Brewed Feelings

The Outcasts Reality

The elevator doors glided open with such a much-needed speed, I almost sprinted out of the executive suite in the bottom of the large building. My chest was tight, burning, the word fiancé still echoing in my head like a horrific, piercing scream. My cheeks were red and hot as I tried to process the awful scene I had just witnessed from the second-story window. Disgust, humiliation, and a most unwelcoming feeling of jealousy coursed through my veins. As I rode the glass capsule down to the earth, I tried to erase the sensation of Ethan’s hand on my waist from the deepest corner of my being. I wanted to scrub my hands raw against my apron to rid myself of the lingering taste of his skin touching my palms. He was a lying cheating bastard engaged to someone like Victoria Vance. He was a future CEO of Hart Industries, and I was only his toy to fool around with when he was bored with discussing billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions at his corporate meetings. “Noah? Oh my god, what happened up there?” Leo asked as soon as I allowed myself to be trapped behind the relative safety of the lobby counter. He frowned at my ashen face and my shaking hands as I aggressively wiped the already perfect marble surface with a dirty kitchen cloth, trying to calm the storm in my chest. “Did he threaten to fire you? Did something happen with the order?” I swallowed the thick, constricting lump of disappointment in my throat, gripping the counter with whitening fingers. “Worse,” I muttered, wiping a streak of marble cleaner two inches too wide with a furious motion, not caring if Leo noticed. My palms were damp, and every heartbeat was hammering like a war drum in my eardrums. “He is engaged to be married to Victoria Vance,” I finally growled, my voice coming out as a steady stream of acid. Leo’s mouth fell open so wide I was sure he would faint on the spot. “His what?” I turned around to see a stocky middle-aged man with silver-plated glasses watching me with thinly veiled disdain from the other side of the pickup counter. He was one of the senior financial analysts from the tech risk department, often stopping by the café for his morning iced latte. He chuckled to himself, adjusting the expensive frames with a smirk. “Oh, boys, everyone in the upper management knows about it,” he drawled, shaking his head. “It’s the merger of the century, you see. Hart Industries buying out the Vance Global. They are said to announce the official wedding date at the winter gala next month. She’s a real heartbreaker,” he added, giving a disparaging glance in my direction. “Villainous and vindictive to the core, that one. Crushes anything that dares stand in the way of her family’s expansion and success.” I felt a wave of nausea wash over me as the analyst’s words sank in. A pathetic, penniless loser. That was me, apparently. Victoria had no trouble humiliating me with her cutting remarks, and it seemed that my delusions of grandeur about Ethan and me were nothing but that - delusions. I had somehow managed to kid myself into believing that the billionaire toyed with my feelings in that campus café, but it was obviously not the case. The real Ethan Hart had his feet firmly planted in the corporate world, playing by its vicious rules. Not that I had any business being there in the first place.

I spent the next three hours in a disassociated daze, my fingers trembling as I forced myself to pull the espresso shots in the coffee machine. I numbly watched the steam curl greedily from the spout, trying to block out the sound of the elevator doors opening and closing as I worked. The thought of going back up there, to the penthouse office, made my stomach roil with such a potent mix of dread and nausea that I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound of the familiar chime of the order machine near the counter. “Order number four hundred and four,” I heard Leo mutter as he took the slip of paper from the printer with paling fingers. I barely registered the words “quad-shot Americano” and the note “two ice cubes” before my heart stopped pounding in my ears as my vision locked on the words “suite 5000” and “Reyes only” written in neat black letters on the small piece of paper.

“Leo, please, you have to take it up,” I practically pleaded, forcing myself to meet his concerned eyes as I slid the slip of paper across the marble counter to him. “I can’t go back up there, I swear I won’t survive another round of their verbal abuse. I’ll cover for you for the rest of the week if you take my shifts for the weekend mornings. Just, please, don’t make me go back to that office.” He looked down at the paper in his hands and then at Karen, who was watching me closely from the back office with a worried frown etched on her face. “Noah, look at me,” he murmured, his expression unusually serious as he met my eyes. “I wish I could help you out, really, I do. But you saw what Victoria did earlier. If Hart fires you for refusing to take that order, Karen will have no choice but to let you go before the elevator reaches the top of the building. You know how these people are.” I clenched my fists so hard that short, bitten nails dug into my palm. I couldn’t afford to lose this job. I knew that. I needed the money for my tuition fees more than ever now since my landlord was nothing if not a persistent loan collector. With a reluctant sigh, I prepared the coffee exactly how he wanted it – four shots of espressos, piping hot, with two cubes of crushed ice smothering the rich aroma. My heart raced as I made my way back to the elevator, forcing myself to walk steadily despite the hammering in my temples. When I pushed open the heavy oak doors of the penthouse office this time, the tensed silence that greeted me was a most welcome sound. The stuffy, overbearing presence of corporate lackeys and lackeys’ wives was gone. Victoria was gone. The vast office was empty, save for the gray mass of the city skyline that stretched out before us like a storm-laden sea.

