Inside The Machine

I was awake before the rest of the house, staring at the ceiling.

For a few minutes I wondered if anyone had heard me last night.

The thought kept me still longer than I wanted to admit.

After Owen kissed me I had gone back to my room determined to shut the whole thing down. Instead I had spent hours replaying it—the heat of his hand at my waist, the way his lips had moved against mine, the soft, broken sound he made when I kissed him back. My body had remembered him too easily. It wanted more.

I hated that.

I had tried to ignore it at first. Then I gave up and reached for the small rose toy I kept in the bottom of my bag. The first orgasm had been quick and angry, hips lifting off the mattress while I bit the inside of my cheek to stay quiet. The second had been slower, meaner; I held the toy harder against my clit and let the images come—Owen’s mouth, the lust in his eyes, the weight of him, the way he had looked at me like he still thought he could have me. By the third time I was shaking, thighs wet, the sheets twisted under me, and the only thing in my head was the sick knowledge that part of me had enjoyed every second of it.

I had cleaned up in the dark, changed the sheets, and told myself it was just a physical reaction. Nothing more.

Feelings were liabilities. Memories were distractions. Whatever still lived between Owen and me could be useful if I kept control of it.

Eight o’clock wasn’t a suggestion. It was the first real chance to gain Jakob’s trust.

I dressed carefully—fitted cream blouse, black trousers, hair pulled back clean. No soft edges. Today I needed to look like I belonged in a building that chewed people up and spat out the ones who couldn’t keep up.

My phone lit up while I was fixing the last pin.

Owen: You nervous?

I stared at the message.

Rhea: A little.

Three dots appeared, then:

Owen: You’ll be fine. He’s hard on people, but he’s fair. Text me if you need anything.

I locked the screen. The hope in those words was already useful.

Downstairs the kitchen was empty. I drank coffee I didn’t want and waited. When Jakob appeared he was already in a dark suit, no tie, the first few buttons of his shirt were undone, the edge of the tattoo visible at his wrist. He took in my clothes with one quick glance and nodded.

“Let’s go.”

The drive was silent. When the building finally came into view, I looked up at the glass and steel rising several stories above the street—Prescott & Co.

Jakob led me through a private entrance and straight upstairs. He didn’t waste time with introductions.

He moved through the company the way men moved through rooms they owned—finance, acquisitions, operations, legal, investments—speaking quickly, assuming I would ask questions when I got lost.

I didn’t.

I listened.

I remembered.

By the time we reached the investment division I already had most of the structure mapped in my head. Jakob stopped beside a long table and slid a folder toward me.

“Tell me what you see.”

I opened it. Three acquisition proposals. I read the first page, then the second.

“The second one is risky.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Why?”

“The projected returns depend too heavily on one market. And the debt structure doesn’t match the growth they’re promising. If the projections are wrong, you carry most of the risk.”

Jakob watched me.

“You got all that from two pages?”

“Three.”

Something that might have been amusement crossed his face and vanished.

“Keep reading.”

I did. For the next hour he fed me information faster than most people could absorb and watched how I handled it. He didn’t praise me. Jakob didn’t seem like a man who gave praise away easily. But by the time he handed me another file, something in his expression had changed.

Not warmth—respect.

That was better.

“You’re quick,” he said.

“I pay attention.”

The rest of the morning blurred into controlled movement. He left me at a temporary desk he had asked to be set up for me with limited system access and a straightforward task: clean and cross-check a set of vendor summaries. I finished it in under an hour and flagged a quiet discrepancy in the Singapore invoices—totals that matched on the summary but not in the individual line items. The difference was small enough to overlook. Too small for anyone to question.

I questioned it anyway.

When I brought the file to Jakob, he read the page twice. “Good catch.”

Two words. But his eyes lingered on the numbers for a second longer than they should have. I filed that away too.

Then he looked up.

“Sit in on the strategy meeting this afternoon. Observe only.”

I did.

The room was full of polished voices and careful eyes. I said nothing. I watched who deferred, who pushed, who went silent when certain numbers appeared. Once, Jakob’s gaze found mine across the table and held for a second longer than necessary before moving on.

Between sessions my phone vibrated.

Owen: How’s it going?

Rhea: Busy.

Owen: He started to bring me here when I was a kid. Said if I wanted the company one day I had to learn what it smelled like first. Still smells the same. Cold.

I read the message. It was small. Almost nothing. But he was starting to talk. It was a thread—habit, history, the way Jakob thought about training and inheritance. I filed it and sent back just enough to keep the door open.

Late afternoon light had gone hard against the glass when Jakob called me back into his office. He stood behind the desk with a slim folder in his hand.

“You did better than expected today.”

I waited with a mild smile on my face.

He held the folder out.

“Background on an acquisition we’ve been tracking. Nothing public. I want your first impressions by the end of the week. Not the version you think I want to hear. The real ones.”

I took it. The weight was slight. The implication was not.

Jakob’s eyes stayed on my face.

“The way you and Owen are with each other now,” he said quietly. “It’s different.”

It wasn’t a question.

I kept my expression open, slightly uncertain. “We’re trying to be civil. It’s been a long time.”

His eyes stayed on me for another second, as though he were deciding whether my answer deserved to be believed.

Then he nodded once.

“Eight o’clock tomorrow. Don’t be late.”

“I won’t.”

I left with the folder under my arm. In the elevator I opened the cover just far enough to see the top page.

A company name I recognized.

A set of numbers that connected, thinly but clearly, to one of the quiet vulnerabilities I had already begun mapping.

I closed the folder.

The doors opened on the lobby level. I stepped out into the cool marble light and kept my face calm.

I was inside the machine now.

And it had just handed me the first real piece of itself.