HARD HEARTED CEO FALLING IN LOVE

CHAPTER 6: THE RUMOUR

Chapter 6: The Rumor

Monday morning arrived in the Bronx with the sound of traffic and the smell of coffee and beans, but Ava Monroe did not feel like herself. She stood in front of the small cracked mirror in her bedroom, staring at the woman who had worn pink silk two nights ago and had danced with a billionaire in The Plaza. Now she was back in her green thrifted blazer, her flat shoes, her wild hair. She looked like an assistant again. She looked like a disaster again. She looked like a girl who had taken five thousand dollars to pretend to be loved.

She had not slept well. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Elena's face in the ladies' room, cold and cruel, and she felt the slap again on her cheek. Her cheek was no longer red, but the memory of it was still there, like a bruise that had moved inside her. She had not told her mother the full truth about the slap. She had said it was nothing, just a perfume allergy, just a small argument. But Rosa knew. Mothers always knew. Rosa had looked at her daughter and had seen the way she touched her cheek when she thought no one was looking.

Ava packed her cheap purse, put on her lipstick carefully, and then wiped it off again. Christian had said no lipstick on the coffee. He had said Monday it never happened. She wanted to be professional. She wanted to be hard. She wanted to forget Saturday.

But she could not forget the way his hand had felt on her waist when they danced, hard and warm and protective. She could not forget the way he had said she was not terrible, and how that had felt like the biggest compliment in the world. She could not forget the pink thread of her dress that had been left on his suit, or the way his mother had hugged her like she was already family.

She shook her head. No. Stop. Fake was fake. Transaction was transaction. Five thousand dollars was five thousand dollars. Monday, it never happened. She had promised herself she would stay hard, stay professional, stay Bronx. She would not fall in love with a stone wall.

The subway ride to Stone Tower was long and crowded. Ava stood holding the rail, thinking about what Monday would be like. Would Christian look at her differently? Would he pretend she was a stranger? Would he be extra hard to make up for Saturday? She knew him well enough by now to know the answer. He would be extra hard. Harder than ever. Because Saturday he had pretended to be soft, so Monday he had to be stone again to prove to himself that Saturday meant nothing.

When she walked into the office on the seventy-eighth floor, she felt it immediately. Something was wrong. The air was different. The whispers were different. The eyes were different.

Mrs. Patel, the receptionist who usually smiled and said good morning with a warm voice, looked at Ava and then looked away quickly, as if she was afraid to be seen talking to her. Two girls from marketing stopped talking when Ava passed, and then started whispering again behind her back. A man from legal stared at her pink lips and her green blazer and smirked.

Ava's stomach twisted. She knew that look. It was the look people gave to a girl who had done something scandalous. It was the look people gave to a girl who had been caught.

She sat at her desk outside Christian's office, her hands shaking slightly as she turned on her computer. She had three hundred unread emails. Three hundred. Most of them were not work emails. Most of them were gossip.

She opened the first one. It was from an unknown address. The subject was: "Office Escort."

Her heart dropped.

The email said: "Did you hear? Ava Monroe, the assistant from the Bronx, is sleeping with Christian Stone for money. She was his escort at the gala on Saturday. She wore pink silk and danced with him, and he paid her five thousand dollars. Everyone saw it. She is not an assistant anymore. She is his paid girlfriend."

Ava felt the blood drain from her face. Five thousand dollars. Pink silk. Gala. Escort. Someone had leaked it. Elena had leaked it. Elena had kept her promise. She had told everyone.

She opened another email. Same thing. "Fake girlfriend for sale." "Bronx girl sells herself for five thousand." "Christian Stone's new toy."

She closed the computer. Her hands were cold. Her eyes burned. She wanted to cry, but she was in the office, on the seventy-eighth floor, where everyone could see her. Bronx girls did not cry in offices.

The door to Christian's office opened. He walked out, tall, perfect suit, hard face, no smile, no softness. He looked like he had not danced on Saturday. He looked like he had not held her waist. He looked like a man who had never met her.

He stopped in front of her desk. "Miss Monroe. Coffee. One hundred and eighty degrees. No lipstick."

Ava stood up, her legs shaking. "Yes, Mr. Stone. Right away."

"And Miss Monroe," he said, his voice hard, colder than usual, "if you are going to cry in my office, do it in the bathroom. I do not pay you to cry."

"I am not crying," she whispered.

"Good. Because crying is not business."

He walked back into his office and closed the door. Hard. Loud.

Ava went to the coffee machine, her hands trembling. She made the coffee, one hundred and eighty degrees, exactly as he liked it. She did not put lipstick on the cup. She did not make a mistake. She carried it back, carefully, and placed it on his desk without spilling a drop.

He did not look at her. He did not say thank you. He did not say good morning. He just said, "Go."

She went back to her desk. The whispers continued. The emails kept coming. The rumor was spreading like fire.

By eleven in the morning, the whole building knew. By noon, the whole company knew. By one in the afternoon, someone had posted it on i********:. A blurry photo of Ava in pink silk, holding Christian's arm at The Plaza, with the caption: "Billionaire's new fake girlfriend? Bronx assistant turned escort for $5,000? Swipe to see the truth."

Ava saw the post on her phone. Her face was clear. Her pink silk was clear. Her smile was clear. The comments were cruel. "Gold digger." "Bronx escort." "She sold herself." "Poor Christian, he was tricked." "She is not girlfriend material."

