Elara
666 Words
Caleb's POV
I had no intention of hiring her.
That was the first thing I told myself when Clair's call came through.
I should have declined.
I should have told her that Vale Gullermo Co. wasn't a shelter for celebrities whose careers were collapsing.
Instead, I told her to send me the file.
I didn't know why.
Perhaps curiosity.
Perhaps boredom.
Perhaps because I'd already seen the scandal circulating online and something about it hadn't felt right.
The video was too clean.
Too convenient.
Too carefully edited.
Someone wanted the world to believe Elara Sawyer was guilty.
I wanted to know why.
My office was quiet when her documents arrived.
I opened the file.
ELARA SAWYER.
Twenty-four.
International model.
Dior.
London Fashion Week.
Multiple luxury campaigns.
Three languages.
Excellent professional record.
Millionaire.
No previous scandals.
No disciplinary complaints.
No history of substance abuse.
No reckless behavior.
Nothing that matched the woman the internet had decided she was.
I scrolled through the document.
Then I reached the photographs.
The first was from a magazine cover.
She was wearing a black gown, her hair swept behind one shoulder, her expression perfectly composed.
Beautiful.
But that wasn't what caught my attention.
I opened the next photograph.
Runway.
Dior.
London.
She was walking beneath a line of white lights, surrounded by cameras.
Thirty million views.
I had seen the footage.
But I'd never looked at her this closely.
I stared at the photograph longer than I should have.
There was something unsettling about it.
Not her beauty.
Something else.
The confidence in her posture.
The way she looked straight ahead.
As if she had no idea how many people were watching her.
I clicked on the next image.
A candid photograph.
Elara laughing backstage.
Completely different.
Softer.
Unaware of the camera.
I stopped scrolling.
Why did Clair send me this one?
I looked at the file again.
Her information was straightforward.
Her photographs weren't.
I opened the final attachment.
The scandal video.
I watched it once.
Then again.
The editing was obvious.
The timestamps didn't align.
There were missing sections.
Someone had removed almost everything that could explain why she was there.
I leaned back in my chair.
Interesting.
I opened another window and searched for her name.
Millions of results.
Articles.
Headlines.
Opinions.
Accusations.
People who had never met her were tearing her apart.
I closed the browser.
People were predictable.
They wanted villains.
They rarely cared whether the villain was real.
I typed a reply.
She starts Monday.
Maybe because I didn't want her to know I had been watching the scandal.
Maybe because I didn't want her to know I'd reviewed every detail of her file.
Or maybe because I didn't want her to know that the moment her photograph appeared on my screen, I had already decided I wanted to meet her.
I looked back at the photograph.
Elara was smiling.
Not the practiced smile from magazine covers.
A real one.
I zoomed out.
Then close the file.
“Enough.”
I turned toward the window.
The city stretched beneath my office, hundreds of buildings filled with people who knew nothing about what existed beneath their world.
They thought billionaires ran companies.
They didn't know some of us ran packs.
They didn't know about the wolves living among them.
My eyes drifted back to the photograph on my screen.
Elara Sawyer.
Human.
Completely ordinary, according to every document I'd received.
Yet the moment I had seen her face, something deep inside me had stirred.
Not an attraction.
Not exactly.
Something older.
Instinctive.
Possessive.
My jaw tightened.
I didn't like it.
I didn't trust it.
And I certainly didn't understand it.
I closed the file again.
Monday.
She would walk into my office.
She would become my secretary.
And I would find out exactly why something about her felt so wrong.
Because there was one thing I knew for certain.
I had never believed in coincidences.
And Elara Sawyer becoming my secretary felt like anything but one.
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