One night with my untouchable CEO(5)

YOU DON’T OWN ME

ISABELLA

I should have known dinner with Daniel would become a problem the moment Adrian saw us leaving the office together.

Daniel was one of the marketing executives, and after spending most of the afternoon helping me understand a project Adrian had assigned to me, he invited me to dinner with a few colleagues. It was a perfectly ordinary invitation, and since I had no intention of spending every evening trapped in my apartment thinking about my infuriating boss, I accepted.

Unfortunately, Adrian had other ideas.

“Miss Hart,” he called as Daniel and I approached the elevator, “I trust you remember that you’re representing this company at tomorrow’s presentation.”

I turned toward him. “Of course, sir. I’ve already prepared the documents.”

“Good. I would hate for you to become distracted by activities that interfere with your responsibilities.”

His gaze shifted briefly to Daniel before returning to me.

I narrowed my eyes. “Are you trying to tell me something, Mr. Blackwood?”

“Not at all. I simply expect my personal assistant to understand the difference between professionalism and flirting.”

Daniel’s smile disappeared, and my cheeks burned with anger.

“Then perhaps you should explain that difference to yourself first,” I replied before stepping into the elevator.

Adrian’s expression hardened, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much his words had upset me.

Dinner was pleasant enough, although I spent the first twenty minutes trying not to replay the confrontation in my head. Daniel noticed my distraction, but he didn’t push me to explain, and by the time he told a ridiculous story about accidentally sending a confidential email to the entire department, I was laughing again.

For a little while, I forgot about Adrian Blackwood.

Then my phone vibrated.

Adrian Blackwood: The revised presentation must be on my desk by eight tomorrow morning.

I stared at the message.

The presentation was already finished, and he knew it because I had sent him the final copy that afternoon.

I typed a reply, deleted it, and finally settled for a simple acknowledgment before returning to dinner.

I wasn’t going to let one arrogant man ruin my evening, even if he happened to be my boss and the same man I had kissed in a hotel room before discovering his identity.

That complicated history was becoming less romantic by the day.

The following morning, I walked into Adrian’s office with the presentation tucked beneath my arm and my patience hanging by a thread.

“You wanted the revised copy,” I said, placing it on his desk. “It’s complete, and I’ve also included the additional figures you requested yesterday.”

He glanced at the document without opening it.

“Did you enjoy your dinner?”

I stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“Your dinner with Daniel.”

Something inside me snapped.

“Why do you care?”

“I expect my assistant to exercise good judgment when interacting with colleagues.”

“Daniel is my colleague, not a criminal, and dinner isn’t a disciplinary offence.”

“I never said it was.”

“You called me a flirt in front of him, and now you’re questioning me about a perfectly normal evening. What exactly do you want from me, Adrian?”

His jaw tightened at the use of his first name.

“I’m your employer, Isabella. I have a responsibility to ensure that your conduct reflects well on me.”

“Your company has a human resources department. If I’ve broken a rule, report me, but don’t pretend that my private life belongs to you simply because you signed my employment papers.”

He stood, and the sudden movement made the room feel smaller.

“You seem determined to misunderstand everything I say.”

“And you seem determined to control everything I do!”

The words echoed between us, and for several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Adrian looked away first, running a hand over his face as though he were struggling to contain something he couldn’t name.

“You have no idea what you’re doing to me,” he said quietly.

I blinked. “What does that even mean?”

“It means that I cannot stand watching you walk away from me as though I mean nothing to you.”

My anger faltered, but only for a moment.

“You are my boss, Adrian. You cannot demand that I behave like your girlfriend whenever you feel jealous and then hide behind your title when I question you.”

“I know what I am to you.”

“Do you? Because I certainly don’t know what you want from me.”

He stepped closer, and I saw something raw beneath his usual cold expression, something that looked almost like fear. Before I could ask another question, he reached for me and kissed me.

For one startled second, I kissed him back.

My body remembered the hotel room, the warmth of his mouth, and the strange tenderness we had shared before morning came and I fled without saying goodbye.

Then reality caught up with me.

I shoved him away and slapped him across the face.

The sound cracked through the office, leaving us both motionless.

Adrian slowly turned his head back toward me, and I stepped away, trembling with anger.

“Don’t you ever do that again.”

“Isabella—”

“No. You don’t get to kiss me because you’re jealous, and you certainly don’t get to use your position as my boss to make me feel as though I owe you something.”

His face had gone pale, but I refused to soften my words.

“Yes, we kissed before, and I wanted that kiss. I chose it. But what happened in that hotel room does not give you permanent permission to touch me whenever you feel like it.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You weren’t thinking? You were angry? You couldn’t control yourself? I don’t care what excuse you have, Adrian. You crossed a line.”

He fell silent.

“If you ever touch me like that again without my consent, I will walk away from this job, and you won’t have to summon me ever again.”

I gathered the documents from his desk, although my hands were shaking badly enough that I nearly dropped them.

Then I looked him directly in the eyes.

“I thought there was something decent beneath all that arrogance, but I’m not going to let you make me regret trusting you.”

I walked out before he could answer.

For the first time since becoming his assistant, I didn’t care whether he called me back.

ADRIAN

The door closed behind Isabella, and I remained standing beside my desk with my cheek burning and her words repeating in my head.

I had kissed her because I was jealous, because the thought of her laughing with another man had stirred something ugly inside me, and because I had convinced myself that losing control was the same as being honest.

It wasn’t.

She had kissed me back for a moment, but that moment had never given me the right to continue once she no longer wanted it. Our night together had been her choice, just as every moment between us should have been, and I had treated our history as though it belonged to me.

Worse, I had used my position to make her feel trapped.

I sat down slowly, pressing my fingers against my forehead as shame settled over me. I knew what it felt like to have control taken away, yet I had done precisely that to someone I claimed I couldn’t bear to lose.

My own pain did not excuse what I had done.

I could have blamed my jealousy, my fear, or the years I had spent learning to keep everyone at a distance, but none of those things would change the truth. I had hurt her, and she had every right to leave.

When I finally left my office, Isabella was at her desk, arranging the documents she had carried out with her. She looked up when my shadow fell across her work, and the guarded expression in her eyes stopped me from taking another step.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

“About the presentation?”

“No. About what I did.”

She said nothing, so I forced myself to continue.

“I had no right to kiss you without your consent, and being jealous does not give me an excuse. Neither does our night together, and neither does the fact that I’m your boss. I crossed a boundary, and I’m sorry.”

Her expression remained guarded, although some of the anger in her eyes shifted into something harder to read.

“Thank you for apologising,” she said. “But you need to understand that saying sorry doesn’t automatically make me trust you again.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Because I won’t spend every day wondering whether you’ll punish me for having a life outside this office.”

“You won’t.”

“You can’t promise that everything will be fine just because you regret what happened.”

She was right, and for once, I didn’t try to argue.

“I’ll make sure your position here is never used against you,” I said. “And I won’t touch you again unless you want me to.”

She studied me for a long moment before returning her attention to her desk.

“I hope you mean that, Mr. Blackwood.”

The formal title hurt more than I expected, but I had earned the distance between us.

“I do.”

I walked away without asking her to forgive me, knowing that an apology was only the beginning and that the next choice belonged to her.

I had hurt someone whose opinion genuinely mattered to me, and I couldn’t fix it by issuing an order or making a promise.

I would have to become someone she could trust, and I had no idea whether she would still be there when I finally learned how.