Ethan was standing by the large glass perimeter, his back to me, gazing out at the street below. He was wearing a fresh set of clothes, the white dress shirt clinging to his broad shoulders, damp with sweat. The effortless ease with which he always carried himself was absent, replaced by an exhausted slump to his posture. His frame seemed tensed and rigid as I walked up to his desk, my boots clicking softly against the wooden planks. I set the steaming cup of coffee in front of him with a clink of ceramic against wood. “Your afternoon coffee, Mr. Hart,” I said, turning on my heel to leave, trying to put as much distance between myself and his piercing gaze. But the deep voice that rumbled behind me made me freeze in place. “Noah, stop.”

I turned around slowly, my back still aching from the tense position, to find him watching me with an unreadable expression. I swallowed hard, looking behind me at the open space of the office. “Is there something wrong with the order, sir? I can remake it if it does not suit your expectations.” I heard him shift on the chair. “Noah, is there something you need to say to me?” I looked at the exit, my heart pounding in my ears, but he must have sensed the apprehension in my movements because his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Don’t do that,” he said quietly, stepping forward to block my path to the door. “Don’t call me that. Don’t look at me like I’m a stranger, Noah. What Victoria said has nothing to do with how I feel about you.” My heartbeat picked up, and I looked up at him, surprise warring with something else I couldn’t quite place in my chest. “What she said was true,” I replied, my voice steady. “She is your fiancée, Mr. Hart. You are set to wed her to strengthen the family ties and create a billion-dollar merger. And I am but a cheap coffee barista to you, a novelty to waste your time with.” I turned my gaze back to the floor, trying to steady my breath. “This farce must end.” And just like that, the last of the fragile shield I had built around my heart was ripped away, leaving me raw and exposed. I felt so alone in that moment, the crushing weight of my realization pressing down on my chest. My fingers trembled as I turned back to look at him. “I think it is best for both of us,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “If you think my presence here is a distraction of any sort, I will gladly leave.” He stepped closer until the warmth of his body consumed my senses. I wanted to run, to flee back to the only place I felt even a modicum of safety, but his voice stopped me dead in my tracks. “You don’t understand me, Noah.” His voice was low and rough, vibrating with intensity. “I’m not playing any games. I did not choose Victoria, alright? I didn’t love her, I don’t love her. And the merger – it is not what people think.” His eyes were burning with some fierce emotion as he looked at me, and my heart gave a sickening lurch in my chest. “It is nothing I want, really. A poisonous legal contract my father drew up for me before he died, a golden prison he thought I would be perfectly content to spend the rest of my days in. But I will tear it apart, shard by shard, just so I can have you.”

My heart stopped beating in that moment, my breath catching in my throat as his words settled heavily in the air between us. My carefully guarded walls, the ones I thought would forever protect me from him, were now nothing but brittle remnants crumbling away with each searing look he gave me. The unbearable ache in my chest threatened to consume me whole as his dark eyes locked onto mine, burning with an unfamiliar mix of want and anguish. But before I could form a coherent reply, the high-tech office phone on his desk began flashing furiously, emitting an angry red light. “Ethan, we have a problem,” Jaxon growled, his voice crackling from the intercom at the side of the room. “Vance senior just caught wind of our internal financial audits. He realized you’ve been stalling for time to try and sabotage the merger.” I felt the blood drain from my face, leaving me utterly frozen in place. If the Vance patriarch decided to call off the acquisition, the café chain would go bankrupt, and I, along with Leo, Karen, and the rest of the staff, would be left with nothing. “He’s threatening to pull the funding for Brew Haven entirely as leverage,” Jaxon growled, his eyes snapping to mine over Ethan’s shoulder. “So, he’s trying to destroy all your plans for Brew Haven,” Ethan murmured, his voice low and steady, burning with an intense mixture of rage and possessiveness. He turned to look at me as he spoke, and I felt my heart lurch in my chest. “And you know what I will do, don’t you, Noah?” I swallowed hard, forcing myself to meet his gaze instead of looking away. “I will destroy him,” he said grimly. “Every single brick of his empire will burn to the ground before I will ever let him hurt you.”