Nine AM at Sullivan Stone Company's forty-floor monument to capitalism made my best blazer look like I'd stolen it from a mall mannequin.
"Dakota!" Stephen appeared in the lobby like corporate America's answer to a greeting card, holding two coffees. "Perfect timing. Thought you might need caffeine for the morning briefing."
Oat milk latte, extra shot, half pump vanilla.
My exact order for the past three years. "How did you—"
"Lucky guess," he said with the biggest smile. "Come on, I'll give you the tour before Titus starts his structural inquisition."
"Structural inquisition sounds ominous," I said, following him to the elevator. "Should I have brought a lawyer? Or a priest?"
Stephen laughed, pressing the button for the twentieth floor.
"Just your brain and maybe some patience. Titus can be... intense about specifications."
"Intense. Right…"
The twentieth floor hallway cost more than my education. Stephen played tour guide past abstract art that looked like money having an identity crisis.
"Fair warning—when Titus gets that look, like he's mentally recalculating the universe's mathematical constants, just let him work through it. Fighting makes it worse."
"What look?"
"You'll know it when you see it."
The conference room was glass and ergonomic intimidation. Titus was already there, surrounded by enough spreadsheets to wallpaper Manhattan.
"Dakota." No hello, just acknowledgement. "I've been reviewing your foundation proposals."
"Good morning to you too," I muttered, setting down my coffee.
Stephen's hand brushed my shoulder as he moved past. Casual and brief, but somehow my skin burned through two layers of fabric.
"I've identified several areas where your calculations could be optimized," Titus continued, finally raising those intense hazel eyes. "Your safety margins are excessive."
"Excessive?" I leaned over the papers, trying to ignore Stephen.
He positioned himself close enough that I could smell his cologne, something that probably had a pretentious name like 'Boardroom Seduction.'
"Those margins account for potential soil shift over the building's lifetime."
"The probability of that level of shift is 0.0003%," Titus said, pulling up his laptop. "You're overengineering."
"And you're underestimating Manhattan's tendency to surprise us," I shot back, grabbing his laptop to pull up my geological data. "See this? That's a fault line that wasn't on surveys from ten years ago. Small, yes, but… wait. This calculation is wrong."
I pointed to his load-bearing specifications for the northeast corner.
"You forgot to account for wind shear at that height. Your numbers are off by—"
"They're not off." His voice went arctic, the temperature in the room plummeting faster than my dating prospects. "I don't make mistakes like that."
"Everyone makes mistakes," I said, pulling up the correct formula. "Look, you just need to adjust for—"
"Hey," Stephen interjected, his laugh sounding like someone had strangled a golden retriever. "No harm done, Titus. Easy fix."
But Titus's stare could've frozen hell.
His jaw worked like he was chewing glass, and I realized I'd just committed the cardinal sin of proving a Sullivan brother wrong.
The silence that followed was so thick you could've built another skyscraper with it.
"Well," Stephen said, clearly trying to resurrect the mood from whatever grave I'd just dug, "how about we move on to timeline discussions? Raphael should be here—"
The door opened like it had been choreographed, and Raphael entered with the kind of presence that made everyone else feel like extras in his movie.
"Are we ready to begin?"
He didn't ask so much as decree, settling at the head of the table like a king taking his throne.
"Dakota found an error in Titus's calculations," Stephen offered, apparently deciding to throw me under whatever bus was convenient.
Thanks for the assist, sunshine. Really needed that target painted on me.
Raphael's dark gaze swung to me. "Did she?"
"Minor wind shear oversight," I said, trying to sound casual while Titus looked like he wanted to calculate the exact force needed to throw me out the window. "Easy fix."
Titus looked ready to calculate the trajectory needed to launch me through the window.
"I see." Raphael opened his tablet. "Let's discuss your proposed modifications to the upper floor layouts. I have concerns."
Of course he did.
For the next hour, he dissected my designs with surgical precision, questioning every choice, every angle, every fucking doorway placement.
He zoomed into one of the renderings and looked up with a raised brow.
"Executive floors need natural light," he declared, swiping through my designs like they’d personally offended him. "This is a bunker."
I didn’t flinch. “It’s called executive privacy. Your millionaires aren’t paying for reality TV exposure.”
“They’re paying for spaces that project success.”
I stepped closer, tapped the screen over two walls. “Fine. Floor-to-ceiling here and here. Privacy maintained, ego stroked.”
He paused, not because he was defeated, but because he was recalibrating. Something shifted behind his usually impassive expression. Not approval—but recognition. Respect, maybe.
"Acceptable."
From Raphael Sullivan, that was practically a Nobel Prize.
The morning blurred into technical warfare disguised as collaboration. I dove deep into blueprints and load calculations, using them as shields against the constant awareness.
Stephen kept finding reasons to lean close—checking figures, reviewing details—each proximity another test of my focus.
Titus hadn't looked at me since the calculation incident, but I caught him drumming his fingers—tap tap tap pause, tap tap tap pause, tap tap pause tap tap.
Like morse code for 'I'm plotting your demise.'
And Raphael... fuck, Raphael commanded the room without trying. His every movement was controlled and purposeful.
Except once, when his assistant knocked to remind him about something, and he said, "Tell Lily I'll try to make the play."
The softness in his voice lasted maybe two seconds, but it was like seeing Superman bleed—proof he was human after all.
God, remember why you're here. Freeman Industries. Not to decode emotionally constipated billionaires.
"I think we've covered enough for today," Raphael announced as the clock hit four. "Dakota, we'll need your revised proposals by Friday."
"You'll have them by Thursday," I said, because apparently I was a masochist who liked impossible deadlines.
The room went quiet for a beat, and I could feel three pairs of eyes land on me.
It wasn't defiance, not really. More like desperation wrapped in determination. But if I didn’t push myself, who else would take me seriously?
Stephen fell into step beside me as I headed for the elevator.
"Ambitious," he said, almost like it was a compliment. "I appreciate that quality."
"What other qualities do you appreciate?" The question escaped before my professional filter engaged.
Shit. That sounded like flirting. Flirting with your dad’s extremely hot and way older than me business partners.
Cancel. CANCEL.
He grinned."Your thorough preparation. Your attention to detail. Your complete inability to hide what you're thinking."
"I hide plenty," I protested.
"Sure you do." The elevator opened, and he stepped back. "See you tomorrow, Dakota. Wear something comfortable, we'll be doing site visits."
But I was halfway through the lobby when I realized I'd left my phone in the conference room.
The elevator ride back up felt longer, probably because I was mentally kicking myself for flirting with Stephen fucking Sullivan.
Twentieth floor, deserted. Almost at the conference room when Stephen's voice filtered through the door.
"Yes, Bruce, she's a good assistant. Very thorough, very dedicated." A pause. "She'll be easy to handle."
The words hit like a physical blow.
Assistant. Manageable. Easy to handle.
Not an architect. Not a partner. Not an equal.
Just an assistant to be managed.
The coffee turned bitter in my stomach as clarity struck. The perfect order, the warm smiles—it wasn’t an interest.
It was Stephen Sullivan doing what he did best: managing people.
And I was just another one to handle. If they didn’t see me as their equal, I’d lose more than pride—I’d lose my shot at leading.
The firm would be theirs. Freeman Industries would become another Sullivan acquisition, and I'd become another footnote in someone else's success story.
I backed away from the door, phone forgotten, fury building.
Well then, from tomorrow these privileged assholes would learn exactly what kind of "assistant" they were dealing with.