Under Her Command:The Billionaire’s Associate

Chapter 6: The Morning Whiplash

The "exception" Jace had granted me lasted exactly five hours. At 5:00 AM, the lights flared to life with their usual, unforgiving brilliance, stabbing at my eyes. My body felt like it had been beaten with silken hammers; the sheer exhaustion of the previous day’s audits was a heavy weight in my bones. But the memory of Jace’s hands on my shoulders—the way her thumbs had worked the tension out of my neck—acted like a jolt of pure adrenaline.

I dressed in record time, my fingers fumbling with the buttons of the charcoal suit. When I pushed open the heavy oak doors to her office, I expected a continuation of the midnight intimacy. I expected a soft look, or perhaps a lingering gaze that acknowledged the secret she had shared on the balcony.

I was wrong.

Jace was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, her back to me. She was a silhouette of sharp angles in a pinstriped power suit that looked like it could cut glass. The air-conditioning was turned down so low the room felt like a tomb.

"You’re four seconds late, Associate," she said. She didn't turn around. Her voice was a cool blade, devoid of the gravelly warmth from the night before.

"I—I’m sorry, Director. I thought since we were up so late—"

"I don't pay you to think about the clock, and I certainly don't pay you to make assumptions based on my 'mercy,'" she snapped, finally turning. Her eyes were like flint. It was as if she was punishing herself for her own vulnerability by taking it out on me. "Rule Four: Yesterday’s mercy is today’s debt. Because I let you sleep an extra hour, you will skip breakfast. We have a lunch meeting at the Yacht Club with the Sterling creditors. You will sit, you will take notes, and you will not touch a single morsel of food while I negotiate. Do you understand?"

The whiplash was dizzying. My stomach gave a treacherous, hollow growl. "Yes, Director."

"Good. Fix your hair. It’s messy. I won't have my Associate looking like she just rolled out of bed, even if it was mine."

The cruelty of the remark stung, but the way her eyes lingered on my lips for a fraction of a second told a different story. She was terrified of how close I was getting.