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CHAPTER 15 – "THE TEST"

Penulis: jhumz
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2026-01-24 03:33:23

The fifth week of expansion brought the first real test of our personal relationship being integrated with our professional partnership.

Westbrook wanted a major presentation at an industry conference. National stage. Hundreds of marketing professionals. Analysis of the campaign approach, the strategy, the creative direction.

They wanted Adrian and Eli presenting together.

Which seemed reasonable on the surface. Except presenting together meant standing in front of industry professionals and essentially confirming that our collaboration was as personal as it was professional.

It meant being publicly visible as a unit.

The night before the presentation, I was in full anxiety spiral.

"Everyone's going to know," I said to Eli. "Everyone's going to see that we're together and they're going to make assumptions about whether this is professional or if we're just sleeping together."

"Does it matter?" Eli asked.

"It matters because our professional reputation is at stake," I said. "If people
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  • control   CHAPTER 21: "CONTROL"

    The Redefinition of EverythingThe office at Westbrook felt smaller every time I walked through it now.Six months married. Six months of waking up to Eli in my bed, his hand reaching for me in sleep, his voice the first thing I heard in the morning. Six months of redefining what surrender actually meant—not weakness, but strategy. The choice to trust someone else's instincts as much as my own.Six months of realizing the cage I'd built was finally open, and I'd chosen to stay—not because I had to, but because I wanted to.Marcus called me into his office on a Tuesday afternoon. The kind of call that used to send my adrenaline spiking. Now I just felt tired."Adrian," he said, gesturing to the chair across from him. "I wanted to talk to you before the board meeting tomorrow. There's an offer. VP position. New division. Significant raise, equity package, everything we discussed five years ago."The Adrian from before would have felt it—that hunger. That validation. The proof that I'd m

  • control   CHAPTER 20 – "OBSTACLES"

    By month five of marriage, we hit the inevitable wall.It started small. Stress about campaign deadlines. Tension about work-life balance. The normal friction that emerges when two people spend most of their time together in both professional and personal contexts.Then it escalated."You're controlling again," Eli said one evening after I'd reorganized his home office without asking. "You've been making decisions about our space and our life without consulting me. That's not partnership.""I was trying to improve efficiency," I said."You were trying to manage me," Eli said. "And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of feeling like I have to conform to your standards to make you comfortable.""That's not what's happening," I said."Isn't it?" Eli said. "You want everything organized in a specific way. You want me to maintain certain standards. You want me to fit into the structure you've created. That's control, Adrian."He was right. I was reverting to my old patterns. I was using organizatio

  • control   CHAPTER 19 – "DEEPENING"

    By two months into living together, our sexual dynamic had become more sophisticated and more honest.We knew what we wanted. We knew how to ask for it. We knew how to navigate the complexity of desire and vulnerability simultaneously.There were nights when I wanted to completely control the encounter. Nights when Eli wanted the same. And increasingly, nights when we wanted to meet somewhere in the middle—equal partners in mutual exploration."I've been thinking about something," Eli said one evening. "About us. About what we want long-term.""Okay," I said carefully, because his tone suggested this was significant."I want to marry you," he said. "Actually marry you. Soon. Not in a year. Now.""We're already engaged," I said."I know," Eli said. "But I want the legal commitment. I want to tell the world that you're mine and I'm yours in a way that's official."I understood the distinction. Engagement was a promise. Marriage was a declaration."Okay," I said. "Let's get married.""Re

  • control   CHAPTER 18 – "FULL INTIMACY"

    By the first week in the apartment, we'd discovered something about ourselves: that Eli preferred to surrender control in certain contexts, and I preferred to maintain it in others.It wasn't a dynamic we'd consciously discussed. It was something that emerged through physical communication and mutual discovery.Eli would sometimes want me to take charge completely. To make decisions about what happened, how it happened, the pace and intensity. He'd want to surrender completely to my direction.And I discovered that I didn't hate that. That there was a specific kind of intimacy in being trusted with someone's vulnerability. That making decisions for someone who'd explicitly asked me to could feel like care rather than control."This is different," I said one evening after one of these encounters."Different how?" Eli asked."Different from my usual control," I said. "In work, I try to control because I'm afraid of chaos. But this... this feels like I'm being trusted to lead. There's a

  • control   CHAPTER 17 – LEARNING SURRENDER"

    The night of the engagement, we didn't go home to the apartment we'd secured but not yet moved into.We went to Eli's place—our place now, though it still held the weight of being primarily his space. The transition hadn't happened yet. We were in that liminal moment between his life and our life, still figuring out how to merge completely.I was nervous in a way I hadn't been before.Physical intimacy with Eli existed in a particular context: stolen moments between work stress, carefully managed encounters, the framework of restraint that had structured our relationship's escalation.Tonight there was no framework. No campaign crisis to process afterward. No professional boundaries to retreat into. Just us and the explicit knowledge that we were going to be completely intimate for the first time since the engagement."You're doing the thinking thing again," Eli said as we were changing in the bedroom. "I can practically hear your brain processing.""I'm terrified," I said honestly. "

  • control   CHAPTER 16 – "THE OFFER"

    Week seven brought an offer from a competitor agency.They wanted me. Head of Strategic Direction. Massive budget. Authority to build my own team. Everything I'd been working toward my entire career.I read the offer in Marcus's office and felt absolutely nothing."Well?" Marcus asked."It's a significant offer," I said."It's an exceptional offer," Marcus said. "Probably the best one you'll ever get. Are you taking it?""No," I said immediately."Why not?" Marcus asked, and he seemed genuinely curious rather than upset."Because it's only strategy," I said. "The offer doesn't include Eli. Doesn't acknowledge that the work we do together is what makes it exceptional. Doesn't understand that I'm not interested in being a strategist who works solo anymore.""You could negotiate," Marcus said. "Ask for Eli to be included.""I could," I said. "But it would feel like I'm asking them to accommodate me. I want to build something where collaboration is the foundation from the beginning. Not a

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