HIS PLAY THING

Ivy’s POV I had been counting down the days. Not to summer. Not to a beach vacation. But to the one thing that made every exhausting lecture and caffeine-fueled all-nighter feel worth it—my internship at Hayes Global. To call it prestigious would be an understatement. Hayes Global wasn’t just a company. It was the company. The crown jewel of corporate dominance. Featured in business magazines. Cited in textbooks. Whispered about in career fairs as the kind of place that could change your entire future—if you survived it. And somehow, out of thousands of applicants, I got in. Me. Ivy Rivers. A business major from a decent university with decent grades and an overachiever complex that rarely slept. When the acceptance email came in, I’d stared at it for a full minute before screaming into my pillow. Then I cried, then I celebrated with ice cream, and then—like the compulsive planner I am—I made a list. Of everything I needed to buy, wear, say, and not say when I walked into that high-rise building for the very first time. This was it. A real opportunity. A door to something bigger. I didn’t know where it would lead exactly, but I intended to walk through it with my head high and heels higher. I wasn’t thinking about the CEO. I wasn’t daydreaming about romance or drama. I just wanted to learn. To grow. To prove that I belonged in a place like that. But I didn’t expect him. I didn’t expect Dominic Hayes to notice me. ⸻ The first few days passed in a blur of nervous smiles, back-to-back orientations, and memorizing everyone’s names. I shadowed meetings, fetched reports, ran coffee, and tried not to trip in my heels. Everything felt bigger—grander—than I’d imagined. The glass walls. The skyline views. The silence in the elevators. The scent of money and pressure and ambition thick in the air. Hayes Global didn’t have time for niceties. It had expectations. And I wanted nothing more than to rise to them. On the third day, I was asked to bring coffee and breakfast pastries to an executive board meeting—something simple, nothing glamorous. Intern grunt work. But I didn’t complain. I checked my reflection three times in the elevator mirror. Straightened my blouse. Balanced the silver tray. Focused on not spilling anything. When I stepped into the boardroom, I realized instantly that something was different. The room fell quiet as I walked in—not in a polite way, but in that intense, loaded kind of silence that only power can create. And then I saw him. Dominic Hayes. Seated at the head of the table, surrounded by polished, intimidating executives, exuding quiet command like it was stitched into the fabric of his suit. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t even talking. He was just sitting there, flipping through a folder, one hand resting on the table, the other adjusting the cuffs of his tailored jacket. His eyes didn’t rise immediately—not even when I approached the table. It wasn’t until I reached across to set down a coffee cup that the unthinkable happened. My hand jerked. The cup tipped. And hot coffee spilled across the table—directly onto the lap of one of the senior executives. Time stopped. There was a loud hiss. A sharp curse. A shuffle of chairs. My cheeks went crimson. “I—I’m so sorry,” I stammered, heart hammering as I grabbed napkins from the tray. My hands were shaking. The executive waved me off, already blotting his trousers, clearly annoyed. I could hear the rustling of suits, the uncomfortable shift in posture. Whispers. Then, for the first time—I felt his gaze. I looked up, and Dominic Hayes was staring at me. Not glaring. Not scolding. Just… watching. His eyes were cold, unreadable. Steel-gray. They held no warmth, but they didn’t burn with anger either. They simply cut right through me. I froze. Something in the air shifted. His stare wasn’t s****l. It wasn’t emotional. It was analytical—like he was dissecting me. Trying to decide whether I was worth remembering… or forgetting. Then, without saying a word, he turned back to his folder. The meeting resumed. I was dismissed a moment later by a polite assistant with a stiff smile. I walked out of the boardroom trembling, mortified, convinced I’d ruined everything. But I couldn’t stop thinking about his eyes. The way they lingered. The way my stomach twisted under that sharp, detached gaze. It wasn’t until I reached the restroom and looked at myself in the mirror that I realized my hands were still shaking. It was the first time I’d seen him in person. And somehow, he saw me. Not as a person. Not as Ivy. But as something. A problem? A rookie? An inconvenience? Or something else entirely? Whatever it was… it unsettled me. And it excited me.