LOGIN"Sign the ten-year commercial lease right now, Sabrina, before my hand starts shaking so violently I ruin this custom Montblanc pen," Aria breathed, her voice echoing off the sprawling, raw marble floors of the vacant Fifth Avenue storefront.I took the sleek pen from her fingers, my hand completely steady as I pressed the nib to the thick parchment contract resting on the brass counter. "I’m not signing for ten years, Aria... I’m securing twenty. We aren't testing the waters on Fifth Avenue. We are claiming sovereign ownership of this block.""Twenty years?" the high-profile commercial broker choked out, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his forehead as he stared at the signed document in disbelief. "Miss Mendoza... this is prime real estate. You’re literally four doors down from the main corporate headquarters of the Peterson Luxe Group. The lease commitments alone run into seven figures annually.""Then it’s a good thing my quarterly digital revenue cleared eight figures yesterday,
"Put the glass down, Drake, before you lose the last piece of dignity this board hasn't already stripped from your hands," Marcus Hale warned, his voice cracking through the suffocating darkness of my private executive office.I didn't answer him. I didn't even turn around. I simply tilted the heavy crystal tumbler, watching the amber liquid swirl against the ice cubes before tossing the entire shot of twenty-year scotch down my throat. The alcohol burned my chest, a hot, searing wave that did absolutely nothing to numb the hollow, agonizing void expanding inside my soul."The federal investigators just subpoenaed the primary operational logs from the third quarter," Marcus continued, his polished leather dress shoes clicking sharply against the hardwood floor as he stepped up beside my mahogany desk. "Emma’s legal team is pushing the board for an emergency vote tomorrow morning to freeze your remaining executive proxy rights. If you show up to that meeting smelling like a distillery,
"I want her completely erased from every press wire before midnight, and I don't care how many publicists you have to bribe to make it happen!"The sound of shattering crystal echoed through the sleek glass hallway outside the greenroom corridor. I paused near the corner, my hand freezing on the brass handle of my velvet-lined garment bag. Aria stepped up right behind me, her fingers digging into my elbow with a fierce, warning pressure as we both peered through the slight gap in the heavy double doors.Emma Brookes was standing in the center of a private holding suite, looking like a demonic angel wrapped in fifty thousand dollars worth of white silk. Her face was contorted into an absolute, unhinged mask of pure, unadulterated fury, her eyes glaring at a wall-mounted monitor that was still replaying my live television broadcast. On screen, my face was frozen mid-sentence, looking straight through the camera lens as the ticker scrolled beneath my chin: Sabrina Mendoza: No Masters, No
"Three minutes to air, Miss Mendoza, so please hold still while I touch up the powder on your forehead... the broadcast lighting in studio four is aggressively unforgiving," the greenroom stylist chattered, her hands darting around my face like an anxious hummingbird.I gently caught her wrist, holding it firm until she froze. "The powder is fine. I don't hide under layers, and I certainly don't sweat under studio lights."Aria leaned against the vanity doorframe behind me, her arms crossed over a sleek monochrome suit, a fierce, glowing smirk lighting up her features. "She really thinks you're nervous, babe. She doesn't realize you used to coordinate live global shareholder calls for Peterson Luxe while Drake was screaming at board members in three different time zones.""That was a previous life," I said smoothly, standing up and smoothing down the lapels of my tailored ivory power suit. It was sharp, architectural, and completely unyielding... matched only by the heavy geometric go
"If the editorial director from Conde Nast calls one more time before I finish formatting this high-resolution photo asset, I am going to throw this entire dual-monitor setup right into the East River," Theo shouted, his fingers flying across his mechanical keyboard like an elite esports player in the grand finals.I tilted my head back against the exposed iron pillar of our Brooklyn headquarters, completely unfazed. "Let it ring, Theo... Vogue Digital doesn't get to dictate my calendar just because they finally realized old-money legacy luxury is actively tanking.""She’s literally in her unbothered era, and I am completely obsessed with it," Aria remarked, sliding a polished sterling silver chiseled choker across the workbench toward the two new design apprentices. "Nessa, secure the micro-pave diamonds on the southern edge... Chloe, keep the laser welder steady because we are not sending anything less than absolute perfection to the biggest press feature of the decade."The gritty
"If we don't lease this industrial space by midnight, Sabrina, the digital fulfillment queue will literally trigger a localized server meltdown," Theo yelled over the deafening roar of the D-train rattling right outside the cracked window.I swept my gaze across the sprawling, raw concrete floor of the Dumbo warehouse, my boots leaving sharp imprints in the decades of dust. "Then wire the security deposit to the landlord immediately, Theo... we aren't letting a logistics bottleneck choke out our momentum.""The lease is already digitally signed, boss," Aria shouted from the far corner, her bright pink measuring tape snapping loudly against a massive exposed brick pillar. "We have exactly four thousand square feet of absolute industrial bliss... goodbye cramped living room, hello actual creative sovereignty."The sheer volume of incoming orders following Vanessa Sterling’s gala appearance had turned my small apartment into an absolute war zone of bubble wrap, velvet boxes, and tangled
The office felt impossibly small. Every inch of air between us burned. The city lights outside blurred into streaks of gold and silver, irrelevant compared to the storm raging between us.Drake’s hands were on my waist, holding me like he would never let go. I felt the hard planes of his chest agai
The city had gone to sleep—or at least, that’s what I told myself as I stepped out of Drake’s office hours later, trying to make sense of the chaos in my chest.I should have been processing what happened tonight. What he did tonight. The fire, the tension, the way he claimed me so completely that
The city lights outside Drake’s penthouse were cold and distant, but inside, the air was thick, heavy with an intensity I couldn’t ignore.I stood frozen by the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching the neon glow of the streets below, trying to calm the storm raging inside me. But it was useless. Ever
The moment I walked into the office that morning, my chest tightened.It wasn’t the usual Drake energy—cold, calculated, magnetic—it was warfare in human form. He hadn’t spoken a single word to me since yesterday, not even a glance that wasn’t controlled, measured, sharp.I knew exactly why.Yester







