After Hours

POV: Elias Voss

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The office floor was dark, quiet, and empty.

Everyone had gone home.

Everyone, except him. And Noah.

Elias sat behind his desk, watching the glow of the city skyline reflect off the window in front of him—but his eyes weren’t on the glass.

They were on the boy sitting outside his office.

Noah Hart.

Twenty-two. Inexperienced. Unqualified. Distractingly expressive.

Elias had hired him on impulse. A decision he’d already mentally dissected a hundred times.

He was supposed to be temporary. Disposable.

But he wasn’t.

Noah was... not what Elias expected.

He flinched too easily, talked too fast, smiled when he was nervous. He wasn’t polished or cold or trained like the others. But he was sharp. Honest. His hands shook when he was scared, but he didn’t run.

And that fascinated Elias far more than it should.

He tapped the intercom. “Mr. Hart. My office.”

A pause. The soft sound of the chair sliding. Then footsteps.

Noah stepped in, tablet in hand. “Yes, Mr. Voss?”

Elias didn’t look at him right away. He studied the document on his screen like it mattered. It didn’t.

“Sit. I want your input on a proposal.”

Noah hesitated. “Me?”

“You’re breathing, aren’t you?”

Noah sat, eyes wide.

Elias leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “Tell me. Why does every assistant I’ve had before you flinch when I speak to them?”

Noah blinked. “Because… you’re terrifying?”

“Am I?”

“You make eye contact like a sniper. And you say things like ‘you belong to me until I say otherwise.’”

Elias let out the faintest breath of amusement. “And yet you’re still here.”

“I can’t afford not to be.”

There it was. Honesty again.

Noah didn’t try to charm him. Didn’t flatter. Just said the truth, even when it made him look small.

Elias hated unpredictability. But something about Noah’s rawness—it made him feel like there was still some… integrity in this world.

Even if he didn’t understand the boy’s effect on him.

Why he noticed how Noah tugged at his cuffs when he was nervous.

Why he remembered that he liked honey in his tea.

Why his voice had a way of getting under Elias’s skin like a splinter of sunlight in a cold room.

He stood and walked around the desk, slowly.

Noah shifted in his seat, eyes tracking him. He was wary again. Good.

Elias stopped behind him. Not touching this time. Just close.

“You’ve only ever been with women,” Elias said quietly.

Noah tensed. “What—why would you—how do you know that?”

“I read your file. Watched your interviews. Studied your behavior.”

He leaned in, lowering his voice.

“You flinch when I touch you. But you don’t pull away.”

Noah’s breath hitched. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means everything.”

A long pause.

Then Elias said, almost to himself, “You don’t even know what you want, do you?”

Noah’s voice was barely a whisper. “I’m not—this isn’t…”

“Not about labels. I know.” Elias straightened, walking back toward his desk. “It’s about me. You’re not reacting to men. You’re reacting to me.”

He watched as Noah stared at the floor, lips parted, silent.

Good.

Confused. Angry. A little scared.

Perfect.

Elias turned his back and said flatly, “You’re dismissed. I’ll see you at seven sharp tomorrow.”

Noah stood too quickly. His chair scraped the floor.

He left without a word.

Elias didn’t move for a long time after the door closed. Just stared out at the city lights.

He had always controlled his world. Every deal, every move, ev

ery breath.

But Noah?

Noah was chaos.

And Elias wasn’t sure if he wanted to extinguish it—or burn with it.