POV Floris
I wasn’t even settled at my desk yet when the scent of strawberry and lemon hit me like a perfumed freight train. Sia materialized beside my chair, coffee in hand, looking like she’d been waiting for hours.
“Where did you go last night for dinner?” she asked without preamble.
“Good morning to you too.”
“Don’t deflect. You left with Eric, didn’t come back until after midnight. Where did he take you?”
I sank into my chair, suddenly exhausted. “His mother’s house. In Haarlem.”
Sia went very still. “He took you to meet Helena?”
“Yeah. Dinner. Family bonding. The whole domestic nightmare.”
“He usually brings his assistants there.”
That stopped me cold. “Usually?”
“Family dinners are part of the… process. Helena likes to evaluate the new acquisitions.”
“Acquisitions.” The word tasted bitter. “That’s what she called me too. Asked if he knew what he was doing, keeping someone so ‘untamed.’”
Sia frowned. “That’s odd.”
“What’s odd? That she thinks I’m a wild animal?”
“No, that she said anything at all. Helena’s usually… different with us.”
“Different how?”
“Quiet. Polite. Dinner conversation about the weather and current events. She’s never been condescending or critical.” Sia’s frown deepened. “What exactly did she say to you?”
“That I wasn’t compliant enough. That Eric couldn’t control his own employees. That I had too much mouth for a girl.” I replayed the evening in my head. “She basically treated me like defective merchandise he’d brought home for her approval.”
“Jesus.” Sia sat down across from me. “She’s never done that before.”
“Maybe because the others were already broken by the time they met her?”
“Maybe.” But she didn’t sound convinced.
“Anyway, Eric lost his shit and we left before dinner was even served.”
“He defended you?”
“I guess? He told her we were leaving and walked out when she kept pushing.”
Sia stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “Eric has never walked out on his mother. Ever.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”
“Floris.” Her voice went serious. “You need to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Whatever you’re doing. This game you’re playing with him. It’s getting dangerous.”
“I’m not playing any game—”
“Bullshit. You hacked his system, found his archives, confronted him about his past. You’re pushing boundaries that have gotten other women disappeared.”
“I’m just trying to survive—”
“Are you? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re trying to save him.”
The accusation hit like a slap. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? He defended you to his mother. Walked out on family dinner. Changed his entire routine because you’re not following the script.” She leaned forward. “You’re not behaving like his other assistants, and he’s not treating you like them either.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that you’re in uncharted territory. The rules I know, the patterns I’ve seen—they don’t apply to whatever this is between you two.”
“There’s nothing between us—”
“Don’t lie to me. I can smell his cologne on you from yesterday.”
I felt heat rise to my cheeks. “We had dinner. Of course I smell like—”
“You kissed him.”
The words hung in the air like an accusation. I opened my mouth to deny it, then closed it again.
“Floris, what the fuck are you thinking?”
“I’m not thinking. That’s the problem.”
“Then start thinking. Before this gets any worse.”
“It can’t get worse. My brother needs his treatment, I need this job, and Eric holds all the cards. I don’t have choices here.”
“You always have choices.”
“Do I? Really? Because last I checked, my options were compliance or watching Jake die.”
“There are other options.”
“Like what?”
“Like walking away. Taking Jake and disappearing. Starting over somewhere Eric can’t find you.”
I laughed, sharp and bitter. “With what money? What resources? Eric owns me, Sia. Financially, professionally, legally. There is no walking away.”
“There’s always walking away. The question is what you’re willing to sacrifice for it.”
“My brother’s life? That’s not a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“What about your dignity?”
The question hit like a physical blow. “What?”
“Your dignity. Your self-respect. Your sense of who you are as a person.” She leaned back. “Is your brother’s life worth more than that?”
“How can you even ask me that?”
“Because I’ve been where you are. I made the same choices, told myself the same lies. I sacrificed everything I was to keep someone I loved safe.”
“And?”
“And I survived. But the person who walked out of Eric’s office fifteen years later wasn’t the same person who walked in. She was hollowed out, broken, rebuilt in his image.” Her eyes were haunted. “Is that what you want? To save your brother by destroying yourself?”
“I won’t let it get that far.”
“That’s what they all say. That’s what I said.” She stood up. “But Eric doesn’t just break people, Floris. He makes them complicit in their own destruction. He makes them grateful for it.”
“I’m not you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re worse. Because you’re falling in love with him.”
“I’m not—”
“You are. And that makes you more dangerous to him than any of us ever were. It also makes you more dangerous to yourself.”
She walked toward the door, then paused.
“For what it’s worth, I hope you figure out how to beat him. But if you don’t, at least try to remember who you were before he got his hooks in you.”