CHAPTER 2
1514 Words
Elena’s POV
"Close the door behind you."
I did, and the sound of the hallway cut off so completely it felt like stepping into a different building. His office was nothing like I'd pictured… no trophies, no framed magazine covers, just glass walls, a desk clear of clutter, and a window that swallowed half the skyline.
"Sit," Damian said, not looking up from whatever he was reading.
I sat.
He finally lifted his head, and that was the first mistake, because the second his eyes met mine, something in my chest pulled tight, like a string drawn taut between us that I hadn't agreed to. I told myself it was nerves. I told myself a lot of things in the next few seconds that weren't true.
He didn't move for a moment, just studied me the way you'd study a door you weren't sure was locked, and I made myself hold still under it, breathing evenly even as my pulse betrayed me. I had spent six months preparing to lie to this man. Nothing had prepared me for the strange comfort of simply being looked at by him.
"The Kessler contract," he said, holding out a hand.
I passed him the file. Our fingers didn't touch… I made sure of that… but the air between us felt charged anyway, the kind of static you feel before a storm breaks.
"You read this?" he asked.
"Some of it."
"And?"
I hesitated a beat too long. "The numbers on page four don't match the summary."
He looked up again, slower this time, and something shifted behind those pale grey eyes… surprise, maybe, or the beginning of interest. "Most people don't catch that until page nine."
"I read fast."
"Apparently." He set the file down without opening it, his attention staying on me instead. "What else did you catch?"
My pulse climbed, and I hated it, hated how aware I suddenly was of every small thing… the low hum of the city through the glass, the faint scent of cedar that seemed to come from him and nowhere else, the way his stillness felt less like calm and more like something coiled, waiting. I'd read that predators hold themselves like that. I hadn't expected to feel it in my own skin.
"Nothing you'd want to hear on a first day," I said.
That earned the smallest laugh, low and surprised out of him, like he hadn't planned on it. "Careful. I might start liking you."
"Wouldn't that be inconvenient?"
"You have no idea."
The words landed strange, heavier than they should have been for a joke, and for a second neither of us spoke. I watched his jaw tighten, like he'd said more than he meant to, and I found myself leaning forward slightly, drawn in without deciding to be.
I caught myself and sat back.
"You're staring," he said.
"So are you."
Something flickered across his face… not embarrassment, exactly, more like a man recalculating a problem he thought he understood. "I don't usually."
"Usually," I repeated.
"Don't read into it."
But I already had. I'd spent six months learning to read people who didn't want to be read, and every instinct I'd sharpened on other men was screaming that this one didn't add up. He looked at me like he already knew something I hadn't told him yet, and it should have terrified me more than it did.
"Ruth said you go through assistants fast," I said, mostly to fill the silence before it swallowed me whole.
"Ruth talks too much."
"She also said not to knock on that door unless the building's on fire."
"She's not wrong." He leaned back in his chair, watching me with an intensity that felt like it had weight, like it was pressing gently against my skin. "You didn't ask why."
"I figured you'd tell me if you wanted me to know."
"Most people ask anyway."
"I'm not most people."
The words left me before I'd thought them through, and something about the way his eyes narrowed told me he agreed, though not for reasons I understood yet.
"No," he said slowly. "You're really not."
There was weight behind it, something almost reluctant, like he wished the observation weren't true. He stood, walking around the desk slowly, and every step brought that strange pull tighter, until I had to fight the urge to stand too, to close whatever distance was left between us.
He stopped an arm's length away.
"Elena Marsh," he said quietly, testing the name again like it was a lock he was trying to pick.
"That's me."
"You smell like… " He stopped himself, jaw working, and for a second he looked almost startled by his own words. "Familiar."
My blood went cold. "I get that a lot. Common perfume, I guess."
"It's not the perfume."
I didn't have an answer for that, and the silence stretched long enough that I could hear my own heartbeat, fast and uneven, loud enough that I was half convinced he could hear it too. His gaze dropped briefly to my throat, just for a second, before he caught himself and stepped back like he'd been burned.
"That'll be all for now," he said, voice rougher than before. "Ruth will show you where everything is."
"Right." I stood too fast, my legs unsteady in a way that had nothing to do with nerves about the job and everything to do with him. "Anything else you need?"
"No." A pause. "Yes. Don't wear that perfume again."
"I told you, it's not… "
"I know what you told me." His eyes met mine one last time, sharp and unreadable. "Just don't."
I left his office without another word, because I didn't trust myself to speak without my voice shaking. Ruth caught me the second I stepped out, files stacked against her chest, chattering about the copier on the third floor being broken again, but I barely heard a word of it. My skin still felt too warm, my heartbeat still too loud, the memory of his eyes on my throat sitting heavy and strange in my chest.
"You look pale," Ruth said, pausing mid-sentence to look at me. "He didn't fire you already, did he?"
"No. Nothing like that."
"Then what's that face for?"
"What face?"
"The one you're making right now." Ruth's eyes narrowed, sharp despite the friendly tone. "First days rattle people. Don't let him get in your head. He does that to everyone, and it never means what you think it means."
I wanted to ask what she thought it meant, but the words wouldn't come, so I just nodded and let her walk me the rest of the way, half listening while my mind kept circling back to the sound of his voice saying *it's not the perfume* like it had cost him something to admit it.
I told myself it meant nothing. I told myself it was proximity, adrenaline, the pressure of lying to a man who clearly noticed everything.
I almost believed it.
I made it back to my desk and sat down hard, pressing my palms flat against the cool surface to steady myself. Across the office, through the frosted glass, I could see his shape moving behind the doors again, pacing now instead of sitting, like something had unsettled him too.
That should have made me feel better. It didn't.
My phone buzzed against the desk, the same unknown number from before lighting up the screen. I almost didn't look. Part of me already knew I wouldn't like what it said.
*Careful. He can smell a lie.*
I stared at the words until they blurred, my stomach twisting into something cold and sharp. Whoever was sending these messages knew more about Damian Cross than any outsider should… knew things about him that sounded less like business rumors and more like warnings from someone who understood exactly what he was.
I typed back with shaking hands. *Who is this?*
The reply came instantly, like they'd been waiting.
*Someone who knows what you are, too.*
I read it twice, three times, my pulse roaring in my ears loud enough to drown out the office around me. My thumb hovered over the keyboard, unsure whether asking another question would open a door I couldn't close again. I typed anyway.
*What am I supposed to be?*
The screen stayed dark for a long moment, long enough that I almost convinced myself the conversation was over, that whoever this was had lost their nerve or grown bored of toying with me. Then the reply came, short and final, like a door shutting somewhere far away.
*Ask him yourself. Watch his eyes when you do.*
I looked up instinctively, straight through the frosted glass, and for one impossible second I was certain his shadow had stopped moving, certain he was standing perfectly still on the other side of that door, listening to something he had no business hearing from this distance.
Whoever they were, they didn't just know about Damian.
They knew something about me I didn't even know myself.
- Writer
