Obsessed

Chapter Nine – The Assignment

( Selena pov )

By the third day, the rhythm of Valen Group had already started to shape me.

Not in obvious ways, not through rules or rigid schedules but through something quieter, more insidious. The building trained you without ever announcing the lesson. It adjusted your breathing. It softened your steps. It encouraged you to lower your voice, not because anyone asked, but because loudness felt almost offensive here.

Mornings unfolded in controlled silence. Soft instrumental music floated through hidden speakers, barely loud enough to notice yet impossible to ignore. The hum of the building elevators gliding, air circulating, glass doors sealing shut created a steady pulse beneath everything else.

Even the people moved differently.

Heels clicked with restraint, never rushed. Phones rang briefly, answered quickly, and ended without excess conversation. Smiles were polite, precise, carefully measured. Everyone seemed aware they were part of a larger design.

I was beginning to understand why people spoke about Valen Group with a mixture of awe and fear.

It wasn’t just a company.

It was an ecosystem built on beauty, silence, and control.

By midmorning, sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office, reflecting off steel and glass across the New York skyline. The city outside felt louder now, messier like a different world altogether. Up here, everything was curated.

Even me.

I caught myself sitting straighter, moving more deliberately. I reread emails twice before sending them. I had stopped humming without realizing when that habit disappeared.

Valen Group was changing me.

Just before noon, my screen blinked.

A single new message.

Subject: Initial Project Brief

From: Internal Administration No Reply

No logo.

No greeting.

Just one line, stark against the white screen:

Design a concept that captures your deepest fear or desire.

I stared at it, convinced I’d misread the sentence.

Then I read it again.

And again.

There were no attachments. No specifications. No deadlines listed in bold corporate language. Just that one sentence: intimate, invasive, impossible.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, uncertain. This had to be a mistake. A test email sent to the wrong person. Something meant for a psychological study, not a design consultant on her third day.

I picked up the phone and dialed the extension number listed beneath the message.

It rang once.

Then a woman answered.

“Internal administration,” she said, her voice smooth and mechanical, as if emotion had been edited out.

“I just received a project brief,” I said carefully. “I think there may have been an error.”

“There was no error,” she replied without pause.

“It’s very… personal,” I said. “There are no instructions.”

“The request is intentional.”

“And the timeline?”

“Seventy-two hours.”

The line went dead.

I lowered the phone slowly, my pulse thudding louder than it should have.

This wasn’t a normal assignment.

It wasn’t even a professional one.

It felt like an invitation or a challenge to expose something I’d never put into words, let alone design. Fear and desire weren’t abstract concepts. They were intimate. Private. Dangerous.

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling as unease crept under my skin.

Fear or desire.

Two sides of the same coin.

Fear would mean vulnerability revealing the things that still haunted me, the uncertainties I kept buried beneath competence and calm.

Desire felt worse.

Desire meant wanting. Longing. Acknowledging the parts of myself I pretended didn’t exist.

And yet, beneath the anxiety, something else stirred.

Curiosity.

The same pull I’d felt since my interview. Since the roses. Since that card with my name written in unfamiliar handwriting.

Whoever was behind this wanted more than talent.

They wanted access.

By late afternoon, I found myself sketching without realizing when I’d begun. My pencil moved across the page, tracing shapes that felt instinctive rather than planned a long glass corridor stretching endlessly forward, reflections multiplying into infinity. Water pooled along the floor, shallow but dark, mirroring the ceiling above.

Light chased something ahead a figure, perhaps always just out of reach.

The concept unsettled me.

Which meant it was honest.

As the sun dipped lower, turning the city outside amber and gold, I felt that same strange sensation again the feeling of being watched.

Not observed.

Seen.

I didn’t notice the door open. I didn’t hear footsteps.

I only realized someone else was in the room when I caught a reflection in the glass.

A man stood near the door.

Tall. Still. Perfectly composed.

He wasn’t wearing a name tag, but he didn’t need one. Authority clung to him effortlessly, in the way he occupied space without announcing himself.

“Miss Ward,” he said.

His voice was low, measuring the kind that didn’t rush because it never had to.

“I hope the brief reaches you.”

My pulse slowed instantly, as if my body recognized him before my mind could catch up.

“Yes,” I replied, turning to face him. “It did. It’s… unusual.”

Something flickered in his expression. Not surprises . Not amusement.

Recognition.

“That’s the point,” he said. “We don’t hire minds that stay within borders.”

He stepped closer not enough to invade my space, but enough to make the distance between us feel deliberate. Charged.

I noticed details then: the tailored cut of his suit, the calm intensity of his gaze, the way he watched me as if I were already answering questions out loud.

“Tell me,” he said softly, “which one will you choose?”

Fear… or desire?

The words wrapped around me differently when he said them. Slower. Heavier.

I opened my mouth to answer.

Nothing came out.

Because the truth settled quietly in my chest, undeniable.

The way he said desire not as temptation, not as suggestion, but as certainty made it feel like he already knew.

And somehow, that frightened me more than the assignment ever could.