Off Limit

Victor

Daniel’s daughter.

I say it, and I hear it. It still doesn’t land the way it should because my brain is doing something I need it to stop immediately: comparing the woman sitting across from me to the little girl I remember and finding absolutely nothing in common between them.

The little girl is gone.

What replaced her has no business being in my office.

I lean back in my chair and immediately regret giving myself another chance to really see her. She’s — Christ. She is gorgeous in the kind of way that makes rational thought difficult. Dark eyes, full mouth, body that fills out that blazer in ways that are deeply inappropriate for me to be noticing at nine in the morning on a Monday in my own office.

I noticed her the second she walked through the session room door. Didn’t know who she was. Just knew she was late and that body, fuck, that body made every coherent thought I had dissolve on the spot.

My first thought was how good she’d look with her hands pinned to my desk. My second thought was how long it would take me to ruin her completely. I was on my third when she opened her mouth and I told her to get out, because apparently that was the only self-control I had left.

And now she’s sitting across from me telling me she’s Daniel’s daughter and I want to put my fist through the wall. Every filthy thing I just imagined doing to her is sitting in my chest like a confession I can never take back.

“You should have told me who you are earlier,” I say. My voice comes out controlled. If she's going to work in my space, I really need to build a wall.

“Would it have changed anything?”

I don’t answer. Answering that honestly would be a problem for both of us.

I almost kissed her juicy lips.

That’s the thing sitting in the center of my chest like a coal that won’t go cold. I had her backed against my shelving unit, her face tipped up to mine, her breath hitting my jaw, and I felt it — that pull. Low and immediate and dirty enough that my cock was already responding before my brain caught up to shut it down.

I want to go back in time and shake myself by the throat.

“Being Daniel’s daughter doesn’t excuse what happened this morning,” I say it firm and professionally. Rebuilding the wall brick by brick. “You were late. You went through my personal belongings.”

She doesn’t flinch. “I know. I read the email wrong, I got the time wrong, and I shouldn’t have touched the drawer. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t let it happen again.”

“It won’t.”

She holds my gaze when she says it. Steady. No looking down, no shrinking. Most people shrink a little in this office and she is just sitting there looking at me like she has every right to be here and the worst part is she does. Her work is extraordinary. Daniel sent me her scores and I thought he was being a proud father and then I read them and understood he was just being accurate.

I reach for her portfolio because looking at her thesis is considerably safer than continuing to look at her.

“Walk me through this.”

She does. And she’s good — sharper than good, actually. Knows her own work inside out, can defend every decision, and doesn’t stumble when I push back.

I ask her two questions meant to find the weak points and she answers both without blinking. I’m sitting across from her thinking about her mouth and simultaneously being genuinely impressed by her brain and the combination is doing nothing good for my blood pressure.

“The load bearing concept,” I say. “Where did that come from?”

“Your 2019 TED talk.”

I go still.

“You said the most honest thing a building can do is show exactly what’s holding it up.” She says it clean, from memory. “I built the whole thesis around that idea.”

I look at her.

“You watched my TED talk.”

“I’ve watched all of them.” Completely unbothered. Direct eye contact. “Every interview. Every profile. Since I was about fourteen.” A breath. “You’re the reason I chose architecture, Mr. Crowe. I don’t think I ever said that to you directly.”

I don’t know what to do with that so I close the portfolio and say nothing for a moment.

She’s been watching me since she was fourteen. Filing away everything I’ve said and building something out of it. Eight years of paying attention to me, sitting in my best friend’s house at dinner tables I’ve been to a hundred times, and I never — I didn’t see it. I saw a kid with sketchbooks.

I didn’t see her.

And now I’m seeing her and I need to stop.

“You finished college early. I’m proud of you.”

“Not so early. I’m twenty. There are younger graduates than that.”

Twenty.

The way she says it looks more like she’s telling me she’s not the little girl from Daniel’s dinner table anymore and she wants me to hear it clearly.

I hear it.

I also hear twenty-two years. I hear Daniel’s voice on the phone. I hear the word ‘intern’ and the word ‘daughter’ and every other word that means ‘do not even think about it.’

My cock disagrees with all of those words and I override it with extreme prejudice.

“You’ll be assigned to Octavia Willow’s team,” I say. I stand. The meeting is over. I need her out of this office before I do something I cannot come back from. “Executive Creative Director. She’ll develop what you’re already doing.”

Phoenix stands. Tucks the portfolio under her arm.

“Will I be working with you at all?”

I look at her and the honest answer is ‘absolutely not, for reasons I will be taking to my grave’ and what I say is: “Interns don’t work directly with me. That’s not how the programme functions.”

She nods. Moves to the door.

“Phoenix.”

She stops. Looks back over her shoulder and the late morning light hits her face and I genuinely hate myself.

“Welcome to Crowe Atelier,” I say.

She gives a small smile. Then she’s gone.

I turn to the window and stand there and breathe for a moment like a man who just narrowly avoided something catastrophic. Because that is exactly what this is. Daniel has been my best friend for thirty years. This woman grew up in his house. I knew when she was born and when she took her first steps.

I watched her take her first architecture exam and sent her a congratulations card.

I almost kissed her against my own shelving unit twenty minutes ago.

I pick up the phone.

“Octavia.” She answers on the first ring. “The new intern. Phoenix Veyl. She’s yours starting today.”

A pause. “The girl from your office.”

“Yes.”

“Of course.” Smooth. Careful. “I’ll take good care of her.”

Something about the way she says it makes me want to call it back. I don’t.

I hang up and stand at the window and look at the city and think about the half second I almost threw thirty years of friendship and every professional principle I own straight through the glass.

‘Off limits.’ I tell myself.

‘She is so far off limits it isn’t funny.‘

But the half second sits in my chest and refuses to go cold, and the word ‘off limits’ is starting to feel less like a decision and more like a losing battle I haven’t admitted to yet.