The CEO's Forbidden Assistant

Chapter 6 - The List

Daniel was already at his desk when Mia arrived early the next morning, three cups of untouched coffee lined up beside his laptop like evidence of a night that hadn't ended so much as bled into the next day.

"You didn't go home," Mia said.

"I didn't see the point. Sit. I want to show you something."

She sat. He turned the laptop toward her, a spreadsheet open, names and timestamps organized into columns she didn't immediately understand.

"Calendar access logs," he said. "Everyone who could see the Singapore trip before it was public knowledge, including the exact dates, hotel, and flight details. It's a shorter list than you'd think."

Mia scanned the names. Executive assistants to board members. A handful of senior directors. And near the bottom, a name that made her stomach drop before her brain had fully caught up to why.

"Marcus Webb."

"Head of Special Projects. Reports directly to the board, not to me." Daniel's jaw was tight, his voice carefully controlled in a way that told her exactly how much effort that control was costing him. "He requested access to my travel calendar eight weeks ago. Told my assistant it was for a due diligence report on international expansion. I approved it without thinking twice, because it was routine, because I had no reason yet to think twice."

"Eight weeks ago. Before Singapore even happened."

"Before Singapore was even confirmed." Daniel met her eyes, something grim settling into his expression. "Which means whoever sent that envelope wasn't reacting to something they stumbled onto. They were planning this. They knew Singapore was coming before either of us did anything worth photographing."

The implication sat heavy between them. "You think Marcus set this up. Engineered a situation specifically to catch you in something."

"I think Marcus works for someone on the board who's wanted me out since the day my father stepped down, and I think this is the first piece of leverage they've found worth using." Daniel leaned back, exhaustion finally cracking through the careful control. "My father's departure was never fully explained publicly. There's a version of that story I've never told anyone outside this company, and I have a bad feeling this entire situation is connected to it."

"Then tell me now. If we're doing this together, I need the whole picture, not just the parts that are convenient."

He studied her for a long moment, some old, guarded instinct visibly warring with the newer one that had been slowly, reluctantly trusting her for weeks. "My father didn't step down voluntarily. He was pushed out by three board members who found evidence, real or fabricated, I still don't fully know, that he'd mismanaged funds during an acquisition. I was twenty seven. I inherited the company in the middle of a scandal I wasn't allowed to investigate properly, because the board wanted it buried fast and quiet to protect the stock price."

"And you think the same board members are behind this."

"I think at least one of them never accepted me as a replacement, and I think Marcus Webb answers to someone who's been waiting four years for a reason to finish what they started with my father." He rubbed a hand over his face, and for the first time since she'd known him, Daniel Han looked genuinely afraid, not of losing the company, but of losing more than that. "If I'm right, this was never really about you and me specifically. We were just the fastest leverage they found."

Mia absorbed that, turning it over, something steadying inside her despite the fear tightening in her chest. "Then we stop reacting to what they send us, and we go after Marcus directly. Quietly. Before the week is up."

"That's dangerous."

"Everything about this is dangerous. At least this way we're the ones choosing the terms instead of waiting for the next envelope to show up on my desk."

Daniel looked at her for a long moment, something unguarded and grateful passing behind his eyes before he could smooth it back into the careful CEO mask. "You didn't have to stay for this. Any of it. You could have quit the moment that photo showed up and none of this would be your problem anymore."

"I know," Mia said simply. "I'm still here anyway."

Neither of them said anything else for a moment, the weight of that admission settling into the space between them, more honest than anything the rules they'd made in Singapore had ever accounted for.

His phone buzzed on the desk between them. He glanced down, and whatever color remained in his face drained out of it entirely.

"What is it," Mia asked, already reaching for her own phone out of instinct.

Daniel turned the screen toward her. A new email, sender unknown, subject line blank. He opened it, and a second photograph loaded slowly across the screen, this one taken inside the Singapore hotel elevator, unmistakable, undeniable, timestamped three weeks ago.

Beneath it, a single line of text.

Tick tock. Three days left. And I know about Marcus too.