جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 20

Sienna walked into the office the next morning wearing her most neutral expression and her highest heels.She had spent half the night telling herself that what happened on Adrian Vale’s desk was a one-time loss of judgment. A mistake. Something that would be filed away and never repeated. By the time she stepped out of the elevator, she almost believed it.Adrian was already there.He stood near the glass wall of his office with a coffee in hand, speaking quietly to one of the senior directors. The moment Sienna entered the main floor, his eyes found her. He didn’t smile. He didn’t nod. He just looked at her for a beat too long before returning his attention to the conversation.It shouldn’t have affected her.It did.She sat at her desk, opened her laptop, and forced herself to work. For the first few hours she managed. Emails. Schedules. A revised presentation. Every time someone walked past Adrian’s office, she refused to look up.At 11:27 a.m., her desk phone rang.“My office,” A

Adrian didn’t tell her where they were going until the car was already moving. Sienna sat in the passenger seat of his black car, arms crossed, watching the city lights blur past the window. She had expected another late night in the office. Instead, he had walked up to her desk at 7:30, told her to grab her bag, and led her straight to the private elevator. “You’re being dramatic,” she said. “I’m being intentional.” “That’s what you call kidnapping your assistant now?” Adrian’s mouth twitched slightly as he changed lanes. “You got in the car willingly.” “You didn’t exactly give me a choice.” “You always have a choice, Sienna. You just keep making the same one.” She didn’t have a good answer for that, so she stayed quiet. The car eventually pulled into an underground garage beneath a high-end residential building. Adrian parked, got out, and came around to open her door. He kept a hand on the small of her back as he guided her into a private elevator that required a keycard.

Ava hadn’t planned on staying longer than an hour.She told herself that the entire drive over. Go in, smile through dinner, hand over the documents her mother had forgotten at her apartment, and leave before the whole thing became more awkward than it already was. Her mother had only been married to Dominic Kane for three months. Three months was not long enough for Ava to feel comfortable sitting across from her new stepfather at a dinner table like they were some kind of family.They weren’t.She parked in the wide driveway and stared up at the house for a moment. It was large, modern, and carefully maintained, the kind of place that looked more like a statement than a home. Ava adjusted the strap of her bag on her shoulder, walked up the steps, and rang the doorbell.Dominic opened the door himself.She had seen him a few times before at the wedding and once during a brief visit, but standing this close still felt different. He was taller than she remembered, broad-shouldered, wit

Ava told herself she was only there because her mother had asked her to help sort through old boxes in the guest room.That was the excuse, anyway.The truth was harder to admit. She had spent the last few days trying not to think about Dominic. Trying not to remember the weight of his hands, the sound of his voice when he ordered her to come, or the way he had looked at her afterward like the secret between them already belonged to him. Avoiding the house had been easier than facing him. But her mother’s request left her with little room to refuse without raising questions.She parked in the driveway and sat in the car for a full minute before getting out. Her mother’s car was already there. That should have made her feel safer. Instead it only made her pulse climb higher.The front door was unlocked. Ava stepped inside and closed it quietly behind her. The first floor was empty. Afternoon light filtered through the windows, soft and clean. She could hear the faint sound of her mothe

Ava told herself she wouldn’t come if he contacted her again.She lasted three days.On the fourth evening, Dominic sent her a time and an address. No explanation. No pressure in the message itself. Just the quiet assumption that she would show up.She did.The house was empty when she arrived. Her mother’s car was gone. Dominic opened the door himself, stepped aside, and closed it behind her without a word. The silence between them felt heavier than usual.Ava set her bag down. “Where is she?”“Away for the night. A last-minute trip.”“Convenient.”“I arranged it that way.” Dominic walked into the living room and turned to face her. “We need to stop doing this in pieces.”Ava crossed her arms. “What is that supposed to mean?”“It means I’m done with you showing up, telling me it has to end, and then letting me fuck you anyway.” His voice stayed calm. “If you want this to stop, say it clearly and leave. If you don’t, stop pretending every time is the last time.”The directness of it l