First day
717 Words
Sonia gave herself one hour to become someone else.
She stood in front of her bathroom mirror with her good blazer on and her hair pinned back and told herself the woman looking back at her was not a dancer from Club Velvet. She was a professional. She was prepared. She had earned this.
She had practiced her handshake in the mirror twice before she caught herself and stopped.
The subway ride to Midtown felt longer than usual. She sat with her bag on her lap and her back straight and watched the city blur past the windows. Forty-second Street. Forty-seventh. Grand Central. Every stop pulling her closer to the life she had been building toward in her head for three years.
Caldwell Empire's building was exactly as intimidating as she had imagined. Forty stories of glass and steel rising clean into a grey October sky. The lobby alone was bigger than her entire apartment. Marble floors. A ceiling so high it made you feel small on purpose. A security desk staffed by a man in a suit that probably cost more than her rent.
She gave her name. Got her badge. Rode the elevator to the thirty-second floor.
The assistant who met her was a sharp-faced woman named Dana who spoke at the speed of someone who had never wasted a second in her life. She walked Sonia through the floor in under four minutes. Open plan on the left. Private offices on the right. Conference room at the end. Her desk was just outside the main corner office, a wide clean space with a monitor and a planner already set out.
"Mr. Caldwell runs a tight schedule," Dana said without looking at her. "He does not like to repeat himself. He takes his coffee black, no sugar, first thing. Do not be late with it."
Sonia nodded. She was already writing.
"He will be in at nine. It is currently eight fifty-two."
Dana walked away and left her standing there.
Sonia sat down, set her bag under the desk, smoothed her blazer and picked up the coffee order Dana had left on a sticky note. She went to the small kitchen at the end of the hall, made it exactly as instructed, and was back at her desk with two minutes to spare.
She heard the elevator before she saw anyone.
The doors opened and the floor changed. It was subtle but she felt it. The few people already at their desks sat up slightly. Someone stopped talking mid-sentence. The kind of shift that happens when a room knows exactly who just walked in.
She was reaching for her notepad when she heard the footsteps stop.
She looked up.
The coffee almost left her hand.
He was standing six feet away in a charcoal suit that fit like it had been made that morning specifically for him. Dark hair. Sharp jaw. Eyes that had gone wide for just one second before something cooled over them like a shutter coming down.
Matt.
Just Matt.
Not Matt at all.
The name plate on the corner office door was directly in her line of sight. She had looked at it when Dana walked her past but it had not fully landed until right now, at this exact moment, with him standing there looking at her like he was doing the same math she was.
Matthew Caldwell.
Her new boss.
The man she had spent the night with four days ago looked at her for three full seconds without speaking. Then he looked at the coffee in her hand. Then back at her face.
"Miss Reyes," he said.
His voice was controlled. Completely, deliberately controlled.
"Mr. Caldwell," she said back, because there was nothing else to say.
He walked past her into his office and closed the door without another word.
Sonia sat down slowly. Set the coffee on the edge of her desk. Stared at the closed door for a moment.
Then she opened her notepad, clicked her pen, and told herself she was not going to fall apart over this.
She had survived three years of Club Velvet.
She could survive this.
The door opened again.
"Miss Reyes." His voice came through the gap, flat and professional. "My coffee."
She picked it up and walked toward him.
- Writer
