Chapter5: Game of Power
1237 Words
The doors crashed open.
Every head in the boardroom turned, their whispers stopping mid-breath. My jaw stiffened as my gaze snapped to the invader, and when I realised who it was, my pulse pounded in my chest like a gunshot.
Celeste.
She wasn’t meant to be here. nor in this area, nor in this style. Not dressed in red silk that clung to her curves like flame, heels clicking against polished marble as like she owned the very floor under her.
And maybe just she did.
The room moved. My directorsmen who typically bowed to my command now stared at her as if she were a storm that had sneaked past my iron wall.
“Miss Monroe,” one of them muttered, trying to recover his composure. “This is a closed meeting”
“Correction,” Celeste’s voice boomed like crystal cracking on tile. “It’s my meeting too.”
A ripple of surprise tore through the room. My hands clenched beneath the table, nails cutting into my palm. She shouldn’t be here. She had no placebo right. But the sneer she showed me across the long mahogany table told me she believed otherwise.
I rose slowly, methodically, so every man here remembered where real power resided. “Celeste,” I said, my tone cutting across the air. “You weren’t invited.”
Her lips curled. “Funny thing about invitations, Daniel. They’re meaningless when you already belong at the table.”
The board exploded in whispers, nervousness crackling like electricity. I could feel my blood boiling, anger clawing at my ribs, yet beneath itGod help medesire coiled like a snake. She was fired, and I had once burnt myself in her gladly.
Not again.
“Security” I began, but her laughter, low, sharp, mocking, cut me short.
“Oh, go ahead. Drag me out in front of your bosses. Show them that Kingston Enterprises is built on hubris, fear, and the illusion of power. You want to play that game?” She leaned forward, hands spread on the table, silk slipping dangerously low at her neckline. “Because I play it better.”
The boardroom air tightened, oxygen vanishing with every word.
“Sit down,” I bit out, voice low enough to sound like a growl. “Before you regret this.”
But Celeste my destruction, my desire, my defiance personified only bent her head, eyes flashing like sharpened glass. “The only regret here, Daniel,” she said, “is yours.”
The meeting fell into mayhem. The directors hurried to whisper among themselves, their gazes darting between us like onlookers at a blood sport.
I hated that I could feel that magnetic draw that had once made me forget reason, duty, everything. And she knew it. She knew the war she was causing in me wasn’t just personal.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing here?” I demanded, moving toward her. My presence always dominated a room, yet somehow she met me stride for stride, her heels clicking with the same power as my shoes.
“I’m here,” she stated coolly, “to claim what’s mine.”
A blade of chilly scepticism pierced through my anger. “You don’t own a damn thing here.”
She smiled. Not warm. Not sweet. But successful.
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
Her hand dipped into her bag, fingers brushing paper. My heart jerked, but I didn’t know why. She unfolded a paper, the rustle of it louder than the whispers reverberating in the room.
“This,” she added, holding it aloft so every man in the room saw, “is the co-ownership clause you overlooked.”
The words exploded like a bomb.
“No,” I shouted, my voice thunder and shock. I seized the paper from her hand, eyes scanning over the contract, looking for the weakness, the loophole, the mistake. But there it was, in plain and whitesigned, sealed, and absolutely bound.
My chest tightened. The signatures were real. The dates are airtight. Someone had buried this in the merger files, and somehowGoddamn it had found it.
“You can’t be serious,” one of the directors muttered.
“Oh, I’m very serious,” Celeste said easily. She snapped her eyes back to me, locking me in a trap. “You missed it, Daniel. Just like you missed me.”
The words crashed into me harder than any contract condition. The suggestion wasn’t just the ghost of every night I’d left her alone, every betrayal, every cut she never forgot.
Rage curled in my breast, but beneath it, sorrow stirred a dangerous weakness I buried before it emerged.
“You think one piece of paper makes you powerful?” I spat, smashing the contract in my hand. “This empire is mine.”
“And now it’s ours.” Her voice dripped with joy, defiance flashing in her gaze. “Fifty-fifty. You can’t make a choice without me, Daniel. Not anymore.”
The board exploded again, fear conflicting with awe. Some looked at her as if she were salvation. Others as if she were the killer.
I walked closer, so close I could smell the faint residue of her perfumejasmine and smoke, tempting, maddening. “You have no idea what war you’ve started,” I mumbled, voice poisonous.
“Oh, I do,” she breathed back, eyes burning. “And I intend to win.”
For a heartbeat, the world shrank to just us.
Her lips separated, her chest rising with quick gasps. Mine too. God, I hated her. I wanted her. I couldn’t breathe in her company, yet I’d die without it.
A tempest erupted inside betrayal, yearning, anger, longing. She was every paradox I couldn’t handle.
“Celeste,” I began, my voice hoarse, nearly a cry I didn’t mean.
Her fingers brushed mine as she took the contract back, deliberately, a taunt mixed with closeness. Sparks shot through me.
“Face it, Daniel,” she mumbled, so soft only I could hear. “You may run Kingston, but I own you.”
The directors stood now, restless, uncomfortable. They were watching history bend, watching a titan be confronted by the lady he had underestimated.
I wanted to pull the deal apart. Tear her apart. Tear myself apart for ever letting her close enough to find this tool.
But I didn’t. Because beneath my indignation, beneath my rage, I saw the calculating sparkle in her eyes. This wasn’t simply about payback. It was about power.
And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure I held it.
Her stare swept the room, definitive and dominant.
“Gentlemen,” she began, silk and steel in her tone, “from today forward, every decision Kingston Enterprises makes goes through me.”
The board exploded. Voices collided, arguments igniting like wildfire. I started to speak, but she cut me off with one last knife.
“Don’t look so shocked, Daniel.” She drew closer, lips touching my ear, voice a satin blade. “This was always inevitable.”
And before I could breathe, before I could react, she straightened, her smile murderous.
“You overlooked it,” she replied, her voice slashing through the chaos. “Just like you overlooked me.”
The room went quiet. My world turned.
And for the first time in years, IDaniel Kingston felt the ground slide from under my feet.
- Writer
