Hired To Heal Him

Chapter 5: First Day

POV: Cara Mills

Monday came before I was ready.

I was up at five again. I stood in front of my mirror longer than usual, checking everything twice. Hair. Clothes. Bag. Everything neat, everything in place.

I looked at myself for a long moment.

The same face. The same girl who had been carrying too much for too long. The same girl who needed this job to work out.

I picked up my bag and left.

The lobby felt different this time.

Less intimidating, somehow. Or maybe I was different. I had the job now. I wasn't here to prove anything. I was here to start.

The same woman was at the reception desk. She recognized me immediately. She handed me a permanent access badge without being asked and told me Mr. Cole was already in.

Of course he was.

I took the elevator to the seventeenth floor. The hallway felt shorter this time. The nameplate still read D. COLE in clean black letters.

I knocked.

"In."

He was at his desk this time, not the window. Jacket on, already working, a stack of folders open in front of him. He didn't look up when I entered.

"Close the door," he said.

I closed it.

"Sit."

I sat in the same chair from the interview. I folded my hands in my lap and waited. I had decided over the weekend that waiting was going to be a skill I used a lot in this job. Waiting without filling the silence. Waiting without needing him to acknowledge me first.

He finished reading whatever was in front of him. Set it aside. Then he looked up.

"You'll manage my calendar, correspondence, and travel arrangements," he said. No good morning. No welcome. Just information. "Nothing leaves this office. Nothing gets confirmed without my approval. I don't repeat instructions."

"Understood," I said.

"My last assistant kept a system of colour coded folders." He said it like it had personally offended him. "You'll build your own system. I don't care what it looks like as long as nothing gets missed."

"Nothing will get missed."

He looked at me for a beat. Then he stood, picked up a thick folder from the corner of his desk, and held it out toward me.

"Board meeting Thursday. Everything you need is in there. I want a clean briefing document on my desk by Wednesday morning. Two pages. No more."

I stood and reached across the desk to take it.

Our fingers touched.

It lasted less than a second. The edge of his hand against mine as the folder passed between us. Barely anything. The kind of thing that happened a hundred times a day between people who worked together and meant absolutely nothing.

Except that neither of us moved.

Not immediately.

It was just a fraction of a second too long. A pause so small that if someone had been watching they wouldn't have noticed. But I noticed. And something in the way his eyes dropped briefly to where our hands were told me that he noticed too.

Then the folder was in my hands and he was already stepping back, already moving around the desk, already creating distance like the space between us needed managing.

"Wednesday morning," he said. His voice was exactly the same. Flat. Even. Like nothing had happened.

Because nothing had happened.

I told myself that very firmly.

"Wednesday morning," I confirmed.

He walked to the window. His back to me. Looking out at the city like it was something he owned and was deciding what to do with.

"You can use the office next door," he said. "There's a laptop already set up. If you need anything, ask the office manager. Don't ask me."

"Understood."

"That's all."

I turned and walked to the door. My steps were even. My breathing was controlled. I was perfectly fine.

I put my hand on the door handle.

"Mills."

I stopped.

Turned around.

He was still at the window. Still not looking at me. Hands clasped behind his back, shoulders straight, everything about him closed off and unreachable.

"The last person who sat in that chair lasted two years," he said quietly. "Everyone before her lasted less than six months."

A pause.

"I'm telling you that so you know what you're walking into. Not to scare you off."

I looked at his back for a moment.

"How long are you expecting me to last?" I asked.

Silence.

He didn't answer.

He just stood there at the window, looking out at a city that didn't know or care about any of this, and said absolutely nothing.

I waited three full seconds.

Then I opened the door, stepped out into the hallway, and pulled it shut behind me.

I stood there in the thick quiet of the corridor, folder pressed against my chest, heart doing something I chose not to examine.

I walked to my new office next door. Small. Clean. A desk, a laptop, a window.

I sat down and opened the folder.

The words blurred. My brain kept pulling me back to that moment at the desk. That half second that lasted longer than it should have. The way he stepped back so deliberately, like distance was something he needed to enforce.

He hadn't answered my question. How long was he expecting me to last? He had stood at that window, perfectly still, and given me nothing.

I told myself it didn't matter. That it meant nothing at all.

Wednesday morning. Two pages.

My hand was still warm where his had been. I had absolutely no idea what to do with that.

None at all.