CHAPTER 4: My New CEO

"You look like someone dug you up."

Mia's voice cut through the lobby noise before I'd even swiped my badge. She fell into step beside me, two coffees in her hands, one already extended like a peace offering.

"Thanks," I said. "Great start."

"I called you nine times."

"I know."

"Nine, Roseline. I thought you were dead in a ditch." Her eyes narrowed, sweeping over me. The concealer I'd caked under my eyes. The high collar I'd chosen to hide the mark near my collarbone. "Okay, that's not a rough night face. That's a something happened face."

"Nothing happened."

"Liar."

"Mia." I took the coffee and wrapped both hands around it so she wouldn't see them shaking. "Not now. Please. I'll tell you later, I swear."

She studied me for a beat. Her jaw flexed, and I could see her fighting a dozen questions. Then she sighed and hooked her arm through mine.

"Fine. But I'm sitting next to you in there, and if you faint I'm not catching you."

"Fair."

The elevator ride to the fourteenth floor felt like a slow execution. I stared at the numbers. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. My stomach kept flipping, and I told myself it was the vodka, the lack of sleep, the fact that I'd scrubbed my skin raw and could still smell his hotel soap.

Buried. It was buried. One mistake, one closed door, one stranger I'd never see again.

All I had to do was survive this meeting.

The conference room was packed. Forty people, maybe more, crammed around the long glass table or leaning against the walls. Conversation buzzed in low, excited clumps. Everyone had a theory about the new CEO. Someone swore he was fifty and bald. Someone else said he'd flown in from Zurich last night.

"I heard he's ruthless," Mia whispered as we squeezed into two seats near the back. "Like, cut half the board in his first week ruthless."

"Great."

"Or hot. I'm hoping for hot."

"Mia."

"What? A girl can dream."

I stared at my coffee lid. My head throbbed. Somewhere behind me, a man laughed too loudly at nothing.

Then the door opened.

The room hushed in a ripple, one voice at a time, like a wave rolling toward shore. Chairs scraped. Someone coughed.

A man walked in.

Dark suit. Charcoal tie. Shoulders squared like he owned the floor beneath him, which, I supposed, he did.

My whole body went cold.

No. No, no, no.

The coffee cup crumpled slightly in my grip. Lukewarm liquid splashed over my knuckles, and I didn't feel it.

It was him.

Same jaw. Same dark, watchful eyes. The same hand that had lifted my chin last night now rested casually on a leather folio. Only the rumpled stranger from the bar was gone. This man wore control like armor. Not a single hair out of place.

"Oh my God," Mia breathed beside me. "Okay. Hot. Hot confirmed."

I couldn't speak.

"That's Henry Kingsley," someone whispered two rows ahead.

Kingsley.

The name hit me like a slap. I knew that name. I'd spent two years saying that name, printing it on invitations, signing it in little notes. It couldn't be. It was a common enough name, wasn't it?

"Richard Kingsley's son," another voice murmured, low and thrilled. "The eldest. Been overseas for years."

My pulse thundered in my ears.

"Wait, so he's Eric's brother?"

"Half brother. Different mothers."

The floor dropped out from under me. Actual, physical vertigo. I gripped the edge of the table so hard the glass bit into my palm.

The stranger. The CEO. My cheating ex's brother.

One man.

I'd slept with Eric Kingsley's brother.

Nausea rolled up my throat. I swallowed, once, twice, and stared at a fixed point on the table, terrified that if I looked up my face would say everything.

"Rose?" Mia's hand found my wrist. "Hey. You're gray."

"I'm fine."

"You're not."

"Shh."

Henry Kingsley set his folio on the head of the table. He didn't rush. He let the silence thicken until every eye was fixed on him, and then he lifted his gaze and swept it slowly across the room.

Left to right. Unhurried. Assessing.

And then, halfway across, he stopped.

Our eyes met.

Something flickered in his face. Half a second. A tightening around his mouth, a hitch in that perfect stillness. Recognition, sharp as a blade, gone before anyone else could catch it.

Then it sealed over. Smooth. Flawless. Like it had never been there at all.

My heart was trying to climb out of my throat.

"Good morning," he said. His voice filled the room without effort. "I'm Henry Kingsley."

A smattering of murmurs. Polite nods. Someone at the front actually clapped, then seemed to think better of it.

"I'll keep this short. I know a change in leadership makes people nervous, and I'd rather address that now than let it turn into rumors." He gestured lightly to the table. "I'm not here to burn anything down. I'm here to understand how this company works, and I'll be asking a lot of questions."

Nervous laughter. I couldn't manage even that.

He talked about transitions and transparency. I heard none of it. All I could hear was my own blood and the fragments of last night breaking loose inside my head. His mouth on my throat. His voice, low and steady. Don't stop, I'd said.

Oh God.

"Rose," Mia hissed, barely moving her lips. "You're going to bite through your tongue."

I unclenched my jaw.

"Let's start with introductions," Henry said. "Department heads first, but I'd like to meet as many of you as I can." He glanced along the table, then let his eyes drift back. Slowly. Deliberately.

To me.

"You," he said.

The room turned. Forty heads. Forty pairs of eyes.

Heat scorched up my neck.

"And you are?"

Calm. Polite. A boss asking a stranger her name.

He was pretending.

The realization hit me a beat late, hollow and strange. He knew exactly who I was. He remembered every second, same as me. And he'd looked me in the face and decided, in the space of a heartbeat, that we'd never met.

It should have felt like relief.

It felt like being erased twice.

I forced my spine straight. Set my coffee down before I dropped it.

"Roseline Carter," I said quietly.

My voice didn't shake. I was proud of that, distantly.

Something moved behind his eyes. A pause, so brief anyone else would've missed it. His fingers tightened against the folio.

"Roseline Carter," he repeated, slower.

He knew the name. Of course he did. Somewhere in that Kingsley family tree, my name lived next to Eric's. Girlfriend. Two years. The one Eric brought to Christmas dinner.

And he didn't know it was over.

His gaze held mine a second too long. Something unreadable passed through it, and I looked away first.

"Thank you, Ms. Carter," he said at last, and moved on.

I sat there, dizzy, while forty people went back to breathing.

Mia leaned in. "Okay, what was that?"

"Nothing."

"He stared at you."

"He stared at everyone."

"No, he really didn't."

I didn't answer. The meeting dragged on. Department heads spoke, questions were asked, someone from finance nearly cried. I nodded at the right moments. I don't remember a word.

When it finally ended, the room broke apart in a scrape of chairs and hurried voices. I was on my feet before Mia had finished gathering her notes.

"I need the bathroom."

"Rose, wait..."

"Five minutes."

I moved through the crowd with my head down, dodging shoulders, reaching for the door like it was oxygen. Almost there. Almost.

"Ms. Carter."

His voice came from directly behind me.

Low. Controlled. Perfectly professional.

Every nerve in my body locked.

I turned slowly.

Henry stood close enough that I could smell his cologne, the same one from the hotel. Up close, the mask had a crack in it. A small tightness at the corner of his mouth. A shadow beneath his eyes that concealer couldn't have hidden either.

"Yes?" I said.

He stepped in, lowering his voice so no one else could hear.

"We need to talk about last night."