Chapter 6 - Damien’s POV

Three weeks.

Noah Carter had been in my penthouse for three weeks and four days and he showed no signs of leaving.

This was a problem.

Not because he was bad at his job. He was, irritatingly, extremely good at it. He had learned my system faster than anyone before him. He anticipated things I hadn’t told him to anticipate. He moved through this space like he had mapped every inch of it.

The problem was precisely that.

The previous seven had been easy. Too eager, too nervous, too slow, too loud. They had all given me a reason within the first two weeks and I had used it and that had been that.

Noah Carter had not given me a reason.

I had waited. I had looked for one. The glass incident on day nine had come close but he’d absorbed it and kept going without drama.

I didn’t know what to do with someone who kept going.

At 6am I heard him in the kitchen.

He brought the coffee at six twenty-eight. Right side of the desk. Two inches from the corner.

“Good morning,” he said.

He said that every morning. Not sir, not Mr. Cole. Just good morning, simply, like it wasn’t a small act of warmth in a space where warmth had no business existing.

I didn’t respond.

He left without requiring one.

At nine I gave him an impossible task. The Hargrove account needed restructuring and I handed him four years of financial records and told him I needed a summary by noon.

It would take most people six hours minimum.

“Noon,” he repeated.

“Is that a problem?”

A pause. “No,” he said.

He had it on my desk at eleven fifty-two.

It wasn’t complete. It couldn’t be, in that time. But what he’d produced was precise, the most important information at the top, organised in a way that showed he understood the purpose behind the task, not just the task itself.

At lunch I told him the food was wrong.

It wasn’t. I knew it wasn’t. But I said it and waited.

“What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“It’s not what I asked for.”

“You asked for grilled chicken and steamed vegetables,” he said. “That’s what’s on the plate.”

“The seasoning is different.”

A pause.

“It’s the same seasoning I’ve used every Thursday,” he said. “Same brand, same amount.”

“Are you arguing with me?”

“I’m giving you accurate information,” he said. “Whether that’s arguing depends on whether you want accurate information or agreement.”

The room went quiet.

I heard him breathing. Steady. Controlled. Holding something back.

“Leave it,” I said.

He left it. Left the room too, quietly.

I sat in front of a lunch that was exactly correct and ate it in silence.

He was not going to give me a reason. Whatever was keeping him awake at night—because I heard him sometimes, moving through the penthouse when he thought everyone was asleep—whatever it was, it was bigger than anything I could throw at him.

He needed this job more than I could push him away from it.

That should have been useful. A lever. Something to file away.

Instead I sat with it and felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time and couldn’t name.

At four o’clock he knocked on my office door.

“The Henderson call has been moved to tomorrow,” he said. “I’ve rescheduled your four thirty to fill the gap. And your brother called.”

I went still.

“My brother,” I said.

“Yes. A Mr. Cole. He said it wasn’t urgent but he’d like a call back when you have time.” A pause. “He sounded like he was trying very hard to sound like it wasn’t urgent.”

I said nothing.

“I can tell him you’re unavailable if you’d like,” Noah said. “Or push it to next week. Whatever you need.”

*Whatever you need.*

No one said that to me. Not like that. Not simply, without pity. Just whatever you need, flat and practical.

“Tell him I’ll call tonight,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

He was almost at the door.

“Mr. Carter.”

He stopped.

I had nothing to follow it with. No instruction. No correction. Just his name and now he was waiting and the silence needed filling.

“The Hargrove summary,” I said. “It was adequate.”

A beat.

“Adequate,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

Another beat. Then, quiet and dry—

“High praise.”

He left before I could respond.

I sat in my office.

Three weeks and four days.

The problem was not that he was still here.

The problem was that I had stopped looking for a reason to make him leave.

And I had no idea when that had happened.