Chapter Nine: The Saint and the Sinner

Rhea stands outside Dominic’s office for a moment, her back on the door, eyes closed as she tries to force oxygen back into her lungs. 

Her neck still feels the ghost of Dominic’s grip: heavy, hot, and terrifyingly permanent.

She wipes her eyes quickly with the back of her hand, but she knows they are rimmed with red.

"Rhea?"

The voice is soft, filled with a genuine warmth that feels like a physical blow. She opens her eyes to find Julian standing by the filing cabinets, a stack of folders in his hand. 

He looks at her, and his smile falters instantly. He drops the folders on a nearby desk and moves toward her. "Hey, what happened? You were in there for over two hours."

"I'm fine, Julian," she says, her voice sounding thin and brittle. She tries to walk past him to her own desk, but he shifts, blocking her path with a look of deep concern.

"You’re not fine. You’ve been crying?" He lowers his voice, glancing toward Dominic’s door with a look of genuine reverence and fear. "Did Mr. Ashcroft... was he that hard on you? I know he’s been under a lot of pressure with the merger, but he’s usually fair."

The irony is a bitter pill in her mouth. Julian respects Dominic. He looks up to the man as a mentor, a titan of the company. 

He has no idea that the "titan" just threatened to mark her like an animal.

"He was just scolding me for a mistake on the weekend reports," Rhea lies, her heart hammering against her ribs. 

She can feel the "eye" of the office, the glass partitions of Dominic’s suite watching her. She is certain Dominic is standing right behind that glass, watching their every move.

"Two hours for a report mistake?" Julian reaches out, his hand hovering near her arm, wanting to comfort her. "That’s not like him. Let me go in and talk to him, Rhea. I can explain that the data was from me…"

"No!" The word comes out too sharp, too frantic.

Julian flinches, his hand dropping. "Rhea?"

She has to do it. She has to kill the light in his eyes before Dominic kills the man himself. 

She draws herself up, stiffening her spine and making her expression as cold as the marble floor beneath them.

"I don't need your help, Julian," she says, her voice loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. "And I don't need you hovering over me. We are colleagues, not friends. My relationship with Mr. Ashcroft is professional, and whatever happens in that office is none of your business."

Julian looks like she just slapped him. The warmth in his brown eyes turns to a confused, wounded shadow. "I... I was just trying to be a friend, Rhea. After Saturday, I thought…"

"Saturday was a lapse in judgment," she interrupts, each word feeling like a stone in her throat. She forces herself to look at him with total indifference. 

"It won't happen again. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to do. And I suggest you do the same if you value your position here."

She brushes past him, her shoulder hitting his. She doesn't look back. She can feel his eyes on her, hurt and bewildered, but she keeps her head down as she sits at her desk and stares at her monitor until the text blurs into a gray haze.

She isn't just protecting his job. She’s protecting his life. 

And as she catches her own reflection in the darkened screen of her computer, she realizes the noose isn't just around her neck anymore. It’s around Julian’s, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The afternoon air in the office is thick and stifling. Rhea keeps her eyes glued to her monitor, pretending to be absorbed in spreadsheets, but she can feel Julian’s occasional, hurt glances from the desk over. 

Every time he moves, she tenses, terrified he’ll try to apologize and trigger another outburst from Dominic’s office.

Around 4:00 PM, a courier arrives. He isn't the usual office mailman; he wears a sharp, black uniform and carries a high-end, matte-black box tied with a heavy silk ribbon.

"Rhea Voss?" the courier asks.

Rhea’s heart drops to her stomach. "Yes."

He places the box on her desk. It smells of expensive paper and a familiar, spicy cologne. Julian leans over from his workstation, his brow furrowed with curiosity.

"That looks... expensive," Julian says, his voice hesitant but kind, testing the waters after her coldness earlier. "Is it your birthday, Rhea?"

Rhea pulls the box toward her, her fingers trembling. "No. It’s... it’s for a friend," she lies quickly, her voice a pitch too high. "I ordered it for her, and she’s picking it up later. I didn't want it sitting in my apartment hallway."

"Must be a very good friend," Julian murmurs, eyeing the designer logo embossed in the corner. He looks like he wants to say more, to ask if she’s okay, but Rhea pointedly turns away.

She grabs the box and heads for the executive restrooms. Once inside the marble stall, she leans against the door, her breath coming in ragged hitches. She unties the ribbon and lifts the lid.

Inside, nestled in black tissue paper, is a dress.

It isn't the modest, high-collared garment she expected. 

It’s a slip of dark, emerald silk - so thin it feels like liquid against her fingertips. It has a dangerously low-cut front and a back that doesn't exist at all, replaced by a few thin, crisscrossing gold chains meant to drape over her bare spine. 

It is short; shamelessly, provocatively so.

Lying beneath the silk is a heavy, black trench coat, intended to cover every inch of the scandal underneath until he decides otherwise.

Tucked into the folds of the silk is a heavy card. On it, in Dominic’s sharp, masculine handwriting, are four words that make the blood drain from her face:

Wear with no underwear.

I’m the only one who gets to see this on you. No one else.

Rhea gasps, dropping the card as if it’s on fire. 

The implication hits her like a physical blow. He isn't just taking her out; he is stripping her of her dignity, ensuring that for every second they are in public, she is hyper-aware of her own body and the fact that he knows exactly what is, and isn't, beneath that silk.

She stares at her reflection in the restroom mirror. Her face is flushed, her eyes wide with a mix of fury and a dark, terrifying thrill she doesn't want to admit to.

She thinks of Julian, sitting just outside, probably wondering why she’s being so cruel. Then she thinks of the $100,000 and more to come. She thinks of her father’s life.

With shaking hands, Rhea begins to unbutton her modest office blouse. She has no choice. 

She is a prisoner of a contract, and the warden just handed her his brand. As the silk slides over her bare skin, Rhea realizes she isn't just dressing for a night out…she’s dressing for her own execution.