Chapter 21: Damage Control? Never Heard of Her.

Monday, 2:47 PM.

Katherine had exactly four minutes to eat, breathe, and pretend she hadn’t just been kissed like a woman in a noir film by her boss in the middle of the goddamn Mason Equity Group office.

Spoiler: she failed at all three.

The break room was buzzing. Not with the coffee machine — with rumors.

“She was in his coat,” whispered someone near the sink.

“They’re sleeping together,” someone else stage-whispered.

“No, I swear I saw her leave his penthouse on Sunday morning. Like, with morning hair.”

Katherine sipped her green tea like it was vodka and stared blankly at the fridge.

Across the office, Sebastian was doing damage control. Or at least pretending to.

He’d pulled three meetings back-to-back. He’d sent two company-wide memos — one about investor confidence, one about "maintaining professional boundaries."

But even he couldn’t ignore the fact that half the company was now referring to Katherine as “Miss Chaos” and the other half had started calling him “Mr. Morally Compromised.”

And when he walked into the marketing conference room later that day?

Silence.

Until Katherine entered.

In his trench.

Again.

“Miss Brown,” he said evenly, as if nothing had happened. “We’re here to discuss the fourth quarter strategy.”

“Of course,” she replied, all wide eyes and sugar-sweet sarcasm. “Is this the meeting about growth or explosive tension?”

A cough. A snort. Someone dropped a pen.

He blinked. “Growth.”

“Ah. Disappointing,” she muttered, and sat down.

The rest of the room looked anywhere but at them. One poor intern tried to spontaneously combust just to escape.

Sebastian stared straight ahead, his jaw tighter than a banker’s handshake. She saw the muscle tick in his temple — a small betrayal of how not okay he was.

Katherine had become his Achilles' heel.

And it showed.

---

5:23 PM.

The meeting ended. People scattered like birds.

Sebastian stayed seated, hands steepled. Katherine lingered by the doorway, spinning his pen between her fingers.

“You know,” she said, “if you were trying to undo the kiss, the three memos didn’t work.”

He didn’t answer.

She took a step closer.

“Actually, I think you broke HR. Half of them had to go lie down.”

Still nothing.

She crossed the threshold, closed the door softly, and leaned back against it. The silence between them stretched, until it wasn’t silence anymore — it was static.

Then — softly — Sebastian spoke.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“Immensely.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“Even better.”

He looked up.

His voice dropped to velvet.

“Katherine.”

And just like that — her name wasn’t a name. It was a warning. A promise. A damn symphony.

She stopped twirling the pen. “Yes?”

He stood.

And crossed the room.

In two slow, deliberate steps, he was in front of her again — so close she could smell that same cologne. Expensive woods. Salt. Him.

“You keep showing up in my coat,” he murmured.

“I like it.”

“You keep looking at me like that.”

“I can’t help it.”

“You keep... pushing me.”

“And yet,” she smiled, “you’re still here.”

He exhaled, the sound a mixture of frustration and awe.

“Do you ever stop?”

Her grin turned devilish. “Why would I? I’m the chaos in your carefully structured empire.”

He stared at her.

And then — for a moment — let go.

He kissed her.

But not like before.

Not like the hallway kiss with its sense of urgency and forbidden tension.

This was slower.

Deeper.

Like a man realizing there’s no point in pretending anymore.

---

Later that night.

Neither of them spoke about it.

There was no declaration. No definition.

Just the undeniable shift.

A line had been crossed.

And neither of them was stepping back.

---

6:38 PM. Mason Equity Group, Top Floor.

Technically, the workday had ended thirty minutes ago.

Technically.

But “technically” had never stood a chance in a room with Katherine Brown.

Especially not today.

The long glass-walled conference room of the creative department looked like the aftermath of a caffeine-fueled storm — scattered sketches, coffee cups, half-sipped sparkling waters, glowing laptop screens, and someone’s tragically forgotten protein bar. Ideas buzzed like electric currents in the air.

And at the center of the chaos?

Katherine. Barefoot.

She had kicked off her heels at 6:10 with a dramatic sigh and the words, “If I die in these shoes, sue Gucci.”

And then, without a second thought, she had unbuttoned the top three buttons of her emerald silk dress.

Because it was hot.

Because the room was crowded.

Because her skin itched with energy she couldn’t name, leftover from that moment in the hallway earlier — the almost-kiss, the real tension, the way Sebastian Mason had looked at her like she was some forbidden spell.

And because Katherine Brown never asked permission.

What she didn’t know — or maybe did — was that Sebastian could see her from his office. Through the crystal-clear walls, she was impossible to ignore.

Her laughter. The way her hair spilled down her shoulders. The arc of her neck as she leaned to explain a concept to an intern.

He was trying to finish an email.

He couldn’t even remember who it was to.

Because she was right there.

---

6:46 PM.

He pushed back from his desk and stood up.

His team had long gone.

He should’ve gone, too.

But he didn’t.

He walked out of his office with slow, deliberate steps.

The hum of conversation dipped. Someone turned down the music. One of the junior designers stiffened.

And Katherine — barefoot, glowing, alive in a way no one else ever was after 6 PM — looked up and smiled at him like she’d known he was coming.

“You survived your meetings?” she asked, a hint of mockery in her tone.

He stopped just a few feet from her. “You’re still working?”

She shrugged, rolling her pencil between her fingers. “The team’s on fire. I’m just the spark.”

His eyes dropped — unintentionally — to the soft lines of her collarbone, the bare skin revealed by those three undone buttons.

He cleared his throat.

“You’re... distracting.”

A few people pretended not to react.

Katherine raised an eyebrow. “Is that a compliment or a complaint?”

He didn’t answer.

So she took a step closer. “Should I button up, Mr. Mason?”

He clenched his jaw. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Whatever it is you’re doing right now.”

She tilted her head and grinned. “Breathing?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“Do I?”

His gaze darkened.

The air between them tightened, thick with tension.

Behind her, two interns exchanged wide-eyed looks. One dropped a stylus.

“Katherine,” he said, low and warning.

“Sebastian,” she replied, all honey and fire.

Someone in the back coughed nervously.

He inhaled deeply and turned to the room. “Everyone, wrap up. I want you all out by seven.”

A wave of movement followed. Laptops shut, papers gathered. People practically ran for the elevators — all but one.

Katherine didn’t move.

She stood there, barefoot, smirking, one hand resting on the back of a chair.

When he looked back at her — really looked — it was the beginning of the end.

“You didn’t have to come out here,” she murmured once they were alone. “You could’ve just kept watching.”

His eyes darkened. “I wasn’t —”

“Sure you weren’t,” she teased, walking past him slowly — and brushing against his side ever so slightly.

He caught her wrist gently. “Katherine.”

She paused. Looked up.

He leaned in, voice dangerously low. “You’re playing a game you don’t understand.”

“I invented the game,” she whispered.

Their eyes met.

The tension between them no longer hummed — it roared.

And just like that, he let go.

Not her wrist — his restraint.

His mouth found hers in one reckless, heat-soaked second.

Her hand curled into his shirt.

Her back hit the wall beside the conference room door.

There were no interns left.

No assistants.

No rules.

Just heat.

Need.

And the realization that this? This was inevitable.

---