My laptop screen glowed in the gray morning light. Coffee going cold while hands not quite steady.
Official email. Hôpital Américain de Neuilly. The one I'd tried to convince myself was a mistake.
We require your signature to formally close your outstanding balance. Receipt attached.
I clicked.
Current balance: €0.00
Forty-seven thousand euros. Indeed vanished.
No doubts this was real. Someone had actually paid for this.
Sofia didn't have that kind of money. Luc definitely didn't. No wealthy relatives. No secret benefactors. Which left exactly one person.
Luc's words echoed in my head. ‘You start working for this billionaire. Then suddenly your hospital bills vanish?’
Alan had the resources. He'd been investigating me. He knew about Amélie. The timing was too perfect.
It was him. Had to be. But I couldn't prove it. Anonymous payment. And I couldn't walk into his office demanding confirmation without destroying myself.
This wasn't charity. This was control. A leash disguised as generosity.
I closed the laptop. Stared at my reflection on the black screen. The beige blouse. Low heels. Tight ponytail. All of it suddenly felt like a costume for a role I'd already lost.
The lobby at Veridian hummed differently today.
People standing straighter. Eyes tracking something. Then the glass doors opened and she walked in like she'd been Photoshopped into reality.
Silk dress that moved like water. Heels that could've been weapons. An assistant trailing behind with shopping bags that probably cost more than my car.
Anna Artois. Of course.
She crossed the marble without looking at anyone. Glanced at my workstation—through me, really—and swept into Alan's private elevator.
The doors closed and I exhaled.
An hour later my phone lit up with a message: ‘My office. Now.’
I grabbed my tablet and walked to the elevator on autopilot. Knocked once and entered. Anna was perched on the edge of his desk, legs crossed, while I stood by the door and tried to remember how to be invisible.
"Madame Garnier." Alan didn't look up from his papers as usual. "You'll be the primary liaison with Mademoiselle Artois's team for our engagement gala."
Right. Because planning the wedding of my boss for whom I began falling for wasn't humiliating enough already.
"It will also serve as the official launch for the Iris Project."
That word again. Iris. It hits wrong every single time.
Anna smiled, all teeth and no warmth. "We're holding it at the Musée Rodin. The gardens are lovely in spring."
She turned those ice-chip eyes on me. "You're familiar with museums? My father is very particular."
The subtext couldn't be clearer. ‘You don't belong in our world.’
"I'm familiar with the Musée Rodin."
"Perfect." She examined her nails. "Start by fetching me a café crème. Two sugars."
My face went hot and cold all at once. I nodded, already calculating the fastest route to anywhere else, but Alan's voice cut clean through the room.
Quiet, controlled and absolutely lethal.
"Madame Garnier is my executive assistant, Anna. Not yours."
The air changed. Charged.
"She manages Veridian Group's strategic operations." Still not looking up. "She does not fetch coffee."
Silence. The kind that has weight, and Anna's smile froze. Color rising on her perfect sharp cheekbones. "I was simply—"
"I'm aware." Now he looked up finally. Met her eyes. "Don't."
I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. My pulse was doing something violent and stupid in my throat.
He'd just… In front of his fiancée…
Anna stood, smoothing her dress with hands that shook slightly.
"Of course." Venom wrapped in silk. "I'll send my assistant to coordinate." She looked at me then. Through me, actually. "Madame Garnier."
Then her heels clicked fury all the way to the door before it closed.
Silence again, but different kind this time.
Alan's eyes were locked on mine. Dark and unreadable. Something underneath I couldn't name.
The space between us felt electric. Wrong and dangerous.
"However." Back to business. Just like that. "I need you to handle an urgent matter. My grandfather will be joining the board meeting tomorrow."
My chest tightened.
"Henri Delaunay. He's reviewing the final Iris Project proposal before the merger." The name settled heavy. Ominous. "You'll take the minutes. He's particular."
His gaze held mine with a lot of meanings. "Do not be late."
"Understood."
"That's all."
I left on legs that didn't feel attached to my body.
At my desk, I stared at the glass walls. At Alan through them. He was already back to work, papers and screen and calls.
Like the last five minutes hadn't happened. Like he hadn't defended me.
Like he hadn't looked at me with eyes that said something his mouth refused to.
My phone buzzed. The hospital email is still open on my laptop. His grandfather's name is on my calendar for tomorrow and Anna's engagement gala files are stacked beside my keyboard.
He dug up Cléry, discovered Amélie, connected the dots about why I vanished.
Then defended me against his own fiancée.
I pulled up the hospital receipt again. Stared at those zeros. This was a leash. A claim. Or a message.
But the way he'd said ‘my’ executive assistant… The way his voice had gone cold and sharp when Anna tried to humiliate me. The way he'd looked at me after she left…
That wasn't about power. That was something else.
Something that made my pulse race and my brain scream ‘danger danger danger.’
I glanced up, through the glass walls I saw it. He was watching me. Again.
Our eyes met. Held.
He didn't look away. Neither did I.
The moment stretched, pulled tight. Something building between us through glass and distance and all the reasons this was impossible.
Then his phone rang and he answered, turning away, so I could breathe again.
I looked back at my screen. At the engagement gala files I had to organize. At tomorrow's meeting with his grandfather.
Professional. Efficient. Completely fucked.
Because I was falling for my engaged boss who'd either saved my daughter or bought my silence.
Who defended me one second and dismissed me the next.
Who looked at me like I was a problem he couldn't solve.
And I had no idea if he wanted to help me or destroy me. But God, the way he'd said ‘my’ assistant… It was doing things to me.
Like I belonged to him. Like Anna didn't.