The Enemy I Couldn't Ignore

Dorian’s POV

Arabella Marlowe was the last person I expected to see sitting across from me in an interview.

I'd interviewed plenty of candidates over the years. Most of them came prepared with polished answers, impressive qualifications, and the determination to make themselves memorable. I was used to assessing people without letting personal impressions get in the way.

Bella had made that considerably more difficult than it should have been.

Hiring her had been a decision I could justify on paper. Her qualifications were strong, her recommendations were impressive, and she'd handled my questions without trying to tell me what she thought I wanted to hear.

Why I'd found myself thinking about it long after the interview was over was another matter.

Still, when I opened her file that morning, I found myself staring at her name longer than necessary.

Arabella Marlowe.

I closed the folder, reached for my coffee, and tried to focus on the work waiting on my desk. There were reports to review, meetings to prepare for, and decisions that couldn't be postponed simply because an old acquaintance had unexpectedly walked back into my life.

My phone vibrated on the desk.

Callum's name appeared on the screen.

I answered. "What is it?"

"Good morning to you too."

I leaned back in my chair. "You don't usually call this early without a reason."

"Fair enough. I heard you interviewed Arabella Marlowe."

I glanced at the folder beside my laptop. "Word travels quickly."

"Apparently. I was surprised, that's all."

"She's qualified for the position."

"I didn't say she wasn't."

"Then what are we discussing?"

There was a brief pause. I could almost hear him deciding how to phrase whatever he actually wanted to ask.

"You two haven't exactly crossed paths in years. I wondered how that went."

I tapped my finger against the desk, already regretting answering the call without first asking him to get to the point.

"It was an interview, Callum. Not a reunion."

He laughed quietly. "Of course it was."

I could practically picture the look on his face. Callum had always enjoyed making a conversation more complicated than it needed to be, especially when he suspected there was something I wasn't saying.

"Is there a question somewhere in all this?"

"Just one. Are you sure you're comfortable having her work so closely with you?"

I looked towards the office door. Beyond it, the day was already underway, with employees moving between meetings and trying to keep their own schedules on track.

"If I had concerns about her ability to do the job, I wouldn't have hired her."

"That's not quite what I meant."

"I know."

Another pause followed, this one more deliberate. Callum wasn't usually one to back away from a question, which meant he was making an effort to leave the subject alone.

I wasn't sure whether to appreciate it or prepare for him to bring it up again later.

"All right," he said. "I'll leave it there. Just remember that whatever happened between you two belongs in the past."

"Believe me, I haven't forgotten."

"Somehow, that doesn't reassure me."

I shook my head. "You have a security review to finish. Go and worry about that."

"Already on it."

He ended the call, and I set my phone aside.

Callum Rhodes had been my closest friend since childhood. He now ran his own cybersecurity company, which handled security assessments and sensitive technical issues for Ashford Technologies. His work brought him into contact with people across my company, and he knew enough about its operations to notice important changes.

Unfortunately, being my oldest friend also meant he believed he had a say in my personal decisions. He had never been particularly good at keeping his opinions to himself, and years of friendship had done little to improve that habit.

I turned back to the work on my desk.

There was no point spending the morning discussing my new assistant with Callum. Bella had accepted the position, and I had hired her because I believed she could do the job. Whatever history existed between us, the office wasn't the place to revisit it.

At least, that was how I intended to handle it.

I opened the confidential folder on my desk.

My company was preparing for a merger with a larger business group that owned several companies, including the Marlowe family's jewellery business. Before we committed to anything, my team had to make sure the information we'd received was accurate.

The proposal had already passed through several hands. My team had reviewed the figures, checked the supporting documents, and flagged anything that required further clarification. Most of the information appeared to be in order.

One detail, however, didn't match the supporting documents.

My team had flagged it, but I still hadn't received an explanation that satisfied me.

I studied the relevant pages again, looking for something we'd overlooked. It could be a simple mistake. 

I wasn't interested in turning an administrative error into a crisis, but I wasn't willing to overlook something simply because everyone else had.

That was where Bella came in.

I didn't need her to understand every detail of the merger. I needed someone to read the material without assuming that the people who had prepared it must have got everything right.

She was new to the company, unfamiliar with the discussions that had already taken place, and had no reason to defend decisions made before she arrived. That made her perspective potentially useful.

I remembered how she'd challenged a teacher's argument in school and refused to back down until she'd made her point, I'd found it infuriating at the time.

Whether that would prove useful now remained to be seen.

I closed the folder and placed it beside my laptop, making a mental note to give it to her when she arrived on Monday.

Either way, she'd have to earn her place in my office like everyone else.