Monday morning. Nine o'clock sharp.
I stood outside Sebastian Cole's office with my expression neutral and my posture professional. The weekend had given me time to prepare, to build walls around the chaos inside me.
I could do this. Just three months of observation, then it's over. A thee months of watching, evaluating, and reporting back to Charles. Simple. Straightforward. Professional.
I knocked once and entered without waiting for a response.
Sebastian sat behind his desk, jacket discarded over his chair, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows.
He barely acknowledged my arrival, his attention fixed on his computer screen as he grabbed a stack of files and tossed them in my direction. They landed on the edge of the desk with a heavy thud.
"Henderson account needs restructuring by Wednesday. Marketing briefs for the Collins pitch, three versions, different angles, due tomorrow. Schedule confirmation for the Berlin conference. And make sure the quarterly projections are reformatted before the four o'clock meeting."
He rattled off tasks like I was a machine built to receive them, still not looking at me. I collected the files and left without a word.
I worked efficiently through the morning, moving through his demands with the precision Charles had trained into me over five years. I answered calls, organized documents, coordinated with other departments.
I avoided unnecessary interaction, speaking only when absolutely required, keeping my responses clipped and professional. Sebastian seemed content to treat me as invisible, which suited me perfectly.
By mid-morning, the walls of his office had started to feel suffocating.
I escaped to the printer room under the pretense of collecting documents. The small space was blessedly empty—just humming machines and the soft whir of paper feeding through rollers.
I leaned against the counter and closed my eyes, letting the tension drain from my shoulders. A moment of peace. That's all I needed. Just one moment to breathe without feeling his presence pressing against me.
I didn't get it.
"Beautiful ceremony, wasn't it?"
Sebastian's voice came from behind me, smooth and unhurried. I didn't need to turn around to know exactly how he looked—the casual posture, the knowing expression, the calculated ease designed to unsettle.
He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, entirely too relaxed for a man who should have been working. "The Langford wedding. Very elegant. Didn't you think so?"
My jaw tightened. I kept my back to him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of my attention. "I didn't stay long."
"No, you didn't." I heard him push off from the frame, heard his footsteps crossing the small room. Moving closer. Too close. "Shame, really. You missed the cake."
I turned to face him, and he was right there—inches away, grey eyes glinting with something between amusement and challenge. Close enough that I could count the individual lashes framing those cold, calculating eyes.
Close enough to see the slight upturn at the corner of his mouth, the expression of a man who knew exactly what effect he was having.
My pulse quickened, and I hated that it did. Hated the way my body betrayed me, responding to his proximity with something other than the disgust he deserved.
"It's a pity how things turned out," he continued, his voice dropping low. Almost intimate. "I've lost my leverage over you now. Nothing left to blackmail you with. Our little lunches, our... conversations."
He paused, letting the words hang between us. "All for nothing."
My stomach tightened at the memories his words dragged to the surface.
Sebastian had found out about me and James almost a year ago. He'd caught us in an unguarded moment in the parking garage—James's hand resting on my waist, my laugh too soft and intimate to be anything but personal.
We'd thought we were alone, hidden in the shadows between concrete pillars. We weren't. Most people would have looked away, would have pretended they hadn't witnessed anything. Sebastian had smiled.
He never reported us. That wasn't his style. Instead, he collected the information like currency, hoarding it carefully, spending it in small and infuriating ways.
A request for lunch that wasn't really a request. Conversations that stretched longer than necessary while his hand found excuses to brush my arm, my shoulder, the small of my back.
The touches were always seemingly accidental, always fleeting enough to deny. Always when James wasn't watching.
"Coffee with me tomorrow," he'd say, cornering me in the break room or catching me alone in the corridor. "Unless you'd rather I mention to HR that I saw something interesting in the garage last Tuesday."
I went to coffee. I endured the lunches. I tolerated his proximity because the alternative felt worse—exposure, termination, James's fury at having our secret revealed.
And Sebastian seemed to savor every moment of my discomfort. Not because he wanted to destroy me, I'd eventually realized. But because it gave him access.
Time. Proximity he couldn't otherwise justify. Moments alone with me that he'd manufactured through manipulation and threat.
Now I held his gaze without flinching. The leverage was gone. James had married someone else. The secret was irrelevant. I had nothing left to hide, and Sebastian had nothing left to hold over me.
"I'll be evaluating both candidates based on leadership qualities. Not personal history."
"Of course you will." He smirked, the expression sharp and knowing. "But you're not stupid enough to actually consider James. You're capable of making the right choice."
"If you continue like this," I said coolly, keeping my voice level despite the anger simmering beneath my skin, "your chances will be significantly diminished."
Something flickered in his expression—surprise, maybe. Or appreciation. The smirk wavered for just a fraction of a second before settling back into place, but I'd seen it.
I'd caught him off guard, and some petty part of me savored the small victory.
He stepped back, putting distance between us. A folder appeared in his hand—I hadn't noticed him carrying it.
He turned toward the door, and as he passed me, he gave my backside a light smack with the folder. Casual. Deliberate. A reminder that even without leverage, he still believed he could do whatever he wanted.
"Looking forward to working with you, Belle."
He was gone before I could respond, disappearing through the doorway and leaving me alone with the humming machines and the echo of his retreating footsteps.
I stood frozen for a long moment, hands clenched at my sides, heart pounding with fury I refused to name. The spot where he'd touched me burned with indignation.
Every muscle in my body screamed to chase him down, to tell him exactly what I thought of his games and his arrogance and his smug, self-satisfied smile.
But I didn't move. I stayed by the printer, breathing slowly, forcing my pulse to steady.
This was going to be a very long three months.