator ride was silent. Too clean. Too white. Like an expensive private hospital pretending to be a corporate tower. The kind where people die in suits and no one asks why.
She reached the meeting room. Door cracked open. No lights, no voices.
Just drop it off, they said.
She stepped inside. A soft hum greeted her. Projector flickered to life. Vanguard's logo glowed in the corner like some cursed watermark. Plain black slide. Flash drive already plugged in.
Huh.
Curiosity killed the cat. But Eris? Eris was more raccoon. Nosy. Opportunistic. A little shameless. So yeah. She touched the clicker.
One slide over—Silence dropped like a goddamn guillotine.
A photo.
Dead body. Bathtub. Hotel tiles still damp. Eyes open. Arms sprawled over the edge.
And the neck—No. Don't think about the neck.
Her hand flew to the laptop. Click. Dark again.
But her breath—It stuck. Not loud. Not panicked. Just… off. Like her lungs forgot how to exist in this air.
Her brain scrambled for logic, but her body already knew. This wasn't a marketing deck. This was a fucking secret.
She turned, fast—
"You shouldn't be in here."
The voice came soft. Icy. A match dropped in snow.
Darian.
Framed by the doorway. One hand in his pocket, the other loose at his side. Dark suit, tie loosened like sin, eyes lit by the hallway glow.
He didn't move. Didn't shout. Didn't raise a brow. But the way he looked at her—
Like he was doing math in his head. How fast could she run. How loud would she scream. How clean could this be cleaned up.
And Eris just stood there. Between a blank screen and a man who could destroy a person with a nod.
Shit.