Chapter 4: Overtime Hours

ATHENA POV

The workspace Lucien provided inside his penthouse looked more like a premium tech lab than a home office. Three massive, curved monitors glowed in the dim room, casting a cool blue light over my face. It was 2:14 AM. My fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, tapping out a sequence of code designed to locate a specific backdoor vulnerability in Marcus’s infrastructure.

I rubbed my eyes, checking my code against the terminal. Almost there.

The heavy glass door behind me slid open with a soft hiss. I didn't turn around, assuming it was the automated ventilation system adjusting itself.

"You're shifting the memory allocation too slowly," a deep voice murmured.

I startled, my hand jerking on the mouse. I spun my chair around to find Lucien standing right behind me. He had discarded his suit jacket. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing his lean forearms. He held a crystal glass containing two fingers of amber whiskey.

"You scared me," I breathed, my heart rate spiking for a completely different reason now.

Lucien didn't apologize. He set his glass down on the desk, his eyes tracking the lines of glowing data on my screen. "If Marcus runs a standard diagnostic sweep right now, he'll catch your IP signature before you finish the rewrite."

"I have a proxy mask running," I argued, defensive about my work.

"It’s a commercial mask, Athena. Marcus is using the Harrington servers now. They have automated anti-proxy protocols." Lucien leaned down, placing one hand on the edge of the desk and the other on the back of my chair.

Suddenly, I was trapped between his arms.

His chest was inches from my shoulder. I could feel the heat radiating from him, smell the rich blend of his woodsmoke cologne and the sharp tang of the whiskey. My breath caught in my throat. I stared straight ahead, acutely aware of how small the space between us had just become.

"Move," he commanded softly, his breath brushing against my ear.

I swallowed hard and leaned back, giving him room. Instead of taking my seat, Lucien remained bent over, his face right next to mine as his right hand took over the mouse, his knuckles occasionally grazing my arm. His left hand moved to the keyboard, typing a rapid string of commands into the terminal.

"Watch the latency drop," Lucien murmured, his focus entirely on the screen.

I tried to look at the monitor, but my eyes kept shifting to his profile—the sharp line of his jaw, the slight curl of his dark eyelashes, the calm intensity in his expression. He was my ex-boyfriend's step-brother. He was my boss. He was a man who could ruin me with a phone call. The forbidden nature of it made my skin tingle with a dangerous current.

"Are you paying attention?" Lucien asked, turning his head slightly.

Because he turned, our faces were now barely three inches apart. His dark eyes locked onto mine. The silence in the room became incredibly heavy, suffocatingly tight. I looked down at his lips, then back to his eyes, my pulse hammering in my ears.

Lucien didn't pull away. His gaze drifted down to my mouth, his breathing turning deliberate and slow. One of his hands left the desk, his fingers hovering just over my wrist, not quite touching, yet making the air between us feel electric.

"I'm paying attention," I whispered, my voice trembling.

Lucien stared at me for three agonizing seconds, the tension so thick I could barely breathe. Then, he slowly straightened up, breaking the spell, though his eyes remained dark. He picked up his whiskey glass.

"Good," he said, his voice husky but disciplined. "The system is optimized. Sleep, Athena. We have the investor bidding dinner in two days, and I expect you to be sharp when we face Marcus."