MARRIED TO MY MISTAKE

RHEA'S POV

I shut the door behind me and took a breath. A slow one. A controlled one.

The moment I stepped out of that conference room, I could still feel his eyes on me. Damian Cole. Calculating. Cold. Suspicious.

He was getting too close.

And for the first time since I stepped into this building a month ago, I felt the smallest flicker of panic in my chest.

Not because I was scared of being caught. I had planned too carefully for that. I had covered every track, watched every angle, timed every move. But because... something was shifting.

Something in the way he looked at me.

It wasn’t just suspicion anymore. It was curiosity. And that was worse. Suspicion could be deflected. Curiosity stuck around. Curiosity asked questions that didn’t need to be asked.

I made my way down the hallway, past the rows of cubicles and glass offices. The team buzzed with low chatter, fingers tapping on keyboards, phones pressed to ears. Normal. Ordinary.

But my mind wasn’t in that room anymore. It was back in his office. Playing the scene over again.

What do you want from this company, Rhea?

That question hadn’t been casual. He was feeling something. Something beneath the surface. Maybe he sensed the leak. Maybe he had a name in mind.

Maybe mine.

I sat at my desk, turned on my computer, and stared blankly at the screen. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, motionless.

The truth was I had leaked the prototype. Just a sketch. Just enough to make the competitor twitch. A test. To see how fast Damian would react. To see how fast the walls would close in. And he reacted alright.

But not like I expected.

He didn’t call a meeting. Didn’t make a scene. He kept it quiet. Which meant he was watching.

And that meant I had to move faster.

I clicked open the secure folder I had created on my drive, scanning through the documents I’d been collecting. Internal policies. Boardroom minutes. Personal schedules. Things that, on their own, looked harmless. But together, they painted a picture.

A very damning one.

I knew I was walking a thin line. But this was what I signed up for. What I trained for. This was what they took from me, and this was how I would take it all back.

Except now… things were complicated.

Because Damian wasn’t just the cold-hearted CEO I expected to find. He was smart. Sharper than the reports said. And when I wasn’t watching closely enough, I started noticing other things about him.

Like how he paid attention even when he pretended not to. Like how he never interrupted people unless they were wasting time. Like how he looked at me sometimes like he wanted to understand me, not fire me.

It was messing with my head.

I caught myself thinking about the way his voice dropped when we were alone. The way his tone changed, just slightly, when he said my name.

I hated that I noticed. Hated it more that it stayed with me.

A soft knock on the side of my desk snapped me out of it. I looked up. Naomi.

She had that perfect smile on her face again. The one that looked sweet but didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Hey,” she said, tilting her head. “Mr. Cole asked me to let you know he’s going over the pitch decks later this evening. He said if you had anything to add, you should email him before six.”

I nodded once. “Thanks. I’ll handle it.”

She lingered. Still smiling. “You two seem to be working closely lately.”

I met her gaze. “Is that a problem?”

She chuckled softly. “Not at all. Just an observation.”

She turned and walked away before I could reply. Her heels clicked down the hallway, sharp and deliberate.

I watched her go, then exhaled. Slowly. The office suddenly felt too tight. Like the walls were listening.

I looked down at my screen again, then opened a new email. I attached a fake draft of the proposal we were supposedly working on. A backup plan. Something to throw off whoever might be watching from the inside. Maybe even Naomi.

Clicking send, I leaned back in my chair and stared up at the ceiling.

This was getting risky. And that meant it was time to make my next move.

Not tomorrow.

Tonight.

If Damian wanted to play careful, I’d play dangerous.

Because every day I spent inside Cole Tech was another day closer to pulling the entire empire down around his feet.

And if his gaze lingered a little too long on mine, if his voice softened when no one else was around, then he would learn soon enough…

Whatever he thought was happening between us, it wasn’t real.

It never had been.