C5

Maribel Westbrook adjusts the cuff of her silk blouse, the high-end fabric feeling entirely foreign against her skin after years of structured cotton uniforms. The luxury bed in the private executive suite feels vast, far too sprawling compared to the narrow dorm cot she fell asleep in two nights ago. She shifts her weight across the crisp thread-count sheets, trying to anchor her disoriented mind.

“Are you trying to roll off the mattress?” Keaton Waverly barks from the edge of the room.

Maribel snaps her eyes open, her breath catching. “Keaton?”

She bolts upright, and an immediate, white-hot tear of pain flares through her right forearm. “Ouch!”

“Hey, take it easy!” Keaton shoves her gently back down into the plush bedding, his large hands firm on her shoulders.

“What on earth happened?” She blinks up at him, her pulse hammering against her ribs.

“You tell me, Belle.”

Maribel flinches. Hearing her full name usually means she has managed to cross a line she did not even know existed. She looks down at her arm, wincing at the sight of a long, angry red laceration covered in a thick layer of medical ointment. Then the memory of the operations division comes rushing back—the harsh fluorescent lighting, the cold steel desks, and the terrifying confrontation. The last thing she remembers before losing consciousness was a massive, dark-haired man with ice-blue eyes and a tailored charcoal suit. He was built broader than Keaton, which says everything, considering her long-time friend has spent the last three years transforming into a framed division head.

“I need to wrap that up properly,” Keaton mutters, swinging his legs off the king-sized mattress and stepping toward the adjoining marble bathroom.

Even sitting upright takes a physical toll, but the dull ache in her arm is worse. Keaton’s suite in the executive residence wing is immense. It features a leather sofa, a towering mahogany bookshelf, and a sprawling glass desk that he rarely uses for actual paperwork. Framing the walls are framed photographs—one with his father, Jace Waverly, and another with his younger sister. The room is larger than her entire family apartment in the city.

She gasps, suddenly remembering her pocket. Maribel frantically pats down her tailored trousers until her fingers touch the sleek metal edge of her phone. Relief washes over her; at least it did not drop out during the chaos.

Keaton returns holding an imported leather first-aid kit. He drops onto the edge of the mattress, sliding closer to her. Taking her wrist with practiced care, he inspects the wound. The cut is clean, clearly treated already by whatever ointment had been liberally applied to her skin.

Maribel lets out a quiet breath. If things continue like this, she will end up a total liability in the corporate hierarchy. Sloane Everhart had already humiliated her in front of the entire incoming cohort, minus the graduate interns, and to make matters worse, she had nearly been physically assaulted by an operations associate. So much for keeping a low profile at the Sterling Executive Institute.

“I am sorry about your suit jacket and everything else,” Maribel says quietly.

Keaton looks up, peeling the protective backing off a wide medical dressing. His clear blue eyes anchor on hers before returning to the task at hand. “It was not your fault. Sloane was entirely out of line.”

“I would not blame you if you wanted to distance yourself—”

“Belle, stop. I am not angry at you.”

“Then why are you acting like this?” Maribel’s voice cracks, a sudden rush of raw vulnerability threatening to break her composure. “You are tense. You are keeping your distance.”

“Because I am furious,” Keaton says, his tone dropping an octave. “A physical altercation in the operations division could have ruined your standing permanently if Maddox had not stepped in.”

“Maddox?”

“Yes. Maddox Sterling. The managing director of the Sterling Group. It was his operations lead who caused that injury, so it was only right he handled the immediate situation.”

Maribel swallows hard, trying to reconcile the name. It makes sense that the towering man in the obsidian suit was the managing director himself—a high-stakes executive whose entire board treated junior associates like line items on a balance sheet. Yet, if he was the one who pulled her out of that room, perhaps he was not entirely heartless.

Keaton presses an antiseptic wipe against the cut, and Maribel winces sharply, a small gasp escaping her throat.

“Don’t be a baby,” Keaton says with a faint, sudden laugh that breaks the oppressive tension in the room.

He applies the sterile bandage with steady fingers, and Maribel pulls her arm back, wrapping a cashmere throw tightly around her shoulders. The evening sun has long since dipped below the skyline of Westbrook Heights. How long had she been unconscious?

