The secretary
1097 Words
Kai’s POV
"So you're really going through with this?" Adrian pushed the whiskey across the polished table, the glass leaving a wet trail in its wake.
I caught it without looking and downed it in one smooth motion. The hidden mirror in Adrian's closet called to me.
My reflection made me hiss. Dirty blonde hair. Light brown contacts because his favorites had those. Clean-shaven, I had abandoned my beard years ago when research confirmed Jensen preferred dolphins. The cheap suit hung off my frame like a borrowed coat.
Pathetic. Miserable. Perfect.
Why couldn't Jensen Hayes like normal men? Why did it have to be big, sad, and pitifully helpless?
"Just play your part," I said without turning.
Adrian was my stepbrother in the loosest sense of the word. His mother was Father's living wife, but the Harrington name had been borrowed, not earned. No true Harrington.
Father had bestowed it out of misplaced sentiment for the woman and nothing more. He had always been a stain, a weak alpha who had barely escaped beta classification, reckless in ways that had consistently disgusted me.
I had built everything alongside my father . Harrington Aegis Group, its subsidiaries, its military contracts, its global reach, every piece assembled through years of work while Adrian watched from a comfortable distance.
His name had been stricken from the will long before I founded TJN Pharmaceuticals years ago. Yet when I created the shell company, Father had asked me to give him the position. One last chance at purpose.
I could have made him irrelevant. Instead, I made him useful. He knew enough to play his role and nothing more. He also knew precisely what happened to people who disappointed me. Our relatives understood that. Adrian understood it better than most.
“Clear the room,” I muttered. Adrian’s assistant bowed quickly and slipped out into the corridor.
I slammed the closet and turned. "You better not f**k this up for me." I moved toward him steadily. Vincent and Adrian’s assistant stepped aside without being asked as Adrian backed up until the wall stopped him. I wrapped one hand around his throat, not squeezing, simply reminding.
"You took acting classes for months. You know enough about this industry to sound credible." I held his gaze. "If you slip even once, Father won't hear about it. There won't be anything left to tell him."
I released him and smoothed his collar as though I had simply been adjusting his tie. Then I picked up the document stack and tablet and walked out.
*
"Mr. Jensen Hayes." Adrian extended his hand with the confidence I had drilled into him over three months.
Jensen looked at the outstretched hand the way most men looked at something they'd scraped off their shoe. A quiet cough from Serah Owen, the government representative to his left, prompted him to accept it. One brief shake. His expression made clear he intended to wipe his palm the moment decorum allowed.
He still hated alphas. Even the weakest ones.
"Mr. Adrian Harrington." Not a single attempt at warmth.
They settled opposite each other in the lavish conference room while I took my position standing behind Adrian. Eyes forward, expression vacant, the picture of an unremarkable secretary with nowhere better to be.
Jensen’s own assistant stood behind him and found me almost immediately, confusion written plainly across his face. But of course he couldn’t interrupt such a meeting because he recognized me and he was the least of my worries.
"Tea? Coffee?" Adrian offered.
Jensen declined without looking at him. "Ms. Owen, perhaps?"
"Coffee would be lovely," the government official smiled.
I stood still a beat too long. Intentional. The hesitation of a man whose mind moved slowly under pressure.
"Are you deaf or just stupid?" Adrian's voice cracked across the room.
I flinched, shoulders jumping. "I'm sorry — I'm sorry, sir." I moved quickly toward the door and collected the coffee personally from the attendant outside rather than sending her in.
When I returned and began to lower the cup, Adrian snapped, "Careful, i***t," and I let my hands go unsteady. The coffee caught the saucer wrong. A small spill.
"I'm sorry — I'm so sorry—" I bowed repeatedly, voice thin with the specific distress of a man terrified of losing the only job he had.
"Maybe I should just fire you,” Adrian sneered, playing his part beautifully. “Since you clearly can't manage basic tasks anymore."
"Please, sir, please, it won't happen again—"
"Can we move on?" Jensen’s voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "I didn't come here to watch you play God with your staff."
Adrian smiled smoothly, pivoting back to the table. "Of course."
In the heavy silence that followed, I lifted my eyes.
Jensen was already looking at me. Not the way someone looked at a stranger they had just defended. Something sharper. His brows drew together by a fraction, the barely-there furrow of a man pulling at a thread he couldn't yet name. Our eyes held for two seconds. Three.
He recognized my face from the casting files.
I dropped my gaze first. Kai Lancaster always dropped his gaze first.
His attention returned to the table, but I felt it drift back to me throughout the meeting, brief, burning, controlled. The negotiations stretched for hours, a tense battle of wills where Jensen rejected every term that didn't serve his interests without apology or hesitation. In the end, they agreed to reconvene. Another day. Another round.
"Excuse me," I murmured and slipped toward the corridor.
I didn't need to look back to know he was following shortly after I left.
The air shifted behind me the way it did before a storm, something predatory closing the distance with unhurried certainty. I pushed into the nearest alphas-only restroom, and the heavy door had barely clicked shut before he moved.
My back hit the marble wall. His forearm crushed across my throat before I could draw breath, the impact precise and perfect , he had done this before. Countlessly.
"Who sent you?" Not a question, a command.
I clawed weakly at his forearm. My vision swam. He was stronger than anything his lean frame suggested,with strength and willpower absent in most omegas .
"Please—" I wheezed. "Let me explain—"
"Explain what?" He pressed harder. "You interviewed to be one of my f**k boys. The next day, you're standing behind my rival."
His voice dropped to a lethal whisper, his eyes burning into mine. "Who the f**k are you working for?"
- Writer
