The CEO's One-Night Mistake

My head is pounding. That’s the first thought I have when I wake up. The second is that this bed is definitely not mine. Mine doesn’t have silk sheets that feel like water against my skin. Mine doesn’t smell like expensive cedarwood and sin. Mine isn’t holding a man. I freeze. Slowly, painfully, I turn my head. And my stomach drops to my feet. Kieran Drake. My boss. The CEO. The man whose picture is on the Forbes cover in the lobby. The man who fired three people last week for looking at him wrong. He’s here. In bed. With me. Naked. Oh my God. Oh my God. Fragments come back in flashes. The company anniversary party. The open bar. The champagne, glass after glass because my manager, Lisa, kept handing them to me. “Relax, Ara. It’s a party.” Then him. Kieran Drake, watching me from across the room. Those gray eyes, cold as a winter storm, tracking my every move. I’d tripped over my own feet like an i***t. He’d caught my elbow, steadying me. His touch had burned through the thin fabric of my dress. “Careful, Ms. Anindita,” he’d murmured, his voice a low rumble I felt in my bones. “We can’t have our staff breaking their necks.” I’d mumbled an apology and escaped to the bathroom. When I came back, there was another glass of champagne waiting. And another. The next clear memory is the elevator. His hand on the small of my back, possessive, guiding me inside. The doors closing. His mouth crashing down on mine. It hadn’t been sweet. It hadn’t been gentle. It had been a claiming. Hungry. Angry. Like he’d been starving for years and I was the first meal he’d seen. I’d kissed him back. God help me, I’d kissed him back. My hands fisting in his expensive suit jacket, pulling him closer. The penthouse. More kissing. Clothes disappearing. The bed. Him above me, his gray eyes blown black with lust, watching me fall apart for him. I slept with Kieran Drake. I, Ara Anindita, 22-year-old barista from the 30th-floor pantry who serves his black coffee every morning, just slept with the most powerful, most ruthless man in Jakarta. I’m so fired. I’m so dead. I’m so completely, utterly screwed. I have to get out. Now. Before he wakes up and realizes the mistake he made. Before he sees me and his eyes turn to ice and he has security throw me out on the street. Before he remembers I exist. I slide out of bed inch by inch, holding my breath. The sheets whisper. He doesn’t stir. His face in sleep is younger. Less cruel. The deep furrow between his brows is gone. For a second, he just looks like a man. A devastatingly beautiful man. Don’t look at him. Don’t think about last night. Just leave. I find my wrinkled dress on the floor. My underwear is... where is my underwear? I spot a flash of black lace near the floor-to-ceiling windows. I can’t. I don’t have time. I shove my arms into my sleeves, wincing as the silk catches on my skin. I smell like him. Like s*x and expensive cologne and bad decisions. The bedroom is bigger than my entire kosan. The bathroom alone could fit my bed. This isn’t a hotel. This is his home. The Mahendra Group penthouse on the 80th floor. I find my heels by the door and bolt. I don’t look back. I hit the elevator button fifty times until the doors open. I don’t breathe until I’m in the lobby. The morning sun is brutal. It highlights every single one of my sins. My hair is a mess. My lipstick is gone. There’s a mark on my neck I can’t hide. I keep my head down and power-walk three blocks before ducking into a cafe bathroom. The girl in the mirror looks wrecked. Used. Like she just had the best and worst night of her life. I splash water on my face and try to make myself look less like a woman who just committed career suicide. He can’t ever know it was me. He sees a hundred faces a day. Assistants, lawyers, models. He won’t remember one barista from a drunken party. He was drunk too. He probably won’t even remember it happened. It was just a one-night mistake. For both of us. I’ll quit on Monday. I’ll find a new job. I’ll pretend this never happened. _Five Years Later_ “Mama, why do we have to move again?” I paste a smile on my face for my son as I zip up his small backpack. Rio is four, with messy black hair that never stays down and eyes the exact shade of storm clouds. Of Kieran Drake’s eyes. Every time I look at him, I see that night. I see the mistake I tried so hard to forget. “I told you, sayang. Mama got a new job. A really good one. At a big company in the city. We have to be closer.” “A new company? But I like it here. I like my school.” I kneel down and cup his face. He’s so small. Too small. The doctors said the surgery needs to happen in the next six months or... No. I can’t think about ‘or’. “I know, baby. But this job pays a lot more money. Money for your doctor. Money for your medicine. So you can get strong and run really fast, okay?” He nods, solemn. He’s too serious for a four-year-old. He had to grow up fast. “Is it a big, tall building? Like the ones on TV?” “The biggest, Rio. The Mahendra Group.” The name tastes like ash in my mouth. I haven’t said it out loud in five years. I haven’t let myself think about him. But Rio’s hospital bills don’t pay themselves. The experimental treatment for his heart condition costs more than I make in two years at the coffee shop. When the HR email came out of nowhere, offering an Executive Assistant position with a salary I couldn’t refuse, I cried for an hour. I never wanted to come back. I never wanted to be in the same building as him again. But I would sell my soul for my son. Working for the devil himself is a small price. I just pray he doesn’t remember me. It was five years ago. One night. I was just a barista. He probably had a dozen women that month. He won’t remember my face. Pray he doesn’t look too closely at Rio. Because if Kieran Drake finds out I hid his son from him for five years, if he sees those gray eyes and puts it together, he won’t just fire me. He’ll destroy me. He’ll take my career, my reputation, my life. And then he’ll take Rio. He’s possessive. Controlling. The contract I signed mentions a “morality clause” and “company loyalty”. He’ll call it theft. He’ll call me a liar. And he’ll be right. And I can’t let that happen. I won’t let him take my son. So I’ll keep my head down. I’ll be the perfect assistant. I’ll be invisible. I just have to survive him.