Birthday party

Mia looked down at her hands, watching the red marks on her palms slowly fade. A hollow, bitter chuckle escaped her lips, and she would only smirk at the utter absurdity of her life. Just twelve hours ago, that same cold man had been breathless, his hands warm and possessive against her waist, his voice a low, gravelly murmur in the dark of his bedroom. Now, he was a stone monolith, hiding behind corporate policies and elitist insults.

"I thought... I don't know, I thought maybe he was human," Mia murmured, her voice laced with a quiet, aching fatigue. She smoothed down the fabric of her blazer, adjusting her posture and forcing the professional armor back into place.

She looked past Lucy, gazing out the massive glass windows of the high-rise floor. The city below was a sprawling, chaotic maze of concrete and glass, glittering under a pale sun. From up here, everything looked small, clinical, and detached. The naive, childish ideas she had harbored about whirlwind encounters, destined meetings, and sweeping corporate fairytales felt incredibly distant now—shattered into a thousand unrecoverable pieces by a man with grey eyes.

The chapter would end when Mia said, her voice dropping into a quiet, definitive whisper that carried the full weight of her newfound cynicism:

"Everything is not a fairytale."

She gave Lucy a small, tight nod, stepping out of the alcove and walking back toward the bright, unforgiving lights of her department, leaving the illusions of the night before firmly in the past.

Mia didn't make it past the elevators.

Her legs felt like lead beneath her pencil skirt, and her chest was so tight she could barely draw air. She ducked into a quiet stairwell just down the hall from Julian’s office, leaning her back against the concrete wall. The cold metal railing bit into her palm, a sharp contrast to the suffocating heat still burning in her face.

Seduce his workers.

The accusation felt like a physical stain. Her mind kept violently misfiring, flashing between the icy, judging stranger at the desk and the breathless man in the dark of the penthouse twelve hours ago. How could someone look at you with that much heat, and then look at you like you were garbage?

Before she could even untangle the humiliation, her phone began violently vibrating in her blazer pocket.

Mia flinched, pulling it out with trembling fingers. The screen flashed: Mom.

A fresh wave of dread hit her. She considered letting it go to voicemail, but ignoring a call from Jane Adams only made the eventual fallout three times worse. Pushing her hair back, she answered, forcing her voice into a flat, professional neutral.

"Hello, Mom?"

"Mia. Today is Uncle Roland’s birthday," her mother said. There was no 'how are you,' no greeting. Just the immediate, sharp demand. "I’ll be expecting you. Everyone is already asking where you are."

Mia pressed two fingers to her temples, where a sharp headache was already blooming. "Mom, I'm still at the office. Work has been... incredibly brutal today. I really don't think I can make it tonight. Can we please just do dinner tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow? Mia, his birthday is today," Jane sighed, her voice instantly taking on that sharp, defensive edge. "I don’t understand why you always do this. Your schedule is never too busy when it's something for your friends, but the second it's family, suddenly you're completely overwhelmed."

"That's not fair," Mia said, closing her eyes tightly against the sting of the words. "I have a massive presentation tomorrow, and my boss literally just—" She bit her lip, cutting herself off before she let the panic slip out. "Look, I am just exhausted, Mom. I've had the worst day of my life."

"We all have bad days, Mia. Do you think I wanted to spend my afternoon rushing around getting his cake and organizing this reservation? No. But I did it because it’s the right thing to do," Jane countered, her voice dropping into that heavy, familiar lecture tone. "Come on, Mia. We’re talking about Uncle Roland here. We both know that if not for him, our situation would have been much worse. A lot worse."

The excuse died in Mia’s throat. She swallowed hard, the cold weight of reality hitting her like a punch to the gut.

Her mother was right, and that was the worst part. Six years ago, when her parents’ marriage ended in a bitter, explosive divorce, her father hadn't just walked out—he had left them with a mountain of hidden debt. They were weeks away from losing the house, completely drowning. It was Roland, her dad’s younger brother, who had stepped in. He broke ties with his own brother to pay off their debts and keep a roof over their heads. He had looked after them ever since.

"I know what he did, Mom," Mia whispered, her voice dropping. "You don't have to remind me every single time."

"Clearly I do, because you're sitting there making excuses about work when the man who saved our lives is waiting for his niece to show up," Jane said, softening her tone just enough to let the guilt really settle in. "He asks about you all the time, Mia. He's so proud of your job. It would break his heart if you weren't there. Just dress up a little, put some makeup on, and come for an hour. For me? Please?"

Mia let out a long, defeated breath. The fight completely left her. "Fine. I'll come. I promise."

"Good. Don't be late. We're sitting down in forty minutes."

The line went dead with a sharp click.

Mia stared at the black screen, feeling utterly trapped. She couldn't go home to change; the restaurant her mother chose was upscale, and she was currently wearing a plain corporate blazer. Then she remembered the garment bag hanging on the back of her cubicle door.

Twenty minutes later, Mia stood in the office's executive restroom, staring at herself in the mirror.

She had just put on the emerald-green gown she kept hidden in her locker for emergency corporate dinners. It was a dress she regarded as excessively expensive—it had cost her about two hundred dollars, which felt like an absolute fortune on her budget. The silk clung to her frame, making her look elegant, but it did nothing to hide the hollow, exhausted look in her eyes.

She leaned against the marble sink, looking at her reflection. She was about to go to a family dinner pretending everything was fine, while her entire career hung by a thread a few floors above her.

"Ahh! I don't feel like going," she muttered to the empty restroom, her voice cracking. She smoothed the fabric over her hips, checking to make sure the zipper was secure. "But it's the only option I have."

. Gathering her things, Mia took a deep breath, forced her face into a mask of composure, and finally walked toward the elevators.