Some moments split your life in two. Before and after. Safe and ruined.
For me, it started with an elevator ride.
The kind where the air feels too tight even though you're alone. The kind where you check your reflection in the mirrored wall for the hundredth time and try to ignore the knot twisting in your stomach. The kind that carries you straight into something you're not ready for.
I didn't belong in a place like this. Strickland Enterprises. Stretched above the New York skyline like it owned the sky itself. Sleek glass walls polished to a cruel shine. People walking through the marble lobby like their blood was laced with gold.
I was the outsider. The girl in a secondhand blazer and heels that pinched.
But I needed this job.
I needed it more than I needed my pride more than I needed to breathe some days. Rent was past due my mother had given up two years ago and my sister was still too young to carry any weight.
So I stepped off that elevator like I knew where I was going like I was someone worth noticing.
The receptionist barely looked up as she handed me a visitor's pass and motioned toward the end of the hall.
"Wait in the glass room. Mr Strickland will be with you shortly."
I nodded but she was already back to typing something I would never be important enough to see.
The glass room wasn't really a room. More like a fishbowl for hopefuls. Two chairs a table a view of the building's core that pulsed with money and ambition. I sat and smoothed my skirt listening to the faint tick of the clock behind me.
That's when the door opened.
And everything shifted.
He didn't walk in like a man. He moved like a storm dressed in tailored charcoal and precision. Damon Strickland.
His name carried weight in headlines and finance circles. Ruthless. Brilliant. Untouchable.
And now he was standing ten feet away from me.
"Selena Hart."
His voice was smooth and controlled. A voice used to commanding rooms not asking questions.
"It's Selene actually" I said too fast too quietly.
He looked at me like the correction amused him.
Of course it did.
He stepped closer and I forced myself not to shrink away. He didn't sit. Just stood there studying me with a look that saw straight through my clothes and into the parts of me I didn't like to examine.
"Tell me why you're here."
I blinked.
"For the temp position, your assistant said—"
"That's not what I asked."
I swallowed hard and sat up straighter.
"I need this job. I'm a fast learner I don't complain and I don't cause problems."
A long pause. Then his gaze dropped to my résumé still untouched on the glass table between us.
"You studied economics. Graduated top ten per cent. Then vanished for two years. Why."
My breath caught. So he'd done his research.
"My father was involved in a scandal" I said, "I didn't have much of a choice."
Another pause. Another slow shift of his weight as he circled me.
"You came from privilege, Selene. Now you're asking to be a temp. Answer phones. Fetch coffee. Sit quietly while men talk. Is that what you want?"
No. God no.
But I nodded.
He was silent for another beat before moving toward the door.
"Come with me."
That was it. No explanation. No decision. Just a command.
I followed.
We passed rows of office windows so clean they didn't seem real. People paused as we walked by as if sensing something had shifted. When we reached his private office he didn't hold the door. Just walked in and let it fall shut behind me.
His desk was cold steel and glass no family photos no clutter. Just a monitor and a leather notebook.
He turned to face me.
"I don't need a temp" he said "I need someone I can trust. Someone who can be invisible and smart. You don't need this job Selene. You need something far more dangerous."
My skin prickled.
"What are you offering?"
His eyes flicked down my body and back up again not leering just assessing.
"A temporary contract. Discretion required. Late hours. Long demands. And the understanding that personal lines don't exist in this space."
My heart thudded.
"And what's in it for me?"
He walked closer until the edge of the desk pressed against the back of my thighs. My breath caught.
"You'll be paid enough to bury your past."
My mouth opened but no words came.
"Think it over" he said "But not for too long."
He turned back to his desk and just like that I was dismissed.
I walked out of that office on shaking legs.
And I already knew my answer.
The next morning, I woke before my alarm.
I didn't know if it was the nerves or something else, something I hadn't had in years — anticipation. The kind that keeps you alert, wired before your feet even hit the ground. I dressed with more care this time. Same black dress. But I added a silk scarf, tied low at my throat, and smoothed down every flyaway with shaking hands.
I told myself it was just a job.
The elevator to the executive floor chimed softly when it arrived. My badge gave me access now. A glass pane slid open, revealing the same pristine hallway with its eerie silence and clean lines. A woman in an emerald skirt suit glanced up from her desk when she saw me.
