Chapter 5 - Noah’s POV

Day nine started badly and got worse.

Eli’s doctor had called again in the morning. Not with news, just a reminder. Two weeks was now one week and the number Dr. Reeves had given me hadn’t gotten any smaller and my first paycheck wasn’t coming until Friday and even then it wasn’t going to be enough.

I knew that. I just needed to get through the day.

I made Damien’s coffee at six twenty-eight. Laid out his files in the order he’d need them. Confirmed his nine o’clock call.

Everything was fine.

At eleven forty-five I brought him water. Still water, tall glass, no ice. I set it on the left side of his desk, away from the files.

He picked it up. Drank. Set it back down.

Then his hand caught the edge of a folder and the glass tipped and water spread across the Henderson report he’d been working on all morning.

He went very still.

“Mr. Carter.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll get—”

“You put the glass on the wrong side.”

“I put it on the left. Away from your files.”

“Beverages go on the right,” he said. “Away from my dominant hand. Did Mrs. Hale not tell you that?”

She hadn’t. I was sure of it.

“She didn’t mention it,” I said.

“Then you should have asked.”

Something tightened in my chest.

Nine days. Four hours of sleep a night. His coffee, his files, his footsteps, the blinds, all of it, without asking for anything, and my brother was sick and I had seven days left to find money I didn’t have.

“You’re right,” I said. “I’ll reprint the report.”

“It took me two hours.”

“I know. I’ll reprint it.”

“This is exactly the kind of inefficiency—”

“I heard you the first time,” I said.

The room went silent.

Damien went very still.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was unprofessional.”

Nothing.

“Mr. Cole.”

Nothing.

He set his pen down slowly. Parallel to the edge of the desk.

“Reprint the report,” he said. “And close the door on your way out.”

I reprinted it and slid it under his door because I didn’t trust myself to go back in there.

Then I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall.

He was going to fire me. Today or tomorrow and then there’d be no job, no room, no plan. Eli had seven days. Caleb was eating plain rice. I’d lasted nine days before I cracked.

Seven assistants.

I was going to be number eight.

I sat there for twenty minutes. He didn’t call for me.

At one o’clock I made his lunch and left it outside his door and walked away. He ate it. I heard the door open and close.

At three he called my name from down the hall.

I came immediately. Stood in the doorway. Kept my face neutral.

“The Mercer call at four,” he said, like nothing had happened. “I’ll need the quarterly projections.”

He was already turned back to his desk. Giving me nothing.

“They’re already pulled. I’ll have them on your desk by three thirty.”

“Fine,” he said.

“Is that all?”

“Yes.”

I turned to leave.

“Mr. Carter.”

I stopped.

He was looking just past me the way he always did, grey eyes landing somewhere over my shoulder.

“Beverages on the right,” he said. “Going forward.”

No apology. No acknowledgement. Just a

correction, flat and simple, like the last three hours hadn’t happened.

I should have been annoyed.

I was. Completely. The whole afternoon had been unfair and he knew it and he wasn’t going to say so and that correction was the closest thing to an apology I was ever going to get from Damien Cole.

But I still had the job.

That was the part that mattered. That was the part I held onto as I walked back down the hall, shoulders straight, face calm, like the last three hours had been nothing.

He hadn’t fired me.

After all of that, after the glass and the report and the edge in my voice that I still couldn’t believe had come out, he had simply moved on. Given me a correction and a four o’clock task and gone back to work like I was going to be here tomorrow.

Maybe I was.

I went to the kitchen and started pulling what he’d need for dinner and told myself the relief I felt was purely practical. About Eli. About the paycheck. About Caleb and the rent and the list of things that depended on me still being employed in this penthouse tomorrow morning.

It had nothing to do with him.

I set the cutting board down a little harder than necessary.

It had absolutely nothing to do with him.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​