Chapter 3

Ariana POV

Monday came whether I was ready or not.

The Ashford Group headquarters was all eleven floors of glass and ambition right in the middle of Manhattan, it was the kind of building that made you straighten your spine by just walking under its shadow. I'd been here twice before, dropping off files, in and out in under ten minutes.

Today I had a badge with my own name on it and a stomach doing slow, unhappy loops.

You can do this. You survived the bet. You survived the walk of shame. You had even had sex with a stranger who happened to be an Ashford also. This is just a job.

Chin up Ari.

Just a job. Sure. Except the man signing off on my transfer paperwork was also the man whose bed I'd woken up in two days ago after a night of screaming obscene words while digging my nails in his back. Pretending otherwise would be like trying to hold a beach ball underwater.

The thirty-second floor receptionist, a brunette woman who I'd later learned missed absolutely nothing, looked me over like she was not expecting a bird to land on her hair.

"You're the new EA. Mr. Ashford's expecting you. Conference room B, and ...... " she paused, gave me a once-over that felt entirely too knowing, "good luck."

Great. Even the receptionist thinks I need luck.

Yeah right I need luck to meet the man you had been groaning as he…..

Jeez Ariana stop.

I found the conference room with two minutes to spare, smoothed my blazer, and reminded myself to breathe like a normal human being, then walked in.

He was already there, of course he was. He was sitting at the head of a glass table long enough to land a plane on, his dark suit was sleeves down and buttoned now, none of the rolled-up ease from his kitchen.

This seemed like a different version of him, colder.

"Miss Hayes," he said, and the way he said my last name...... flat, professional, like we hadn't spent a night learning each other's bodies in the dark ......nearly knocked the wind out of me. "Sit."

Sit. Not please, not good morning. Sit. Okay then.

I sat.

"You'll report directly to me," he said, sliding a folder across the table without looking up from his laptop.

"Calendar management, correspondence, travel coordination. I expect discretion and I expect precision. I don't repeat myself."

"Understood, sir." The word came out before I could stop it, he raised his head at that and his dark eyes turned even a shade darker but it was gone so fast that I might've imagined it.

"There's one more thing." He looked up again and I caught a glimpse of the man from the bar. Then it was gone, filed away behind those cold dark eyes.

"What happened Saturday doesn't leave this room. Not because I'm ashamed of it. Because you work for me now, and this company survives on the appearance of control. Are we clear?"

The appearance of control. As if either of us actually has any.

"Crystal," I said, and meant it, mostly.

“Ariana” he called as I stood and I stopped “Are you better now?” He asked and I resisted the urge to cry

If he meant my mental health after Ethan…..no I was not but I was going to be.

“I'm fine” I managed to say.

He nodded once, like the matter was closed, and went back to his laptop.

I spent the next four hours learning the annoying scope of Damien Ashford's calendar ...... board calls at six a.m., a lunch with a senator, a gala Thursday I was apparently now responsible for seating charts for ...... and doing an admirable job, I thought, of not thinking about his hands cupping my buttocks.

I sighed, cursing my now sudden perverted mind

I made it until almost three o'clock before the day found a way to get worse.

"Well, well." Ethan's voice hit me like a bucket of ice water down the back of my shirt. He was leaning against the doorframe of my new cubicle like he owned it, which, given the last name on the building, he sort of did. "Heard you got moved to headquarters. Didn't realize you'd be moving up quite so fast."

Don't. Don't give him the reaction he wants.

"What do you want, Ethan."

"Just saying hi to my ex." He smiled, that easy, charming smile that used to make my knees soft and now just made my stomach turn. "You look good, Ari. Corporate suits you."

"Don't call me that."

"Fine. Ariana." He said my full name slow, deliberate, like he was testing how much it would cost him.

"You know my uncle doesn't keep assistants who used to date family. Bad optics. Makes people ask questions."

My blood went cold. "Is that a threat?"

"It's a fact." He shrugged, and for a second I could really see the bastard who'd bet twenty grand on my heart like it was nothing, because to him it always had been nothing. "I'd hate for people to start asking why you really got promoted so fast. Wouldn't you?"

He didn't wait for an answer, he just pushed off the doorframe and strolled away like he hadn't just planted a knife between my ribs and left it there, smiling the whole time.

He knows. Or he suspects. Either way, he's not done. He's never done.

I sat frozen at my desk for a long moment, my heart hammering, and when I finally looked up, Damien was standing in his office doorway across the floor, watching Ethan's retreating back with an expression I couldn't read at all.

Then his eyes found mine and they darkened again, whatever careful, professional distance we'd built in that conference room this morning, it didn't survive the look he gave me now.

It was as if he already knew Ethan was going to be a problem and he intended to be worse.

He didn't come over. not with half the floor still watching. He just held my gaze a beat longer than was safe for either of us, then turned back into his office and shut the door with a quiet, deliberate click that somehow said more than shouting ever could.

Careful, Ariana. Whatever this is, it hasn't even started, and it's already going to cost somebody everything.

I turned back to my monitor, hands not quite steady, and pretended to type. I got exactly nothing done for the rest of the afternoon.