Chapter 06

Emery Quinn

I knew the moment the door clicked shut behind me that I had made a mistake.

Not just a typo. Not a missed call or a forgotten file. This was worse—a professional catastrophe that sent ice through my veins and made my heart stutter against my ribs. This was the kind of mistake that could make Killian Vale turn those frost-bitten eyes on you like you were no longer a person, but a problem to be erased from his pristine corporate landscape.

And I had walked right into it.

The executive boardroom enveloped me in its oppressive silence, broken only by the low, persistent hum of the projector casting its pale blue light across the polished mahogany table. Twelve men in tailored suits—board members, investors, people whose net worth could fund small countries—stared at the outdated report in their hands. I watched as they flipped through graphs and numbers that should have been updated three hours ago. Three critical hours I could've used—if I had just checked my inbox on time.

The weight of their collective disappointment pressed against my chest like a physical force, making each breath shallow and insufficient. The room itself seemed to contract around me, the soaring floor-to-ceiling windows suddenly claustrophobic despite the panoramic view of the city they offered.

Killian stood at the head of the room, a study in controlled power. His hands were clasped behind his back like a commander on a battlefield surveying the damage, shoulders squared beneath his impeccably tailored charcoal suit. Not a thread out of place. Not a hint of uncertainty in his posture. His jaw was cut from stone, lips tight, unreadable as ancient scripture.

He didn't look at me. Not at first.

I stood frozen in the doorway, clutching my tablet to my chest like a shield, though I knew nothing could protect me from what was coming. The silence stretched, elastic and painful, as everyone in the room became acutely aware of the disruption I had caused.

"Ms. Quinn," he said finally, voice crisp as winter air with that particular cadence he used when displeasure lurked beneath his words, "would you care to explain why this report contains last week's data?"

My throat dried up instantly, as if all moisture had evaporated under the heat of collective scrutiny. I could feel sweat gathering at the small of my back, cool against my silk blouse.

"I—" I hesitated, the word hanging incomplete in the air between us. Wrong move. Too much hesitation was weakness in this place, in this company, in Killian Vale's presence. It signaled doubt, and doubt was unacceptable. I swallowed hard and forced myself to continue. "I wasn't aware the marketing team had finalized the new numbers. I sent the file based on the latest shared version."

The words fell flat even to my own ears. That wasn't an excuse. Not here. Not to him. And I knew it.

The room temperature seemed to drop several degrees as Killian finally turned to face me fully. His head moved with deliberate slowness, eyes locking onto mine with laser precision, and for a second I felt like a deer caught in a sniper's crosshairs—paralyzed, exposed, utterly defenseless. There was no shouting. Not a single raised word. Just the heavy, silent judgment of someone who didn't need volume to destroy you, who could dismantle your confidence with nothing more than the arch of an eyebrow or the slight tightening at the corner of his mouth.

"You weren't aware?" he echoed, as if testing the words on his tongue, examining them for flaws the way he examined everything that passed through his hands. "That's your defense?"

I looked down. At the paper clutched in my hand. At the trembling of my fingers that I couldn't quite control. At the tiny scuff on my otherwise perfect black pumps. Anywhere but him.

"I'm sorry. I take full responsibility—"

"You're right," he cut in, the interruption smooth and sharp as a surgical blade. "You do."

The air in the room shifted. Tighter. Colder. Like oxygen being slowly extracted, leaving everyone struggling to breathe normally while pretending nothing was wrong.

He stepped forward, moving away from his position at the head of the table. Each click of his shoes against the polished floor was deliberate, rhythmic, a metronome counting down to my professional execution. I felt every footfall reverberate in my spine, each step bringing him closer to where I stood rooted in place.

"This presentation was scheduled at nine," he continued, his voice maintaining that terrible, even calm that was far more frightening than any shout could be. "The marketing update came in at seven-forty. Meaning you had over an hour to do your job." He paused, letting the math sink in, letting me absorb the full weight of my negligence. "But instead, you handed a room full of senior investors obsolete projections. Do you have any idea how that makes us look?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it again. There was nothing to say that wouldn't sound like begging or making excuses—both unforgivable sins in Killian Vale's kingdom of competence.

His voice didn't rise. That made it worse, somehow. It stayed calm—clinical—like he'd dissected this moment in his mind a thousand times already and decided exactly where to cut, exactly how to extract maximum effect with minimal effort. The economy of emotion that defined everything about him.

"If you're going to wear my company's name," he said, pausing right in front of me, close enough that I could smell the subtle notes of his cologne—cedarwood and something darker, unidentifiable—"learn to carry the weight that comes with it."

I felt the words like a physical blow, though his tone remained terrifyingly level. His eyes—gray as storm clouds gathering on the horizon—held mine for one excruciating moment, searching for something I wasn't sure I possessed.

Then he dropped the updated packet onto the table with a clean thud that echoed in the silent room and turned back to face his audience without waiting for my response. Without acknowledging me further. As if I had already ceased to exist in his consciousness.

"Gentlemen, let's continue with the correct data."

And that was it.

Dismissed. Not with a wave. Not with a yell. Just silence. Just the singular, devastating experience of being rendered irrelevant in the span of a heartbeat.

I backed out of the room on legs that barely felt connected to my body, my face burning with a heat I didn't fully understand. I wasn't sure if it was anger at myself for such a fundamental oversight, or shame at being dressed down in front of a room full of powerful men who wouldn't remember my name but would remember my failure.

Or worse—something that flared in my chest when he looked at me like that. Like he expected more from me. Like my failure wasn't just professional but personal, a betrayal of some unspoken pact between us.

I made it to the hallway, the door closing behind me with a soft click that belied the catastrophe that had just unfolded, and braced my hands on the cool marble wall. My chest was rising and falling too fast, breath coming in shallow bursts that threatened to develop into full hyperventilation if I didn't get myself under control.

Breathe, Emery. Just breathe.

I closed my eyes, focusing on pulling air deep into my lungs, holding it for four counts, releasing it for six. The techniques I'd learned long ago to manage anxiety that threatened to overwhelm. I had survived worse than this. Years of rejection. A degree I earned while working double shifts at a diner where customers thought a five-dollar tip gave them permission to comment on my appearance. I'd been humiliated, underestimated, and forgotten more times than I could count.

But somehow, this—this look from him—cut deeper than any of those past wounds.

It wasn't just that I had failed.

It was that I had failed him.

The realization hit with unexpected force, leaving me momentarily breathless again. When had Killian Vale's opinion begun to matter so much? When had his approval become a currency I desperately wanted to earn? I didn't have an answer, and that unsettled me more than the mistake itself.

A door opened further down the hall, and I straightened immediately, smoothing my skirt with hands that still trembled slightly. Two executives walked past, engrossed in conversation, barely sparing me a glance. Just another invisible assistant having a momentary crisis in the hallway. Nothing worth noting.

I squared my shoulders, lifted my chin, and walked back to my desk with as much dignity as I could muster. I had a report to fix. I had amends to make. I had work to do.

That was one thing I had learned about ValeCorp in my short time here—there was no space for wallowing. You either recovered quickly or you were replaced. And I had no intention of becoming just another name on the long list of Killian Vale's failed assistants.