Chapter 06 (Part 02)

I didn't see Killian for the rest of the morning.

He hadn't messaged. Hadn't summoned me through the sleek intercom system that connected his office to my desk. Hadn't so much as glanced in my direction when he passed by during the department meeting an hour later, moving through the conference room like a shadow—untouchable, unreadable—surrounded by an invisible force field that no one dared breach.

And I hated how much I noticed. How my eyes tracked his movement without conscious permission. How I registered the precise angle of his shoulders beneath his suit jacket, the slight tension in his jaw that hadn't been there earlier, the way he kept his right hand in his pocket as he listened to the quarterly projections.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of concentrated effort. I threw myself into damage control with the kind of focused intensity that had gotten me through college while working full-time, that had secured me this position at ValeCorp when there had been hundreds of applicants more qualified on paper.

I reached out to Marketing directly, establishing a new protocol to ensure I'd be copied on all final updates. I created a systematic checklist for presentation preparation that would prevent similar oversights in the future. I revised the meeting minutes to reflect the corrected data, ensuring no trace of the error would persist in the official record.

By lunchtime, I'd rewritten the report completely, rechecked every figure twice—three times for the sections I knew would draw the most scrutiny—and was about to send Killian a follow-up email detailing the steps I'd taken to rectify the situation when my phone buzzed on my desk.

The screen lit up with a name that made my heart stutter.

Killian Vale My office. Now.

Two words.

Why did those two words make my stomach twist into elaborate knots? Why did my mouth go dry and my pulse accelerate as if I'd been running, not sitting at my desk for the past three hours?

I fixed my hair in the reflection of my blacked-out monitor, reapplied my lipstick with steady hands that belied my inner turmoil, and straightened my blouse. Armor, all of it. Preparation for battle.

Then, gathering both my courage and my tablet, I headed towards his office, each step echoing in the hallway like a countdown.

His office was quiet when I stepped inside. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that hangs in the air after a thunderclap, pregnant with the promise of more to come. The kind of quiet before a storm.

Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting long shadows across the minimalist space. Everything in this room spoke of precision and control—from the perfectly aligned desk items to the carefully curated art on the walls, abstract pieces in muted tones that cost more than my annual salary.

Killian was at his desk, eyes fixed on his computer screen, not looking at me as I entered. His suit jacket was draped over the back of his chair, shirtsleeves rolled up to expose forearms corded with lean muscle. A hint of humanity beneath the corporate armor.

"Close the door," he said without looking up, voice neutral, giving nothing away.

I did as instructed, the soft click of the latch falling into place sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness.

Silence stretched between us, filling the room like an invisible presence. I stood with my tablet clutched against my chest, waiting, the seconds ticking by with excruciating slowness.

Finally, I took a slow breath and decided to break the impasse. "I updated the report. I emailed the corrected file to everyone who attended the meeting, along with my apologies. I've also implemented a new protocol with Marketing to ensure—"

"That's not why you're here."

His voice cut through the room like glass—sharp-edged but clear, calm but cold, final in a way that left no room for argument.

He looked up finally, those storm-gray eyes flickering over me, unreadable as always. I couldn't tell if he was angry or disappointed or simply indifferent, and that uncertainty was its own form of torment.

"You've been here a month," he said, leaning back slightly in his chair, studying me with the detached interest of a scientist observing a specimen under glass. "Do you know how many assistants came before you?"

I stayed silent, sensing the question was rhetorical, a prelude to whatever point he intended to make.

"Four," he continued after a moment. "In a year."

I was not surprised by this information. ValeCorp's turnover rate was legendary, particularly among those who worked directly with Killian Vale. People whispered about it in break rooms and at the local bars where employees gathered after hours to decompress—how no one lasted, how the pressure crushed even the most competent professionals into resignation or termination.

"They all had the same problem," he continued, voice lacking any real emotion, just stating facts as he saw them. "They thought this job was about handing me coffee, answering emails, and wearing nice heels while smiling in meetings."

There was a flicker of something in his voice then—a hint of amusement, perhaps, or derision—but it died quickly, replaced by that familiar clinical detachment.