Her heart skips a beat as Keaton reaches out, cupping her cheek with his warm palm and resting his forehead lightly against hers. Instinctively, she closes her eyes. If she possessed the corporate authority he carried, she might feel entirely at ease in this world. Instead, she gets only this fleeting moment of safety, but it feels more grounding than anything she has experienced since stepping foot into the institute.

“Damn it, Belle, I thought you were done for,” Keaton whispers, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. “When I found you sitting outside Maddox’s private executive suite, you looked completely drained.”

Maribel forces herself not to panic. She had been outside the managing director's private suite?

“I am sorry,” she murmurs.

“I nearly lost my mind,” he says softly.

For a split second, the heavy weight between them softens—

The suite’s double doors swing open with a sharp, heavy click. Three women in custom-tailored designer suits step into the entry foyer, breaking the silence instantly. Maribel recoils, sliding toward the far side of the bed, while Keaton merely turns his upper body, his expression hardening.

“Well, don’t you two look comfortable,” Sloane Everhart says, her voice dripping with refined disdain.

A sharp, familiar headache spikes behind Maribel’s temples. She presses two fingers to her forehead and quickly steps off the mattress, taking the subtle cue to create distance.

Keaton rises to his feet, placing himself directly between his fiancé and her entourage.

“So this is the little graduate intern,” a girl with a sharp black pixie cut says, inspecting Maribel with cold, calculated curiosity rather than outright rage.

Sloane takes a step forward, her eyes narrowing as she looks past Keaton. “You are violating residence policy, Maribel.”

“That is enough, Sloane,” Keaton says, his voice flat and authoritative.

“Step aside, Keaton. She does not belong in the executive wing.”

“I brought her here myself,” Keaton replies, his jaw set. “And I dare you to take that up with the board.”

“You are only bold because your family holds half the shares in Waverly Lakefront Estate,” Sloane snaps, her manicured hands clenching at her sides. “You are testing my patience.”

“Good. The feeling is entirely mutual. I do not even want to look at you right now.”

Another girl, standing just behind Sloane with long platinum hair and a bespoke beige blazer, steps forward. “You should leave, intern. People from your background are not permitted in the private suites unless they are carrying a cleaning tray. Get out before security is called.”

Keaton glares at her, but Maribel has reached her limit for the evening.

“It is fine,” Maribel says quietly, smoothing down her blazer. “I should get back to the residence hall anyway. I will see you later, Keaton.”

She turns toward the door, passing the two associates who track her every movement as if she were a security breach in high heels.

“Let me walk you down. It is late,” Keaton insists, taking a step toward her.

“You just do not get it, do you, Keaton?” Sloane’s voice cuts through the room like shattered glass. “I do not care how long you two have known each other from your old neighborhood. That dynamic does not work here!”

A flash of genuine anger crosses Keaton’s features, his mouth opening to deliver a harsh rebuttal, but Maribel cuts in before he can speak.

“It is fine, Keaton. It is only a five-minute walk across the central courtyard.”

“Belle—” he sighs, stepping forward, but she is already out the door.

Maribel exits into a grand, carpeted corridor lined with mahogany doors, each trimmed with polished brass fixtures. She quickly locates the main marble staircase and descends, guided by the low, distant murmur of conversation coming from the lower floor. She prays the stairs lead directly to the main entrance so she can make a swift exit into the cool evening air.

Reaching the ground floor, she finds herself bordering a private executive lounge occupied by several senior associates in dark suits. She swallows hard, pulling her jacket tighter. Luckily, they are engrossed in high-stakes financial projections, though she knows her presence will not go unnoticed for long in a building governed by strict corporate hierarchy.

As she nears the heavy glass front doors, her eyes catch a figure sitting at the far corner table. Maddox Sterling. He looks up briefly, his icy gaze sweeping over her for a fraction of a second as if she were a minor line item on an irrelevant document, before returning to his tablet. Maribel does not wait. She pushes through the glass doors and steps out into the crisp air of Westbrook Heights.

She lets out a long breath. It is going to be a grueling semester.