Tall. Elegant. Her skin was a rich, flawless bronze. She looked like someone who belonged in luxury. Sharp cheekbones, coiled braids pinned into an intricate knot, eyes lined with precision. Her nameplate read Isabelle Cline.
"You're early," she said, brows lifting slightly. Her voice was smooth and cool. "He's not in yet."
"I'll wait in my office," I replied softly.
She looked me over once. Not cruelly. Just the way someone does when they're deciding if you're a threat.
Or something worse. Curiosity.
As I stepped into my glass-walled space, I noticed something had changed. There was a fresh orchid on the desk. Pale pink, delicate, with a small gold card beside it.
Welcome to the top.
No name. No initials.
But I knew who it was from.
I sat and let the silence stretch. The skyline loomed beyond the window. Below, the city pulsed, a thousand stories I wasn't part of anymore. Not until now.
The door clicked behind me.
He walked in without knocking.
Today, Damien Vale wore a crisp navy suit with a black shirt beneath it, the collar unbuttoned just enough to soften the edge. No tie. Just that quiet power again, wrapped in fabric that probably cost more than my rent.
His gaze swept over me. Slowly. Carefully. Not lascivious. But like he was cataloguing everything.
"You look the part," he said.
"I hope that's a compliment."
"It is."
He handed me a thick folder.
"First task. You'll sort through the shortlist of legal advisors for the Varis merger. I want notes by this evening. No summaries. Your impressions. I need instinct more than logic."
I opened it, scanning the names.
"These are… senior partners at the top firms in the city."
"And yet I want your take. That's what you're here for."
"Not my ability to file and fetch coffee?"
His mouth twitched.
"I don't like coffee."
The hours passed differently on that floor.
Time felt measured in decision and power, not clocks. I read through the files like they were case studies on ambition every candidate with pristine credentials, decades of accolades, and a public persona polished until it gleamed.
But it wasn't just about qualifications.
It was about who could sit across from Damien Vale and not flinch.
I took notes in longhand, my thoughts sharp and focused. I only looked up when a shadow crossed the glass.
He was watching me.
Standing at the edge of my office, his hands in his pockets, face unreadable.
"How do you take your silence so seriously?" I asked without turning.
"I find it says more than words usually do."
He moved closer until he was just behind me.
I could feel him. Not touching. Not speaking. Just there.
A force.
"I read your file," he said finally.
"I'm sure you did."
"You were on track to graduate top of your law class before the hearing."
My fingers froze on the pen.
He didn't fill the silence. He let it sit there, heavy and full of things I didn't want unearthed.
"My father's name didn't help," I said after a moment. "People thought I knew what he was doing. That I helped."
"And did you?"
I turned then.
"No."
Our eyes locked. Something unspoken passed between us. Not trust. Not yet. But maybe a fracture in the wall I hadn't realised I'd built around myself.
"I like people who survive," he said.
"Is that what I'm doing?"
"It's a start."
He walked away.
By the time the day ended, I had given him my notes.
He didn't read them while I stood there. Just took them, set them on his desk, and nodded once.
"Seven o'clock," he said without looking up.
"For?"
He glanced at me then. Just once.
"Dinner. You'll come."
It wasn't a question.
I didn't own anything formal enough for a restaurant where a man like Damien Vale would dine.
But I did what I could.
A black dress again, this one sleeveless, tighter at the waist. Simple, clean lines, no branding, no glitter. I let my hair down, combed it carefully, and added a single touch of red to my lips.
When I arrived at the address he sent, I turned around.
It wasn't a restaurant.
It was his home.
A penthouse tower just off Park Avenue. Private elevator. A silent doorman who didn't blink when I gave my name.
The doors opened to a space of shadow and glass.
He stood barefoot on the marble floor, sleeves rolled up, a drink in one hand. His tie was gone. His collar was open.
"You came," he said, eyes sweeping over me.
"You didn't say this was your home."
"If I had, would you have come?"
"I don't know."
He held out the drink. I took it.
"It's just dinner," he said. "For now."
But we both knew that nothing about this was just.