The Forbidden Line

9. The Forbidden Threshold

The harrowing silence inside the highest-floor room felt so dense, as though the oxygen had been completely sucked out by Garrick Valentino’s veiled anger. Valera Dawson remained frozen on top of the cold black glass work desk, her body trembling no longer from the residual taboo desire, but rather out of a pure fear gripping her very marrow. Beneath the underbelly of the desk, the crimson folder bearing Clarissa’s name felt like a time bomb ready to detonate their entire lives.

Garrick stood tall in front of Valera, his coatless appearance making his aura of physical intimidation feel far more oppressive. The man’s pair of gray eyes narrowed, staring down at Valera with a sharp gaze that looked as though it could strip bare the contents of her mind.

"Get down from the desk, Valera," Garrick commanded, his voice incredibly low, nearly a whisper, yet possessing an echo of authority that could not be disputed.

Valera moved stiffly, sliding her body and lowering her feet onto the marble floor with knees that still felt unstable. She clutched the yellow folder containing the tax reports she had brought earlier to her chest, using it as a fragile shield to cover her wildly pounding heartbeat.

Garrick did not shift his gaze from Valera as his hand moved beneath the desk. With one slow movement that was intentionally highlighted, his firm fingers pushed the secret drawer until it retreated back into the oak paneling, followed by a mechanical click sound that locked the document tightly into the darkness. The massive secret was hidden once more, but everything was already too late. Valera had read the forbidden line of words.

"What did you see, Ms. Dawson?" Garrick asked, taking one step forward, erasing the distance between them until Valera could once again smell the masculine, mint-blended aroma that now felt suffocating. The man intentionally utilized Valera’s last name, a sign that his professional interrogation mode had been activated.

Valera swallowed hard, attempting to gather all the remaining courage inside her legal mind.

"I ... I accidentally touched the sensor, Mr. Valentino. I did not intend to see anything."

"I did not ask about your intentions," Garrick cut in swiftly, his voice as cold as the winter ice outside the window. "I asked about what was captured by those intelligent eyes of yours."

Valera clenched her fingers behind the yellow folder. She knew that lying in front of a man who was thoroughly accustomed to reading the lies of Wall Street tycoons was suicide.

"The adoption records ... of Clarissa. I saw Clarissa's name there."

Upon hearing that honest confession, Garrick’s jaw hardened until the veins in his neck strained. The man took yet another step forward, forcing Valera backward until her back hit the solid glass wall showcasing the glimmer of Manhattan city lights, which were blurred from being slicked by the rain. Garrick extended both of his hands, resting them on the glass to the right and left sides of Valera’s head, locking the girl within his incredibly narrow personal space.

"You are a smart law student, Valera. You surely know the consequences of knowing information that is not your right within this company," Garrick whispered directly in front of Valera’s face, his eyes glinting dangerously. "If a single word leaves your mouth about what you saw beneath that desk, I can ensure your scholarship is revoked, your name is blacklisted from every law firm in New York, and you will never be able to set foot in Manhattan again."

The threat was real, incredibly cold and merciless. However, beneath her deep fear, there was something within Valera that suddenly refused to bow down entirely. The sharpness of her logic began to function once more. She stared straight back into Garrick’s gray eyes, attempting to find a gap behind the dominant man’s wall of emotion.

"Why are you so afraid, Mr. Valentino?" Valera asked with a voice that trembled yet was laden with a reckless courage. "If Clarissa is an adopted child, why must that fact be hidden away like a massive crime? She loves you deeply. She adores you as her father. Will the fact that she does not share a blood relation with you change everything?"

"Silence, Valera!" Garrick’s hand grip on the glass wall beside Valera’s head tightened until a subtle squeaking sound echoed.

The man’s breath rushed, and for the very first time, Valera saw a tiny fraction of a crack in the absolute control mask of a Garrick Valentino. There was a deeply dense past pain and anger that suddenly boiled over from that pair of gray eyes.

"You know nothing about this family. You know nothing about what I had to sacrifice to keep that child smiling in this house!"

Valera was stunned. The man she had known all this time as a fierce, egoistic predator was now displaying a glint of destruction in his eyes that was incredibly foreign. Their intimate proximity over the past week allowed Valera to sense that Garrick’s current anger was not out of fear that his power would crumble, but rather because there was something far more fragile that he was protecting with his entire soul.

Garrick slowly withdrew his face, staring at Valera with a gaze that was difficult to decipher. The silence crept between them once more, accompanied only by the ticking sound of the wall clock and the roar of the storm wind from outside the building. The tension between the two of them was now no longer merely about a forbidden physical desire, but about a massive secret that now bound their two destinies in a far more dangerous manner.

Garrick pulled both of his hands back from the glass wall, turning his back to Valera, and then walked toward his work desk to retrieve his three-piece suit coat draped over the backrest of the chair. He donned the coat with a stiff movement, buttoning it one by one without looking back at Valera again.

"Go home, Valera," Garrick said, his voice returning to flat and empty, as though his entire emotions had been locked back into an iron vault inside his chest. "Act as though tonight never occurred. And remember your boundaries very well."

Valera did not answer. She immediately organized her bag with rapid movements, grabbed her coat, and walked toward the double oak doors without looking back again. She turned the automatic lock, stepped out into the deserted anteroom corridor, and let the massive door close tightly behind her.

However, just as Valera stepped closer to the executive elevator area to head down to the lobby, the elevator indicator light suddenly blinked. The lift was moving upward from the ground floor, heading straight toward the fiftieth floor without any prior notification from the security team.

Valera’s heart pounded violently once more. The clock already indicated past six in the evening, and the executive elevator was supposed to have been locked by Garrick’s command.

The chiming sound of the elevator echoed in the silent corridor. The gold-plated iron doors of the lift slowly opened, showcasing the figure standing inside there.

Valera instantly froze right where she stood, her face suddenly turning pale. Inside the elevator, stood Clarissa Molina Valentino with her white furry coat slicked by the residual rainwater, holding a blue document folder in her hand. However, what caused all the blood in Valera’s body to seemingly stop flowing was the expression on Clarissa’s face.

There was no longer the cheerful smile or the innocent twinkle that usually always adorned her best friend’s face. Clarissa’s pair of honey eyes stared straight toward Valera with a gaze that was empty, disappointed, and harboring an incredibly massive storm of anger ready to erupt, as though she had heard or found out something horrifying before she stepped out of that lift.

Garrick, who heard the chiming sound of the elevator from inside his room, slowly reopened his double oak doors. And when the man stepped out into the anteroom corridor, his gaze collided directly with Clarissa’s eyes, which now shifted to look at her Daddy and Valera alternately with hands that began to tremble violently.

Beneath the dim lighting of the Valen Group fiftieth-floor corridor.