She put her phone down, her hands shaking harder. She wanted to run. She wanted to go home to the Bronx, to her mother, to her small apartment where no one called her an escort. But she could not run. She had signed a contract. She had taken five thousand dollars. She had promised to keep the secret.

At two in the afternoon, Christian called her into his office. His face was darker than ever. He held a printed copy of the i********: post in his hand. He threw it on the desk.

"Did you do this?" he asked, his voice like ice.

Ava stared at the paper. "No. I didn't. I didn't tell anyone. I promised. I kept the secret."

"Then who did?"

"Elena. Elena knew. She told me in the ladies' room. She said she would ruin me if you didn't come back to her. She slapped me. She threatened me."

Christian's jaw tightened. His hands curled into fists. For a moment, his hard face cracked, and Ava saw something underneath. Anger. Not at her. At Elena. At the world that had hurt her.

"She slapped you?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.

"Yes. On Saturday. In the ladies' room. My cheek was red. You saw it. You asked me. I said it was perfume."

He stood up, pacing, his suit perfect but his movements sharp and restless. "And you didn't tell me? You let her slap you, and you said nothing?"

"What was I supposed to say? You said Monday it never happened. You said fake is fake. You said don't tell anyone. I was following your rules."

"My rules," he repeated, bitterly. "My rules got you called an escort."

He stopped pacing and looked at her. His eyes were hard, but there was something else in them, something he was trying to hide. Guilt. He felt guilty. A hard-hearted CEO feeling guilty was like a stone feeling rain. It was not supposed to happen.

"Listen to me, Miss Monroe," he said, his voice hard again, but not cruel. "I will handle Elena. I will handle the rumor. I will call legal. I will make them take down the post. I will make Elena pay for this. This is my problem, not yours. You did your job on Saturday. You kept the secret. You defended me. You were not terrible."

Ava felt tears rise again, but she held them back. "Thank you, Mr. Stone."

"Don't thank me. This is business. I hired you. I put you in that dress. I put you in that situation. It is my responsibility to fix it. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mr. Stone."

"Good. Now go back to your desk. Do not read the emails. Do not read the comments. Do not talk to anyone about Saturday. If anyone asks you, say no comment. If Mrs. Patel asks you, say no comment. If legal asks you, say no comment. If Elena calls you, do not answer."

"Yes, Mr. Stone."

She turned to leave, but his voice stopped her again, softer this time, almost human.

"Ava."

She turned. He never called her Ava. He always called her Miss Monroe. Hearing her first name from his mouth felt like a secret, like a softness he was not supposed to show.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She looked at him, at his hard face, his cold eyes, his perfect suit, and she felt her heart break a little, because he was asking if she was okay, and he meant it, and he was still trying to be hard while he asked it.

"I'm okay," she whispered. "Fake girlfriends are always okay."

He nodded, his face hardening again, as if he had shown too much. "Good. Then go."

She walked out, back to her desk, back to the whispers, back to the emails, back to the rumor.

That evening, when the office was empty, Christian stayed late. He sat alone in his grey office, looking at the contract in his drawer, the one with her messy signature next to his perfect one. He looked at the pink thread he had kept from Saturday, still in the drawer, pink on grey.

He picked up his phone and called his lawyer. "I want the i********: post taken down. I want Elena's friend in HR fired. I want a statement released that Ava Monroe is my assistant and nothing else. And I want it done tonight."

The lawyer asked, "Mr. Stone, are you sure? A statement will only make people talk more."

"I don't care," Christian said, his voice hard as stone. "No one calls my assistant an escort and gets away with it."

He hung up. He stood at the window, looking at New York, grey sky, grey buildings, grey heart. He had told himself Monday it never happened. He had told himself fake was fake. He had told himself to stay hard till chapter thirty.

But Monday had happened. The rumor had happened. Elena had slapped Ava, and he had not been there to stop it. And now Ava was being called names in his building, in his company, because of a transaction he had created.

For the first time in a long time, Christian Stone felt something he had not felt since Elena stole two hundred million dollars from him. He felt like he had failed to protect someone.

He did not like the feeling. It was not hard. It was not stone. It was human.

He pushed the feeling down, locked it away, and went back to his monitors. Hard. Stay hard.

But in his drawer, next to the contract, the pink thread stayed.

Ava went home that night on the subway, tired, hurt, her green blazer wrinkled, her eyes red from holding back tears. Rosa was waiting with beans and rice.

"Mama," Ava said, collapsing into her mother's arms, "they called me an escort. They said I sold myself for five thousand dollars. They posted my photo. Everyone in the office knows."

Rosa held her daughter tight, rocking her like a baby. "Mi amor, they don't know you. They don't know Bronx. They don't know that you took that money for my medicine, for rent, for your brother. They don't know that you are a good girl who did a hard thing for her family."

"But it hurts, Mama. It hurts so much."

"I know it hurts. But listen to me, Ava. A rumor is like a fire. If you don't feed it, it dies. You stay quiet. You stay professional. You stay hard. You let Christian fix it. He is a billionaire. He can fix rumors. And you, you keep your head high. You are not an escort. You are Ava Monroe from the Bronx. You are my daughter. You are strong."

Ava cried in her mother's arms, finally letting the tears fall. She cried for the pink silk, for the dance, for the slap, for the rumor, for the five thousand dollars that had seemed like salvation and now felt like a curse.

But when she finished crying, she wiped her face, ate her mother's beans, and promised herself she would go back to work on Tuesday with her head high, her green blazer clean, her coffee at one hundred and eighty degrees, no lipstick.