"This isn't about being efficient. Or polite." He stood now, the movement fluid and controlled. "It's about precision. I don't have the luxury of mistakes, Emery. And by extension, neither do you."

The use of my first name caught me off guard. In the month I'd worked here, he'd only ever called me "Ms. Quinn"—professional, distant, impersonal. The sudden shift to "Emery" felt intimate somehow, like a boundary being crossed without permission.

"I know," I said quietly, meeting his gaze despite the flutter of nervousness in my stomach. "I messed up."

He stood slowly, walking around the desk with measured steps. Not toward me, exactly. Just pacing the perimeter of his domain, moving with the fluid grace of a predator with no immediate interest in attacking, just circling the prey to make it feel small, to remind it of its place in the hierarchy.

"I don't need apologies," he said, voice devoid of warmth. "I need performance."

Something in his tone—the dismissal of my contrition, the reduction of my value to mere functionality—sparked a flare of defiance beneath my professional veneer.

"I can give you that," I replied, surprised by the steadiness in my voice.

He stopped his pacing. Looked at me directly, eyes narrowing slightly as if seeing something unexpected.

"For how long?"

I flinched at the question, at the implication that my competence was temporary, a façade that would inevitably crumble.

"Excuse me?"

He tilted his head slightly, studying me with renewed interest. "You wear your emotions on your face like a billboard. You second-guess yourself too much. You hesitate." Each observation felt like a dart finding its target with unerring accuracy. "I don't need potential, Emery. I need results."

The silence between us was loud, filled with unspoken challenges and unmet expectations. I stood my ground, though every instinct urged retreat, urged appeasement.

He started walking back to his desk, apparently considering the conversation concluded, my dismissal imminent. But something in me—some long-dormant spark of defiance that had survived years of being overlooked and underestimated—suddenly flared to life.

"Maybe," I said, the word slipping out before prudence could contain it. "Maybe I just needed one second of grace. One ounce of patience." I swallowed hard but forced myself to continue, knowing I might be signing my professional death warrant but unable to stop now that I'd begun. "Maybe if you didn't treat everyone like a disappointment waiting to happen, they wouldn't become one."

The room went still, as if time itself had paused to witness my audacity.

He turned slowly, his movement deliberate, controlled even in surprise.

And for the first time since I started at ValeCorp, I saw it—something flickering behind his eyes that looked almost human. A crack in the perfect façade of Killian Vale, corporate automaton.

Not anger, though I had expected it.

Not irritation, though that would have been understandable.

But pain—swift and raw, there and gone in an instant, but unmistakable. Like a wound glimpsed beneath bandages, unexpectedly revealed and hastily covered again.

"I don't have the luxury of grace," he said quietly, and for a moment, his voice held something I hadn't heard before—not weakness, exactly, but perhaps a weariness that came from carrying something heavy for too long without rest. "Not in this world. Not in this building. And certainly not with people who are supposed to have my back."

The words hung in the air between us, charged with meaning beyond their surface. This wasn't just about work anymore, about reports and data and corporate performance. This was about trust. About vulnerability. About the weight of expectations that crushed from both sides.

He sat down again, the moment gone as quickly as it had appeared, armor back in place as if it had never slipped.

"Close the door on your way out," he said, eyes already returning to his screen, dismissing me from his presence and his thoughts.

I didn't move for a second, still processing what had just transpired. The flash of humanity I'd glimpsed felt significant, though I couldn't articulate why.

Because what he'd said wasn't just about work protocols or professional standards.

It was about trust.

About betrayal, perhaps. About expectations formed and disappointed too many times to count.

And maybe, for one brief moment, I had seen a crack in the ice that surrounded Killian Vale. Just one small fissure in the perfect, impenetrable exterior he presented to the world.

Just one.

But it was enough to make me want to see what else was hiding underneath. What depth of person existed beneath the polished surface of the man everyone feared but no one seemed to know.

I turned and left his office without another word, closing the door quietly behind me. But as I walked back to my desk, something had shifted within me. The humiliation of the morning still stung, but alongside it grew a new determination—not just to excel at my job, but to understand the man who defined it.

Because in that moment of unexpected vulnerability, Killian Vale had become more than my intimidating boss.

He had become a puzzle I desperately wanted to solve.