Strictly Professional

POV Hazel.

I am barely breathing.

The oxygen in the sprawling executive office seems to have evaporated the moment our eyes met. The sheer size of the room is designed to make anyone standing in front of that massive mahogany desk feel insignificant, and right now, it is working perfectly. He hasn't offered a single welcoming word. He just gives a bare, imperceptible nod of his head, acting as if I am nothing more than a delivery girl dropping off a package.

"Close the door."

His deep voice is dipped in unforgiving frost. The instruction is short and clipped, leaving no room for hesitation. I step backward and grab the sleek metal handle. The heavy tinted door shuts behind me with a definitive click, sealing me inside his domain. The lock engages with a heavy thud, and the silence that follows is deafening.

I stand there, rooted to the expensive carpet. He stares at me with a chilling blankness, like I am a new variable he has to deal with. He looks at me as if I am a stranger off the street. Like he didn’t have his teeth buried in the sensitive skin of my neck just two nights ago. Like I didn’t fall apart into a sobbing, quivering mess beneath him while his massive hand gripped my thigh hard enough to leave bruises. Like he doesn't remember the taste of me on his tongue, or how tight and wet my pussy felt gripping his cock when he drove himself deep inside me.

He looks right through me, a perfect picture of corporate detachment.

"Sit."

The single word is not a polite suggestion. It lands across my face like a physical slap, stinging my pride and forcing my legs to move. I lower myself slowly into the stiff leather chair opposite his desk. Every single inch of my muscles winds tight in defense. I try desperately to match his cold, dead gaze and pretend, just for my own survival, that he is just another terrifying corporate boss giving orders to a subordinate.

But I am not stupid. I can see the minute, sharp flicker of the muscle in his jaw.

He remembers. He remembers every single filthy detail of what we did in that hotel room. He remembers how I surrendered to him. He is just weaponizing his power to pretend it didn't mean a damn thing.

Moving with calculated, lethal precision, he picks up a sleek black folder. He drops it onto the center of his mahogany desk, the heavy sound echoing in the quiet room.

"You will be working directly off my schedule. If I am there, you are there. You do not speak unless spoken to. You do not linger in rooms where you are not needed. You do not initiate any form of personal conversation." His tone is flat, efficient, and devoid of humanity.

He steps back from the desk, standing tall and imposing. He uses the massive, intimidating architecture of the office to weaponize the environment against me, casting a long shadow that makes me want to shrink back into the leather seat.

"And above all, you do not look me in the eyes unless I have explicitly permitted it." His slate-gray eyes pierce straight through my skull.

My breath catches painfully in my throat. The sheer degradation in that rule makes my chest ache. I dig my fingernails into my palms to keep from trembling, using the sharp bite of pain to ground myself.

"Understood. Sir." I force the words out of my tight throat. The honorific tastes sour and degrading on my tongue.

Without breaking his glacial stare, he lays out my grueling itinerary. He lists off meetings, calls, and strict deadlines, demanding that I anticipate his every need before he even voices it. He speaks to me like I am a piece of machinery expected to function flawlessly under his command. Then, he coldly dismisses me with a blind, sweeping gesture of his hand. He points toward a small, isolated secretary desk situated outside his main glass doors.

"There. Obviously," he sneers.

The vibrating, sickening tension in the room is abruptly pierced by a sharp knock on the glass. I jump slightly in my seat. Mr. Hughes practically bursts into the office, carrying a silver tablet and looking far too cheerful for the suffocating atmosphere he just walked into. He remains oblivious to the heavy, charged air between the CEO and the new assistant.

"Mr. Blackwood, everything is ready. We need to go over the logistical details for the press floor tour," Mr. Hughes says, tapping his screen.

Dorian immediately gathers his suit jacket and tablet. He moves briskly around the desk, responding to Hughes in a low, even voice without sparing a single, fleeting glance in my direction. He treats me like I have already ceased to exist.

Taking the agonizing hint, I grab my cheap folder and rise from the chair. I retreat from the executive office and walk over to my new desk in the outer room, dropping heavily into the chair. The space feels isolated and exposed all at once. I stare at the sterile desktop and try to force my lungs to take in air. I try desperately not to feel like a kicked, unwanted dog that he just scraped off his expensive shoes.

A few moments later, I hear the heavy thud of their footsteps. He and Hughes walk past my desk, heading down the long hallway toward the private elevators. Their voices are low murmurs, discussing business strategies and press statements.

I keep my head bowed down. I dutifully stare at a blank notepad, clicking a pen open and shut, waiting for them to pass so I can finally let out a shaky breath.

But suddenly, the footsteps halt.

He stops mid-stride. I can feel the weight of his attention pressing down on me before I even look up. My stomach drops. He turns his imposing frame directly toward my desk, looming over the space.

"What are you doing?" he snaps.

His voice cracks like a whip through the quiet floor. The harsh sound makes my shoulders flinch.

"You are sitting. You are supposed to be shadowing me. Do you not understand what the word assist means?" His tone drips with open condescension.

The harsh, belittling words slice through my pride far deeper than they should. Panic surges through my veins, hot and fast. I shoot up from the chair so fast it almost tips over backward, my knees knocking hard against the edge of the desk.

"I am sorry, sir. Right away." I stammer out a pathetic string of apologies, my face burning with fresh humiliation.

I hurry out from behind the desk, clutching the black folder against my chest, and practically jog to catch up with them. As I fall into step behind the two men, I catch a tiny, agonizingly pitying look from Mr. Hughes out of the corner of my eye. That sympathetic glance is the final twisting of the knife. It hurts far more than the shouting.

As we walk halfway to the elevator banks, a sharp, deeply painful realization blooms in the center of my chest. It spreads through my ribs like ice water.

I am not just being ignored. I am being purposefully punished.

He is punishing me for letting him touch me that night. He is punishing me for moaning so desperately in his hotel bed, for spreading my legs and letting him ravage my body. He is punishing me for daring to think that his lingering touch, his heated gaze, and that handwritten note might have meant something real before I knew he was a goddamn billionaire CEO. He wants me to feel small. He wants me to feel cheap.

Fine.

The realization hardens the tears behind my eyes into a brittle shield of anger. My sadness evaporates, replaced by a cold, defensive fury. If he wants a cold, strictly professional robot who only speaks when spoken to and never looks him in the eyes, I will give him exactly that. I will play his twisted corporate game and I will survive it.

I square my shoulders and lift my chin. I clutch my folders tighter to my chest, staring at the broad line of his back as I follow a step behind him. I build an emotional armor piece by piece with every step I take toward the private elevators.

But despite my fierce resolve, despite the anger pumping through my veins, my hands simply will not stop trembling.