you are my cure

Eight assistants had walked out of Damian Cross's office. Six had quit in tears. Two had simply vanished, and their desks were cleared by Monday as if they'd never existed. Lena Morales was the ninth, and she had exactly forty-one dollars in her bank account. "Don't look him in the eye," whispered the girl at the front desk, sliding a visitor badge across the counter. "Don't speak unless he speaks first. And whatever happens, do *not* be late." "I'm twenty minutes early." "Then you're ten minutes late." The girl's smile was pitying. "Good luck." The elevator climbed forty-eight floors in perfect silence. Lena watched her reflection in the polished steel: borrowed blazer, hair pinned tight, hands that wouldn't stop shaking. Her little brother's hospital bill was folded in her bag, and a paper star he had made for luck sat in her pocket. *Theo needs this,* she told herself. *Theo needs this job.* The doors opened on glass, marble and a corner office the size of her entire apartment. Behind a black desk, with the whole skyline at his back, sat the most terrifying man in the city. Damian Cross was thirty-three and looked carved from winter. Dark suit, sharp jaw, eyes the color of cold steel. And beneath them, shadows so deep they looked like bruises. Lena's heart did something stupid and unexpected. *No,* she told it firmly. *He is the enemy.* He didn't look up. "You're the ninth." "Lena Morales, sir. It's an honor—" "It isn't." He turned a page. "Eight people sat in that chair before you, Miss Morales. None lasted a month. Do you know why?" "Because you're difficult to work for?" His pen stopped. *Oh no,* Lena thought. *I said that out loud.* Slowly, Damian Cross raised his eyes. They traveled from her shoes to her face in one cold sweep, and for a terrible second she felt like something being weighed. Then his gaze caught on her mouth, just for a heartbeat, and moved away so fast she might have imagined it. "Because I'm difficult," he agreed softly. "Your first task is a coffee. Black. Eighty-two degrees. Not eighty-one. Not eighty-three." "You want me to *measure* it?" "I want you to try." --- By noon she had hated him for three hours straight. He rejected her coffee twice. He corrected her filing system, her handwriting and, at one point, her breathing. By two o'clock she had developed a detailed fantasy involving his expensive chair and a very tall window. But something kept happening that she couldn't explain. Every time she turned, she found his eyes on her. Not cold, exactly. Searching. As if he were trying to solve a puzzle he didn't want to admit he'd noticed. "Stop staring," she said at last, without looking up from her screen. "I wasn't." "You were." "I was *observing.*" A pause. "Your pen is behind your ear." She touched it. It was. Her cheeks went hot, and she could have sworn that behind his desk, the corner of Damian Cross's mouth twitched. *Hate him,* she reminded herself. *Hate him. Hate him.* Then, at three, she brought in the third coffee with a thermometer clipped to the rim, just to be petty. He looked at the thermometer. He looked at her. Their fingers brushed as he took the cup, and a small, startling current ran up her arm. He felt it too. She saw it in the way his hand stilled, in the way his breath caught, so slightly that anyone else would have missed it. "Eighty-two," he said, his voice not quite steady. "Adequate." It was the nicest thing anyone had said to her all day. She hated that it warmed her. --- At four, she came in with the afternoon schedule and found him standing at the window with one hand pressed flat against his ribs. His knuckles were white. His breathing was shallow and careful, the breathing of someone trying not to make a sound. "Mr. Cross?" "Out." He didn't turn around. His voice was a thin wire. "Leave the file. Go." "You're in pain." "I said *go.*" She didn't. She had grown up watching her mother hide exhaustion behind a smile, and she knew the sound of a person pretending. She set the file down, crossed the room and stopped just behind him, close enough to feel the heat coming off his back. "When did you last sleep?" A long silence. "Three years," said Damian Cross. "Two hours a night, on a good one." "That isn't possible." "It's very possible." A short, bitter laugh. "I have seen specialists on four continents. I have taken every pill. I sat for a month with a monk in Kyoto who told me to *breathe.*" He closed his eyes. "Nothing works. It starts when the sun goes down, a weight behind my ribs, and it doesn't stop until morning. Do you understand? It doesn't *stop.*" It was the most honest thing anyone in that building had probably ever heard him say. And the saddest. Lena had no idea what made her do it. Maybe it was the shadows under his eyes, or the way his shoulders sagged like a man holding up a building alone. But without thinking, she began to hum. Low and wordless. The old lullaby her grandmother used to sing over the stove back in Cebu, the one about the sea and the stars. The one that had gotten her through every bad night of her childhood. Damian's breath hitched. He turned. He was so close she could see the faint gold flecks in his gray eyes, so close she felt his breath on her cheek. He looked at her like a man who had been walking in the dark for three years and had just seen a single lit window. She kept humming, and she watched the hard line of his jaw soften. His hand slipped from his ribs. His forehead came down, slowly, until it rested against hers, just for a moment, just to breathe. For that one suspended second, neither of them moved. His eyes dropped to her lips. Hers dropped to his. Then his knees gave way. She caught him before he hit the floor. He was heavy and warm in her arms, and for one wild moment she was holding the most feared man in the city like a child. His face pressed into the curve of her neck, and she felt the shudder of his exhale all the way down her spine. She guided him onto the leather couch, slipped off his shoes because it seemed wrong to leave them on, and tucked her blazer under his head. She sat beside him, still humming, and smoothed the dark hair back from his forehead with one gentle hand. "Don't stop," he mumbled. His eyes were already closing. His fingers found hers and wound through them, slow and unguarded. "Please. Don't stop." *Please.* Eight assistants, and she'd bet her last forty-one dollars that no one had ever heard him say that word. "I won't," she whispered. "I'm right here." She hummed until his breathing evened out. Until the lines on his face smoothed away. Until the CEO of Cross Industries was fast asleep with his thumb resting against her pulse, as if he needed to feel it to believe she was real. And Lena Morales, who had been so sure she hated him, sat very still in the golden afternoon light and found she was smiling. Not her polite smile. A real one, small and soft and a little bit dangerous. *Oh,* she thought. *I'm in trouble.* Then her phone buzzed. A text. Unknown number. *Whatever you just did, do not let anyone else see it. Eight girls found out what he really is. Look what happened to them.* Lena's blood went cold. Under her hand, Damian stirred. His eyes opened, clear for the first time all day, and found hers. For a moment he only looked at her, with a wonder so naked it made her breath catch. He did not let go of her fingers. "You stayed," he said hoarsely. "I said I would." "I slept." He sat up slowly, her blazer sliding off his shoulder, and she saw the exact moment the fear arrived behind the wonder. "Four hours. In *daylight.*" He looked at the clock. Then at her. Then, very carefully, at their joined hands, and he didn't pull away. "Miss Morales." His voice was low and not quite steady. "Name your price."