Chapter Eleven

MIA’S P.O.VMy first day at D.B. and I’ve already sweated through my blouse.I got here forty minutes early because I couldn’t stand the thought of being late twice to anything involving Damien Black, but now I’m just sitting in the lobby like an idiot, clutching my Chanel bag like it’s a life raft.“Miss Sanderson?” A woman with a sleek bob and a headset calls my name. “I’m Mariam, Mr. Black’s PA. I’ll be showing you around today.”Mariam. The one who was shocked he picked out my outfit himself. I file that away.She walks fast, the kind of fast that says she’s got twelve other things to do today, and I have to half jog to keep up as she rattles off department names and floor numbers I know I won’t remember.“You’ll be shadowing in Operations for the first two weeks, then you’ll rotate through Sales,” she says, pressing the elevator button. “Mr. Black wanted you to get a feel for the whole company before you settle into a track.”“Mr. Black decided that?” I ask, surprised. CEOs don’t

Chapter Twelve

MIA’S POVThree weeks in and I’ve learned the rhythm of this place. Coffee before nine or don’t speak to me. Priya gossips like it’s an Olympic sport. And Damien Black finds a reason to call me into his office at least once a day, always with some file he could have just as easily emailed me.I’ve stopped pretending I don’t like it.“You’re doing it again,” Darcy says over the phone, and I can hear the smirk in her voice without even seeing her face.“Doing what?”“That sighing thing. The one you do when you’re thinking about your hot, broody, probably-secretly-a-good-guy boss.”“I do not sigh.”“Mia. You’ve sighed twice in the last ninety seconds.”I flop back onto my bed, phone pressed to my ear, and stare at the ceiling like it has answers. “It’s complicated, Dee.”“It’s not complicated. You like him, he clearly likes you, nobody’s married, nobody’s dying. Kiss the man.”“He’s my boss.”“He’s the CEO. Different rules apply to CEOs. It’s basically a movie trope at this point.”I don

Chapter Thirteen

MIA’S POVI wake up in a bed that isn’t mine, wrapped in sheets that smell like cedar and something else I can’t name, and it takes me a full ten seconds to remember why my head is pounding like this and why I’m this naked.Oh.Oh no.Damien’s side of the bed is empty, but I can hear water running somewhere down the hall, and I use the minute alone to have a full, silent meltdown into his pillow. We had sex. I had sex with my boss. On his birthday. After I baked him a cake like some kind of unhinged Pinterest housewife.My shoulder aches, a dull, warm throb just below my collarbone, and when I twist to look at it in the mirror across the room, there’s a mark there—not quite a bruise, not quite a hickey, dark and strange at the edges. Great. Add “walking around with a hickey the size of a fist” to today’s list of problems.The bathroom door opens and Damien steps out, hair damp, sweatpants low on his hips, and every ounce of my composure leaves the building.“Morning,” he says. His voi

Chapter Fourteen

Dating my boss in secret is, it turns out, a significant amount of work.We've settled into a rhythm without ever really discussing it — I stay professional at the office, address him as Damien only when absolutely no one's listening, and pretend I don't know exactly what his hand on the small of my back means when he walks me to the elevator "as a courtesy to a valued employee." He's a terrible liar in the way that people who are used to always getting what they want are terrible liars — not because he says the wrong thing, but because he doesn't bother trying very hard.Priya, mercifully, has not caught on. Mariam, I'm almost certain, has. She hasn't said a word, but there's a look she gives me sometimes over her coffee that says she's known since roughly week one and is simply waiting for me to admit it first.Three weeks into whatever this is, Damien picks me up from a "work dinner" — a real one, this time, with actual clients — and we swing by a boutique downtown because he wants

Chapter Fifteen

DAMIEN'S POVLucien doesn't laugh when I tell him. That's how I know it's serious."Say that again," he says, setting down the glass he'd been nursing since I walked into his study uninvited twenty minutes ago."The mark hasn't faded. It's been over a month.""That's not possible.""That's what I said. In a boutique. In front of Mia. Which, incidentally, is the second time in one conversation I told her something wasn't possible without explaining why, so if she wasn't suspicious of me before, she certainly is now."Lucien drags a hand down his face. In all our years of friendship, I've seen him amused, irritated, occasionally furious. I've rarely seen him this quiet."D. Marks fade on humans. Every single time. That's the whole design of it — it's meant to last exactly long enough for the bond to be recognized by both sides, then it disappears, because humans can't carry a permanent mark without it doing something to them. It's not built to stay.""I'm aware of the mechanics, Luce. I

All Chapters of The Billionaire's Bite: Chapter 11 - Chapter 15

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen