MARRIED TO MY RUTHLESS BOSS

SIX; Late Night Meeting

Sephora started bringing him different coffees.

One day it was Irish cream. The next, something with caramel. She was testing, figuring out what he actually liked beneath the black coffee facade. And Daniel found himself anticipating what she'd bring, the same way he anticipated quarterly earnings.

The stolen-coffee game became a routine. He'd take her cup. She'd complain. They'd banter about it like two people who understood the rules of a game that wasn't actually about coffee anymore.

By Friday, Clover noticed.

She appeared at Sephora's desk with a sympathetic smile that didn't reach her eyes. 'You two seem... close.'

'We work well together,' Sephora said without looking up from her computer.

'Mmm. It's sweet, actually. My mom always says never to mix business with personal feelings. Could get messy.'

Sephora finally looked at her. Clover was leaning against her desk in a way that seemed casual but felt calculated. Everything about Clover felt calculated.

'There's nothing messy about professional respect,' Sephora said.

'Of course not. It just looked like maybe something more. But I'm probably reading it wrong.' Clover smiled, all sweetness. 'I hope not, though. Daniel deserves someone his own level, you know? Someone from his world.'

She left before Sephora could respond, and Sephora felt the words like a small knife, even though she knew they were designed to be one.

That night, Daniel stayed late. So did Sephora. The office was quiet at 9 PM, just the two of them in their separate worlds—him in his office with spreadsheets, her at her desk with tomorrow's schedule.

'You can go home,' he said, appearing at her desk without her hearing him approach. She jumped.

'I'm not leaving before you do. Someone needs to make sure you actually sleep.'

'I sleep fine.'

'You look like a man who sleeps four hours and then lies awake thinking about deals.' She closed her computer. 'What are you working on?'

'The merger strategy. There's a vulnerability in Ashford's position. If we approach it right, we could accelerate the timeline by two months.'

She got up and followed him back to his office without being invited. It felt like crossing a line—his office was sacred, his space. But he didn't object.

'Show me,' she said.

For the next three hours, they worked together. She asked questions he hadn't considered. She saw patterns in the data that he'd missed. She was brilliant, and he realized he'd known this for two years but had never given himself permission to acknowledge it.

At midnight, they sat in the dark of his office, the city lights below them turning the sky into something almost beautiful.

'Can I ask you something?' Sephora said quietly.

'Anything.'

'Why do you work so hard? Like, what are you running toward? Or running from?'

Daniel was quiet for a long time. 'I think I'm running from the idea that I'm the kind of person who'll end up alone. Like my father. He built empires too, but he died alone. No one to remember him as anything except a businessman.'

'Your grandfather remembers you as more than that.'

'He's the only one.' Daniel looked at her. 'You're the first person who's challenged me. Who's not trying to be what I need. You're just... yourself. And somehow that's more than enough.'

Sephora's heart was beating hard. This was dangerous territory. This was the moment where they either crossed the line or stepped back from it.

'We should go home,' she said softly.

'I know.' But he didn't move. Neither did she.

They sat in the dark, the space between them charged with everything they weren't saying. And when Daniel finally reached over and took her hand, it felt like a confession.

Sephora didn't pull away. She turned her hand in his and held on, and they sat like that—connected in the dark, two people from different worlds finding something real in the space between business and emotion.

'This is a bad idea,' Sephora whispered.

'The worst,' Daniel agreed. But he didn't let go of her hand.

And somewhere in the darkness of the office, where neither of them could see, Daniel's phone buzzed with a message from Grandfather: 'I'm proud of you, Danny. For being brave enough to let someone in.'

Daniel didn't know how Grandfather knew. But then, Grandfather always knew everything.