The day after my "confession" was suffocatingly quiet. Alan didn't call me into his office. Didn't send sharp emails. Didn't ask for coffee.
He just existed. A dark, brooding presence behind glass walls, watching.
I sat at my desk pretending to work, but every nerve in my body was on fire. I could feel his gaze boring into my back, steady and unrelenting.
This silence was worse than cruelty. This was the silence of a predator thinking.
At 12:30 PM, the intercom buzzed so loudly I jumped. "Madame Garnier. My office."
I grabbed my notepad and walked in, my pulse hammering. He wasn't at his desk. He stood by the window, shrugging into his suit jacket with deliberate precision.
"Monsieur?"
"We have a lunch meeting," he said, adjusting his cuffs without looking at me.
I pulled out my tablet, scrolling frantically through his calendar. "My apologies, Monsieur, but I don't have a meeting scheduled. With whom?"
He turned, his dark eyes locking onto mine. "With you."
My blood ran cold. "Me? Sir?"
"Is there an echo, Madame Garnier?" He didn't wait for an answer. He strode past me and out the door, expecting me to follow like a well-trained shadow.
I had to hurry to catch up.
He bypassed his private elevator and headed to the main bank. When he pressed the button for the 39th floor, my stomach dropped.
"Monsieur, I... I usually eat at my desk," I whispered, panic clawing up my throat.
"Not today."
The elevator doors opened onto a vast, sunlit room with panoramic views of Paris. The executive dining hall. It was filled with Veridian's top-tier VPs, directors, and lawyers—people who earned more in a month than I'd made in a year.
The second Alan stepped inside, the room went dead silent. Forks froze mid-air. Conversations died.
I realized with dawning horror that Alan Delaunay never ate here. He took meals in his penthouse or at his desk, isolated and untouchable.
His presence here was a statement.
He ignored the silence and walked to the most visible table in the center of the room, right by the glass. A waiter rushed over, practically trembling.
Alan didn't even glance at the menu. "Two plats du jour. A bottle of Badoit."
He dismissed the waiter with a flick of his hand and fixed his gaze on me. I felt pinned to my chair, every eye in the room burning into my skin.
Across the hall, I caught sight of Julien, the lawyer from the water cooler. His eyes were wide with shock.
"Monsieur, what is this?" I whispered, my hands clenched in my lap. "Everyone is staring at us."
"Let them stare." His voice was low, meant only for me. He unfolded his napkin with infuriating calm. "It's good for morale. They should see their CEO is... accessible."
The food arrived. I stared at my plate, my stomach a tight knot of dread. There was no way I could eat.
"About your story, Élise..." His voice was a low murmur, intimate and dangerous.
His knee brushed mine under the table. I flinched.
"The espionage one," he continued, a cold smile playing on his lips. "It was compelling. Well-delivered."
"It was the truth, Monsieur."
"Was it?" He leaned in closer, forcing me to meet his gaze. The entire room pretended not to watch, but I could feel their attention like static electricity. "You were terrified. I saw it. You were shaking."
I said nothing.
"Just like you were at the gala," he added, his voice dropping even lower. "Just like you are right now."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Don't you?" His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingered there for a beat too long. "I find it fascinating. That you can be so composed on the outside, and so full of... fire... on the inside."
My face burned.
"I saw that fire five years ago," he murmured. "I saw it in my office when you held that pin. And I'm seeing it now. You're trying so hard not to run."
"This is inappropriate," I whispered.
"Inappropriate is lying to me for weeks," he countered, his voice still that velvet whisper. "Inappropriate is walking into my company holding the biggest secret of your life." He picked up his fork. "Eat your food, Élise. You'll need your strength."
He sat back, the spell broken. He was her boss again—cold, controlled, untouchable.
But the message had been sent. To me. To the entire company.
I was his.
That night, I sat in my tiny apartment staring at my laptop screen, the events of the day replaying in an endless loop. He wasn't just tormenting me. He was claiming me, marking territory in front of the entire office.
And my espionage lie was the only thing standing between him and Amélie.
I had to find proof. Something concrete to make him stop digging, stop questioning, stop looking at me like I was a puzzle he was determined to solve.
I opened my laptop and typed in the archive password—1810. The Iris Project files loaded, and I didn't just search. I hunted.
I used old backdoors from my foundation days, tricks I'd learned navigating donor databases and confidential files. Every click risked setting off alarms, but I was past caring.
Hours blurred together. My eyes burned. My coffee went cold.
At 3 AM, I found it.
A folder buried deep in the legacy files, labeled "Gala_Musée_Contingency." Inside was a single encrypted video file.
My hands trembled as I decrypted it using a workaround I shouldn't have known. The video was grainy, shot from a hidden camera, the timestamp reading one week before the gala.
Two men stood in a shadowed alcove. Henri Delaunay, thin and severe in his expensive suit. And my old boss from the Cléry Foundation, fidgeting nervously.
I turned up the volume.
"The timing must be precise," Henri's voice was cold and clinical. "The raid occurs the morning after the gala. Your people will be implicated. Mine will remain untouched."
"And the girl?" My boss's voice was shaky. "The event coordinator?"
"A necessary sacrifice," Henri said without hesitation. "Collateral damage. She'll run, and no one will ask questions."
The screen went black.
I sat there, frozen, my entire world tilting sideways. My lie—the story I'd fabricated in desperation to protect Amélie—it wasn't a lie at all.
I was a pawn. Henri Delaunay had orchestrated the entire thing. The gala. The raid. My destruction.
And Alan had no idea his grandfather was the monster pulling the strings.