"I was wondering if there are any additional projects that qualify for overtime compensation."
Hargrove stares at me like I've grown a second head.
"Or anything in the quarterly bonus pool," I continue, keeping my voice steady, professional. "I finished the Henderson revisions early, and I'm available for extended hours. Whatever pays extra."
"Additional projects," he repeats slowly. "Let me get this straight. You, who could barely handle the Henderson account, are asking me for bonus-eligible work?"
"I need the money, sir." The admission costs me something, but desperation strips away pride. "I'll take anything. Weekend shifts. Holiday coverage. Whatever nobody else wants."
Hargrove studies me for a long moment, suspicion battling with the opportunity to offload work he doesn't want to do himself.
Greed wins, as it always does with men like him.
"Fine."
He shuffles through the papers on his desk, pulling a thick folder from the chaos.
"The quarterly analysis for the Mercer portfolio needs executive sign-off before it goes to the board. Research the comparable market projections and compile supporting data. You'll need approval from the thirty-second floor. Complete it by end of day and I'll authorize eight hours overtime."
My stomach drops.
The thirty-second floor is executive territory—the penthouse level where men like Cole Varkas operate.
"The executive floor," I hear myself say. "Who specifically needs to sign off?"
"Asher Varkas." Hargrove's mouth twists into a smirk that doesn't reach his eyes. "Good luck with that. The overtime's yours if you survive him."
He waves me away, already reaching for his phone, and I retreat to my cubicle.
Asher Varkas.
The name triggers a memory: ice-blonde hair, eyes like frozen steel, the way he materialized in the elevator lobby while I stood covered in coffee and falling apart.
Is there a problem? His voice had cut through the chaos with surgical precision.
Something twists low in my stomach. The man looked like winter given human form, and some broken part of me found that unbearably attractive.
I remember the way his gaze swept over me—clinical, assessing—and how my traitorous body responded with heat instead of fear.
Stop it.
I shove the thought down into the vault where I keep every wrong desire, every dangerous impulse.
He's your boss's boss's boss, and your father is dying in a hospital bed.
I spend the next nine hours buried in data, cross-referencing market trends and building projections until my vision blurs.
The numbers become a wall between me and the impossible sum that could save my father.
By seven p.m., the office has emptied around me. I gather my materials and head for the elevator, my pulse accelerating with each ascending floor.
The thirty-second floor opens into a world of sleek minimalism—glass walls, dark wood, silence so thick it presses against my eardrums.
A single assistant's desk sits empty, its owner long gone for the evening.
I find his office at the end of the corridor, the door partially open, warm light spilling onto the polished floor.
I knock twice. No response.
"Mr. Varkas?" I step inside, folder clutched against my chest. "I'm Ethan Hale, from analytics. I have the Mercer portfolio analysis that requires your sign-off."
Asher Varkas doesn't look up.
He sits behind a desk the size of my apartment's kitchen, pen moving across documents with fluid efficiency, and the silence stretches until my nerves begin to unravel thread by thread.
He's doing this on purpose.
The realization settles somewhere in my stomach.
He wants me uncomfortable.
I stand there for one minute. Two. The clock on his wall ticks with deliberate cruelty.
Finally, without lifting his gaze, he speaks. "Leave it on the desk."
I cross the room and set the folder at the edge of his workspace, then step back, uncertain whether to stay or flee.
"Sit."
The command comes sharp and sudden.
I lower myself into the leather chair across from him, my spine rigid, and watch as he finally deigns to open my work.
His gaze moves down the first page, and I watch displeasure arrive.
"These projections assume static market conditions," he says, flipping to the second page. "Did you account for the interest rate adjustments scheduled for Q3?"
"I..." The words stick in my throat. "The original parameters didn't include that variable, sir."
"The original parameters were incomplete."
He looks up at me for the first time, and that colorless gaze pins me in place like a specimen under glass.
"Redo the analysis. You'll find the rate forecasts in the supplementary database, section seven."
I take the folder back with trembling hands and retreat to the small conference table near the window.
My laptop boots slowly while Asher returns to his own work, and the quiet becomes a living thing, watching me fail.
The first revision takes forty-five minutes. I bring it to his desk. He reads three pages and marks them with a red pen, his handwriting sharp and angular.
"Your methodology is sound, but your conclusions jump ahead of your evidence."
He taps the offending paragraph.
"Show me the logic chain. Don't make me assume you know what you're doing."
Logic chain. Evidence. Don't assume.
I revise again. He dissects again.
By the third attempt, something shifts in the air between us—his criticism becomes less blade and more scalpel, cutting away weakness to reveal the structure underneath.
"This margin of error is too generous," he says, leaning back in his chair. "What happens if you tighten it to two percent?"
"The projection becomes more vulnerable to quarterly fluctuations," I answer, the analysis crystallizing in my mind as I speak. "But it also becomes more accurate for long-term forecasting, which is what the board actually needs for the Mercer decision."
His pen pauses mid-stroke. His eyebrows lift almost imperceptibly, the frost in his gaze thawing by one degree.
"Show me."
The fourth revision flows differently.
My fingers move with purpose across the keyboard, building the argument the way he taught me without ever saying the word teach.
When I place the final version on his desk, my breath catches in my throat.
Asher reads it in silence. One page, then another, then the full document straight through without a single red mark.
"This is... acceptable."
His voice pulls my gaze back to his face, and for one reckless moment our eyes lock.
The air between us turns to something I could choke on. I feel my heartbeat in strange places—throat, wrists, the soft hollow behind my knees.
Those frozen-steel eyes hold mine and I cannot look away, cannot breathe, cannot do anything but sit here and burn while he watches me burn.
He knows. The certainty crashes through me like a wave. He sees exactly what you're thinking, exactly what you want, and he's not looking away.
Heat pools low in my stomach, dangerous and undeniable.
I feel myself leaning forward, drawn toward him like he's become the center of the room and I'm just debris caught in his orbit.
My lips part without permission, and his gaze drops to my mouth for one fraction of a second before snapping back to my eyes.
Oh god. Oh god, he looked at my mouth.
He signs the final page with a flourish and slides the folder back toward me.
"You have potential, Hale." His voice drops. "Your efficiency suffers when you're distracted. Address whatever's draining your reserves—you're no use to anyone running on empty."
The observation hits me like a punch to the sternum.
"Thank you, sir," I manage, my voice barely above a whisper. "I won't let it affect my work."
I leave his office with the signed folder pressed against my chest, the elevator descending through thirty-two floors of glass and steel while that single word echoes in the chambers of my skull.
Potential.
Not worthless. Not incompetent. Not the disappointment my father's fists tried to beat into permanent truth. But potential.
It sounds, impossibly, like something worth fighting for.