DAMIAN'S POV
744 Words
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the office that morning wasn’t the silence or the tension clawing through the air. It was her.
Rhea Blackwell.
She was standing by the window in the conference room, arms lightly folded, eyes distant. The sunlight hit her just right, catching the gold in her skin and the sharp line of her jaw. She looked calm, focused. Unbothered.
Too unbothered.
I didn’t say anything. Just kept walking, pretending I hadn’t noticed her. But I had. Lately, I always did.
And that was becoming a problem.
It wasn’t just her face, or the way she dressed like she belonged in every room she entered. It was the way she made people listen. The way she observed things quietly, like she was always two steps ahead of everyone. Including me.
I closed my office door behind me and tried to focus. There was a board meeting in fifteen minutes, and I had three different reports to skim through before then. Naomi brought in some files, gave me a quick update on the Tokyo situation. I nodded, barely listening.
My attention kept drifting to the folder sitting quietly at the edge of my desk. The one labeled “Confidential.”
Last night, one of our competitors had posted a teaser that looked a little too familiar. It wasn’t an exact copy, but it was close enough to one of our unreleased concepts. Someone had leaked it. I didn’t make it public. Not yet. I wanted to find the source first.
And for some reason, my instincts kept circling back to Rhea.
I didn’t have proof. Just small things. The way she asked about the prototype last week. The way she reacted when I shut the meeting down early. She was smart, no doubt. She worked like someone with something to prove. But sometimes, I caught this glint in her eyes. Not excitement. Something colder. Sharper.
Still, there was a part of me that didn’t want her to be involved. As irritating as she could be, there was something about her I hadn’t quite figured out yet. Something that felt... real.
I shook the thought away and grabbed the folder. The meeting room was already filling up when I walked in. Rhea was seated near the far end of the table, flipping through notes like she had nothing to hide.
We went through the usual. Budget forecasts, market performance, tech updates. I let the discussion carry on before slipping in a quiet question about data security.
She looked up and answered calmly. No hesitation. No stumble.
If she was hiding something, she was a hell of a good actress.
Once the meeting ended, I asked her to stay behind. The others left, some of them clearly wondering why. Naomi paused at the door but left without comment.
When I looked at Rhea, she was already standing.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked.
I stayed silent for a second too long before speaking.
“What do you want from this company, Rhea?”
She blinked, but her expression didn’t change. “I want to build something that matters.”
“That’s a very polished answer.”
She gave the faintest shrug. “It’s the truth.”
I studied her for a moment. She didn’t fidget. Her eyes didn’t dart away. But something in her face shifted. Slightly.
“You’ve made yourself very useful,” I said. “People like you.”
“I work hard.”
“Some people work hard for the wrong reasons.”
Her tone stayed even. “And some people assume too much.”
That made me pause.
There it was again. That quiet confidence. Like she knew exactly what she was doing.
I crossed the room slowly and leaned against the window frame, arms folded, watching her. She didn’t move.
“You’re ambitious.”
“Yes.”
“Ambition is dangerous when it’s hiding something.”
She didn’t respond right away. Just looked at me, steady and unreadable.
“I don’t have anything to hide,” she said quietly.
But I wasn’t convinced.
I let the silence hang between us before nodding once.
“You can go.”
She walked out without looking back. I stood there for a moment longer, my thoughts running in circles.
Something was off.
And if she thought she could outplay me, she was wrong. I just had to figure out what game she was playing first.
- Writer
