I wake to my office door opening with the kind of timing that suggests the universe has a sick sense of humor and excellent comedic delivery.
Caroline's asleep against my chest, both of us barely covered by my jacket and her dress that's doing absolutely nothing to preserve dignity. We're a rom-com disaster minus the rom and heavy on the disaster.
Claire stands in the doorway holding coffee and morning files, her face cycling through shock, hurt, anger, devastation in rapid succession with the efficiency of someone scrolling through their ex's Instagram at 2 AM.
"I—" Her voice breaks. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize—you usually arrive by seven, I thought I'd get everything ready—"
"Claire—" I try to sit up without disturbing Caroline, fail completely, and manage to look even more guilty than I actually am, which is impressive given the circumstances.
Caroline wakes, registers Claire with the horror of someone realizing their worst nightmare is happening in real-time, grabs her dress with mortified efficiency. "Oh my God…"
Claire's already backing out, files clutched to her chest like armor that's failing spectacularly. "I'll come back later. When you're—" She can't finish, just turns and runs.
"Fuck!" I'm pulling on pants, hopping on one leg, trying to follow while my belt buckle actively conspires against me.
When I reach the elevators, she's gone. The doors are closing on her devastated expression and I'm standing in the hallway half-dressed with my shirt inside out, looking exactly like the asshole I apparently am.
Caroline's fully dressed by the time I return to my office, makeup smudged in ways that scream "walk of shame," hair a disaster that no amount of finger-combing will fix, looking like she wants the floor to open up and swallow her into a dimension where this morning didn't happen.
"That was Claire, your assistant… The one you have feelings for." Just observation delivered with that sharp intelligence that makes her dangerous.
"Caroline—"
"I should go. This was—last night was a mistake." She's at the door, one hand on the frame. "A really spectacular, emotionally devastating mistake that we're both going to regret for different reasons."
"Wait—"
"Don't." She stops, and when she looks at me her eyes are bright with tears she won't let fall. "I came here looking for closure. Instead I just fucked my ex-boyfriend in his office while his current love interest walked in on us. This is a new low even for me, and I once cried in a Forever 21 dressing room because nothing fit."
"She's not my current—we're not together—"
"But you want to be, and I can see it on your face." Caroline's voice goes soft, loses all the brightness. "The way you looked at her just now, the panic—that's not professional concern."
She leaves before I can argue because arguing would require lying and we're both too exhausted for that particular performance.
I stand in my office still smelling like sex and my own spectacular life choices, knowing I just destroyed whatever fragile working relationship I'd managed to rebuild with Claire.
Calling her goes straight to voicemail. The robotic voice informing me the subscriber is unavailable feels personally targeted.
Texts go unanswered. The read receipts mock me—she's seeing my apologies and deliberately ignoring them, which is somehow worse than blocking me entirely.
When I show up at her apartment around noon, the doorman takes one look at me and says, "Ms. Bennett is not receiving visitors."
"I'm her employer—"
"She was very clear about that not mattering." He crosses his arms with the authority of someone who's dealt with desperate men before. "Have a nice day, sir."
Back at the office, her desk is cleared. Computer locked with a password I don't have. A note in her perfect handwriting sits in the center: "Taking personal days. Back Monday." The professional distance of that signature lands like a slap.
Monday comes, but Claire doesn't. Tuesday she sends an email at 6 AM: "I’m still sick, will advise when I'm able to return."
Wednesday I'm climbing the walls, snapping at associates who don't deserve it, making Sandra—who came back when Claire disappeared—cry twice before noon.
I call Jessica, that same friend of Claire who picked up her things last time with judgment radiating from every pore.
"She doesn't want to talk to you." Her voice could freeze helium. "And… Honestly? After what you did, I don't blame her, so leave her alone."
"I need to explain—"
"Let her move on, and stop calling or texting. Stop showing up at her building like some stalker who doesn't understand what 'no' means." Her voice climbs. "You've done enough damage." Click.
Thursday Magnus calls with that tone that suggests he's already furious and I haven't even spoken yet.
"Your Colorado operations are a mess. Client complaints are up fifteen percent, your assistant's disappeared, and I'm hearing rumors you're having an affair with Caroline Montgomery." He's not even trying to hide his disappointment. "What the hell is going on down there?"
"It's under control."
"It's clearly not if I'm getting calls from clients asking if we're stable." His voice goes hard with that Alpha authority that makes my wolf want to submit. "Whatever personal disasters you're creating, fix them before they destroy what you've built."
"I'm handling—"
"You're drowning and taking the company down with you." He pauses. "Lysander, I'm asking you as your father—what's going on?"
The concern in his voice makes my chest tight. "I fucked up, with Claire and with everything."
"Unfuck it." He says it simply, like it's that easy. "Stop hedging, stop keeping options open, stop being so terrified of making the wrong choice that you make every wrong choice simultaneously."
He hangs up, and I sit in my office at six PM on a Thursday, surrounded by the success I fought for, realizing I've systematically destroyed every relationship that matters.