YOU’RE MINE, Miss Intern.

Chapter six

Ann thought she was done for the day when Rhea dropped a garment bag on her desk.

“Do not ask if this is a joke,” Rhea said. “It is not. The Hartwell dinner moved up…I am stuck on a call that cannot die, and someone has to sit at that table with a pulse and a notebook.”

Ann looked at the bag like it might bite. “I don’t have clothes for a client's dinner.”

“You do now. Spare from hospitality, it will fit well enough. The car leaves in thirty minutes, hair up, no cheap jewelry. If Hartwell talks over you, let him. If he asks what you do, you say you are with the support team. You do not say intern, do not say anything clever.”

Ann unzipped the bag, she saw a black simple dress, better than anything she owned and still not hers. “Why me?”

Rhea finally looked at her. “Because the other option is sending someone who will drink too much and talk too much. You do neither, that is the only compliment you are getting.”

In the bathroom Ann changed quickly and avoided her own face in the mirror until she had to. The dress made her look like she belonged in rooms she could not afford to enter. That almost felt worse than looking out of place.

Her phone beeped, it was a message from her mother. Did you eat?

Ann typed back yes, even though she had not, then shut the phone off before guilt could follow her into the night.

The car waited patiently, inside, Mikel was deep in conversation, one hand resting against his forehead, tension visible in his posture. When she slid into the seat beside him, he didn’t glance her way, finishing the call before turning to her.

Then, finally, his eyes met hers. “Rhea is not coming,” he said.

“She sent me.”

“I can see that.”

Ann kept her bag on her knees. “I can take notes and stay quiet.”

“You will stay quiet,” Mikel said. “Hartwell likes an audience. He does not like being corrected by people he has not decided to respect.”

“I wasn’t planning on correcting him.”

“Good.” His eyes moved over the dress, then away. “Do not thank anyone for pouring your water, do not apologize for existing. If you get lost in the conversation, look at me.”

Ann frowned. “That sounds like a rule.”

“It is.”

The restaurant was above the street like it had never heard of a late bill. A host who knew Mikel on sight and pretended Ann was part of the same world.

Hartwell was already at the table, older, laughing loudly. The kind of man who shook hands too long. There was another empty chair beside Mikel and one across from Hartwell.

Ann moved toward the farther one. Mikel’s voice stopped her without rising. “Here.”

He had already drawn the closer chair back. Beside him, not across from the client.

Ann sat because the alternative was making a scene. Hartwell’s smile went faint. “New face.”

“Ann Cole,” Mikel said, before she could. “She is with me this evening.”

Hartwell looked at her again, slower this time. “Pretty way to fill a seat.”

Ann felt so uncomfortable but she kept her face still.

Mikel unfolded his napkin. “She is here because she sees numbers other people miss. You can make jokes after we talk about why your last shipment came in late and over budget.”

The table cooled. Dinner began, wine untouched by Ann. The food sat before her, its warmth fading as silence stretched between bites.

Hartwell talked in circles, then in complaints, then in the kind of charm that wanted a laugh in return. Ann wrote down dates and figures and the way he changed a story the second time he told it.

Twice he asked her questions that were not questions. “You must be new to rooms like this.”

“I am here to work,” Ann said.

Hartwell smiled at Mikel. “Careful. This one has a mouth.”

Ann looked down at her notes. Rhea’s warning sat in her ear, let him.

Mikel did not look at her. “If you have a point about the contract, make it. If you do not, stop performing.”

Hartwell laughed, but the sound felt forced, awkward in the quiet room. The meal seemed to stretch endlessly. Once the plates were cleared, he leaned back, tapping the table gently near Ann’s glass, breaking the silence with a deliberate pause.

“Go on then. The quiet ones always have an opinion they are dying to give. What do you think of my terms?”

Rhea would have told her to smile and pass it back to Mikel. Ann thought of the site visit, the moved number and the way pretty figures lied.

She kept her voice even. “Your terms look generous until the penalties sit on our side and the delays sit on yours. That is not a partnership, that is you renting our patience.”

Hartwell stared at her, then he laughed too loudly. “There it is. The girl speaks.”

Mikel set his glass down. “She is right,” he said. “Which is why the terms change before I sign anything else. You will not use my table to test how small you can make the people I bring with me. Do it again and we are done tonight.”

Hartwell’s face lost some of its color. He muttered something about a joke and reached for his wine. The rest of the dinner was shorter. When it ended, he left first, still smiling with his teeth and nothing else.

Ann waited until they were outside to breathe, the night air felt honest after the restaurant. Mikel handed his ticket to the driver and did not speak until the car doors shut. “I told you to stay quiet.”

“He asked.”

“He was trying to put you on a stage.”

Ann turned toward the window. “Then you should have sent someone who likes stages.”

“I sent the person who caught his delay pattern in a notebook while he was busy talking.” Mikel’s tone stayed down. “That does not mean you take the bait next time.”

“I wasn’t asking you to step in.”

“I did not ask if you were.” The car moved through the city. Ann watched the lights smear across the glass and tried to hold onto anger because anger was simpler than the other thing sitting in her chest.

Then she said he let the other man talk for a while, and he confirmed it was to see how she would react. Ann looked at him and called it a poor test, but he said it told him enough.

When she asked what it told him, Mikel’s gaze held hers steady as he explained that she wouldn’t back down just because a man like that wanted her to, which was useful and also dangerous in his rooms.

Ann let out a short breath. “Everything in your rooms is dangerous.”

Something almost like agreement passed through his face. “You changed the seat,” she said after a moment. “There was a chair across from him.”

“I know.”

“Why put me next to you?”

Mikel looked forward again. “Because I do not put my people where they can be played with.”

Ann hated how easily the words found a place to land. “I do not need protection.”

“I did not say you did.” His voice dropped. “I said I would not offer you up.”

The car stopped in front of Damaris Group first, then, when Ann started to reach for the door, Mikel spoke again. “The driver will take you home.”

“I can take the train.”

“I am aware of what you can do.” He checked his phone, already moving on and not moving on at all. “It is late. You were in my meeting, you will not stand on a platform in that dress because you want to prove a point.”

Ann wanted to argue but the argument felt childish in her mouth. “Fine.”

She gave the driver the stop nearest her building, not the door. Pride still had to live somewhere.

When the car pulled away from Mikel’s building, he did not tell her good night, he only said, “Tomorrow, eight in the morning, don’t forget the notes.”

Ann sat back and watched his figure disappear through the doors. At the corner near her street she got out and walked the last stretch on her own.

The dress felt like a secret under her coat. In the stairwell she paused, took it off her shoulders in her mind, and put the night back where it belonged.

Ann unlocked the apartment quietly. Her mother was asleep, the pillbox on the table was still open from the morning.

She stood there in the dark for a long time, holding the notes Mikel wanted at eight.

Although he had not been kind, but he had been clear and clarity, she was learning, could feel a lot like being claimed.