Chapter 3

Natasha Whitmore's pov

Grandpa Alex gave my shoulder one last light pat, then turned and left the office, he said something about a bingo game. I honestly wished he stayed longer. I watched as the door clicked shut behind him.

Silence settled between us. I could feel myself struggling to breathe.

Daniel didn’t move from behind the desk. He simply stared at me, those winter steel eyes moving over the damp coat, the ruined makeup, the single shoe still on my foot as if cataloguing every reason I didn’t belong here. I knew that face.

I had seen it on every business magazine cover for the past three years...the city’s most eligible, most untouchable bachelor. Cold, ruthless. A man who collected women the way other men collected watches and discarded them just as easily. He didn’t believe in love. The interviews said so. The gossip columns screamed it.

He rose slowly, rounding the desk with unhurried steps until he stood close enough that I had to tilt my head back.

“What cheap tricks did you pull to get my grandfather to drag you in here?” His voice was low, almost conversational, but there was ice underneath it. “Did you cry on cue? Flash a little skin? Pretend to be some tragic lost soul?”

Heat flooded my face. “I didn’t do any tricks. I was sitting on a bench in the rain. He offered help. That’s all.”

Daniel’s mouth curved into something that wasn’t a smile. “My grandfather doesn’t offer help to strangers. Especially not ones who look like they crawled out of a gutter.”

Before I could answer, his hand closed around my wrist. The grip was firm, not painful, but absolute. He turned and started walking toward the far end of the vast office, pulling me with him.

“Where are you taking me?” My voice climbed. I stumbled after him, the remaining heel catching on the carpet. “Let go...please. What are you....”

A wild thought flashed through my mind. The floor to ceiling windows. For one panicked second I actually believed he might open one and shove me through.

“Mr. Ford...please, where...” I pleaded, my eyes wide with horror.

He stopped in front of a discreet door I hadn’t noticed, twisted the handle, and pushed it open. Soft light spilled out as I saw a private bathroom with marble floors, a glass shower, thick white towels stacked on a heated rail.

He released my wrist.

“Shower,” he said flatly. “Wash the mascara off your face. Make yourself look like someone who belongs in this building. There are clothes in the cabinet. Use them.”

I stared at him, breath still uneven. He didn’t wait for an answer. He simply turned and walked back to his desk.

The door closed behind me with a soft click.

I stood under the hot water longer than I needed to, letting it beat against my shoulders until the last of the rain-chill left my bones. When I stepped out, I found a simple black blouse and tailored trousers in my size folded neatly inside the cabinet, along with new underwear still in packaging. I dressed slowly, wiped the last traces of makeup from my face with a warm cloth, and stared at my reflection. The woman looking back still had red-rimmed eyes, but she no longer looked broken.

When I returned to the office, a thin stack of papers waited on the edge of the desk. Daniel didn’t look up from his screen.

“Sign,” he said.

I read every line. There was month probation. If I was still here at the end of it...if I didn’t run....the position became permanent. Salary figures that made my stomach twist. At the bottom, a separate form for an immediate pay advance.

My hand shook only a little as I signed.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

He finally glanced at me. “Don’t thank me. Just do the work. Calendar is on the tablet. Schedule is already loaded. Keep up or leave. I don’t repeat myself.”

I nodded and sat at the smaller desk near the window that had clearly been prepared for an assistant. For the next several hours I answered emails, confirmed meetings, and fielded calls in a voice that sounded almost steady.

Daniel barely spoke to me. When the clock finally reached six, a beautiful woman came over, she kissed his lips but he wiped it off, then he stood, collected his coat, and left without a word of goodbye. I tried my best to mind my own business.

I waited until the elevator doors closed behind him before I allowed myself to breathe properly.

My first stop was the apartment.

The security guard at the desk looked uncomfortable the moment he saw me. “Miss Whitmore… I’m sorry. Mr. Cole left instructions. You’re not to be given access.”

I didn’t argue. I simply asked if any of my things had been left for collection. He hesitated, then led me around to the side alley where the building’s dumpsters stood. A black trash bag sat against the wall, still faintly warm. Inside were the remains of my clothes—charred fabric, melted zippers, the sequined dress I had worn to last year’s gala reduced to blackened scraps. The smell of accelerant clung to everything.

My car was gone from its usual spot in the underground garage. The space was empty, as if it had never been there.

I stood in the alley for a long time, the bag of ashes at my feet, before I pulled out my phone and called Ryan.

He didn’t answer the first three times. On the fourth ring, the line connected.

Laughter filtered through first...Sarah’s soft, familiar laugh before Ryan’s voice cut in, lazy and amused.

“What now, Natasha?”

“Where are my things?” My voice cracked despite every effort to keep it level. “My clothes. My car. What did you do?”

He made a small sound of boredom. “The clothes were clutter. Sarah said they made the place look cheap. As for the car… consider it partial payment for everything you cost me over the years.”

Sarah’s voice floated closer. “Is that her? Tell her to stop calling. It’s pathetic.”

Ryan chuckled. “You heard the lady. Stop calling. And don’t bother with the police. Everything was in my name, remember? The apartment. The accounts. Even the loan you so generously co-signed without knowing it. You’re nobody now. A fired employee with a mountain of debt and nowhere to go. Do us all a favour and disappear.”

Tears slid down my face before I could stop them. “You’re a monster.”

“And you’re boring.” The line went dead.

I lowered the phone.

I had nowhere to sleep.

The realization settled slowly, heavy and cold. I had given up my own design studio dreams years ago because Ryan said we needed to focus on *his* climb. I had smiled and nodded and told myself it was temporary. I had cut off every friend who tried to warn me, because Ryan said outside voices only brought gossip and doubt. "We’re a team," he used to whisper against my hair. "Other people will only try to pull us apart."

Now the team was gone, and I was standing in an alley with a bag of ashes and a phone that no longer had anyone left to call.

Police would do nothing. Ryan had become untouchable chairman, friends in the right places, paperwork that made everything look clean on paper. I was the woman who had signed things without reading carefully enough. The fool.

My feet carried me through the darkening streets with no real destination at first. Every step reminded me I had nowhere left that was mine. Then the weight of the pay advance Daniel had authorized earlier settled in my mind....It was enough for a few nights until I found an apartment.

I found a modest motel three blocks from the business district.

I locked the door, and sat on the edge of the mattress. For a long time I simply stared at the wall. Then the tears came again, I felt exhausted, the kind that left my chest aching. I wiped them away with the heel of my hand.

Ryan and Sarah had taken everything.

If I wanted them to feel even a fraction of what they had done to me, I needed power. Visibility. Something they could not ignore or laugh off.

I needed Daniel Ford.

The city’s biggest playboy. The same man who had looked at me like I was an inconvenience he already regretted.

I closed my eyes and pictured it—the moment Ryan and Sarah saw the headlines, the photos, the gossip columns. *Daniel Ford, the untouchable bachelor, finally claimed by a woman.* Their faces when they realize the woman is me.

A slow, bitter smile pulled at my mouth.

It would not be easy. Daniel was ice. Every glance today had proven it. He certainly did not look at me with anything close to interest.

Seducing him would require patience I was not sure I still possessed.

If survival meant playing a longer, colder game, then that was exactly what I would do.

"Starting tomorrow, I would become the kind of woman Daniel Ford could not easily dismiss."