The Secret of Secretary

02. Jack : Life Before

The office was different at night.

During the day, Apex Global Solutions pulsed with noise—phones buzzing, heels clicking, voices weaving into one another like tangled threads. But at midnight, the floor was hushed, only the hum of machines filling the void. Monitors glowed in patches across the vast expanse, most abandoned, a few left on standby.

Jack Stonehaven sat alone at his desk, a pool of white light from the lamp spilling over his meticulous arrangement of files. His jacket hung from the back of his chair, his shirt sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows. His tie was still perfect. Even at this hour, discipline clung to him like armor.

His pen moved across the page with steady precision, annotating, cross-referencing, reorganizing. He had stayed behind to perfect a proposal due in the morning, though no one had asked him to. He didn't mind the solitude; it was easier to breathe when there weren't eyes on him, waiting for him to slip.

But the stillness had teeth. It gnawed at him, loosening the walls he had built around memory. One second, he was highlighting a key figure, and the next, his mind drifted—sliding backward into the life he had left behind.

The first thing Jack remembered was the echo. Not of voices, not of footsteps—but of his own breath, sharp and ragged, bouncing off concrete stairwells.

He'd left the interview with a polite smile, nodding his thanks, clutching the thin folder they'd given him like it was made of glass. But the moment the heavy glass doors of the Apex building swung shut behind him, the composure cracked.

He'd ducked into the service stairwell, sat two flights down from the lobby, and pressed his back to the wall. The tears came before he could fight them.

"God..." His voice broke against his palms. "I—actually got it."

The job. A real job. Not day-labor shifts unloading boxes for cash. Not sweeping the shelter's floors to "earn" his cot. Not odd jobs that ended in smirks when someone recognized Stonehaven’s jawline and asked what the hell he was doing here.

A real interview. A real acceptance. Apex, of all places—the kind of company he'd grown up hearing at his father's dinner table, the name spoken like gospel.

He wiped at his face, laugh-crying now, ugly and shaking. "I'm not worthless. Not... not like he said."

The words echoed back at him. He repeated them until the sobs slowed, until his throat hurt.

By the time he left the stairwell, his collar was damp, his eyes raw. But his back was straight.

He was young—too young for the position, really. Twenty-one, still shaking the dirt of shelters from his shoes. Men ten, fifteen years older eyed him like a threat. They whispered in the breakroom: Golden boy thinks he's clever. Doesn't even eat lunch with us. Too good for us.

It stung, but he bore it. Better whispers than pity. Better resentment than recognition.

The women... they smiled at him. Sometimes too much. Invitations to coffee, compliments on his shirts. He deflected politely, never letting the conversations stretch too long. Attention was dangerous. Attention meant questions.

And questions meant someone might dig.

So he learned the art of hiding.

When people asked where he went to school, he smiled and said, "Here and there." If someone pressed about his family, he laughed and brushed it off. "Nothing interesting."

In meetings, when directors dropped the Frost name like a badge of power, Jack kept his pen steady. He didn't flinch. Didn't let anyone see the way it clawed at his ribs.

He became invisible in plain sight—noticed for competence, not lineage.

It was in the copy room, of all places.

Jack was wrestling with a jammed machine, muttering under his breath, when another voice chimed in.

"Violence won't help it."

Jack glanced up. A lanky guy with too-long hair, tie crooked, grinning like he knew a secret.

"It's a machine," Jack deadpanned. "They only understand violence."

The guy chuckled, reached over, and with one swift motion, cleared the jam. Paper slid out smooth.

Jack blinked. "...Show-off."

"Harriot," the guy said, offering a hand. "Yes, that's my actual name. No, I won't explain, but can call me Harry."

"Jack," he returned, shaking it.

From then on, they clicked. Harry had a way of diffusing the office's sharp edges—turning scowls into reluctant smirks, even making Mr. Lin chuckle once (a miracle Jack thought impossible).

With Harry, Jack could breathe a little easier. Not much. But enough.

Still, he never mentioned his past. Not the exile. Not the bridge nights or the shelters. He let Harry assume he was just another guy clawing his way up. Because maybe that was truer than anything else.

Jack learned quickly to hide his past. The Stonehaven name was a loaded weapon, one he refused to hand anyone. He became just Jack, the neat freak, the workhorse, the young man who always showed up fifteen minutes early and stayed an hour late.

When people asked where he lived, he said “downtown,” leaving out the cramped single-room rental with peeling paint and a mattress barely big enough for one.

When they asked about family, he shrugged. “Complicated.”

When they asked why he never joined them for steakhouse lunches, he smiled. “Saving up.”

He let them think what they wanted: disciplined, ambitious, maybe even boring. Better that than the truth—that every granola bar was rationed, every instant noodle meal was a reminder that he’d fallen from penthouses to pennies.

And slowly, people stopped questioning. They just..accepted him.

Back in the present, Jack's pen slipped, leaving a streak of ink across the margin. He cursed under his breath and quickly blotted it with a napkin, aligning the page once more. His hands trembled slightly, but he forced them to stillness. He aligned the papers, straightened the lamp, adjusted his tie. Anything to keep the cracks from showing.

He leaned back in his chair, staring out at the city lights sprawling beyond the glass. The skyline glittered like jewels, but it wasn't his. Not anymore.

He had lasted. Barely. He had built something—routine, order, a reputation at Apex Global. But beneath the neat stacks of paper, beneath the polished suits and polite smiles, the resentment ran deep.

His father had cut him off, disowned him in everything but name. And though Jack had told himself he didn't care, that he was better off without his family, the truth lingered like a bruise that never faded.

Part of him still longed for that acceptance. Still wished his father would call and admit he had been wrong. That he had underestimated his son.

But the phone never rang.

So Jack buried the ache beneath neat lines and color-coded tabs, beneath midnight hours spent perfecting reports no one else wouldn't notice.

Because if he couldn't have his family's trust, he would damn well make sure he earned the world's.