By the third week, Nia had mastered the art of avoiding Lucien Vale's presence as much as possible. She arrived fifteen minutes early, left ten minutes late, and rehearsed every possible interaction with him the way one would rehearse lines for a trial.
Not because she cared.
No. It was purely for self-preservation.
Yet somehow, despite her best efforts, she always managed to trip right into his line of fire.
"This document," Lucien said that morning, tapping a glossy folder on his desk without even glancing at her, "has two missing pages."
Nia blinked, her stomach already sinking. She'd stayed until nearly midnight perfecting that report, cross-referencing every figure, checking every footnote. "It shouldn't. I triple-checked it last night."
"Then you need to start checking during daylight hours," he replied coolly, finally lifting his gaze to meet hers.
The comment hit harder than it should have. She'd given up dinner, skipped her favorite TV show, worked by the harsh glow of her desk lamp until her eyes burned. All for what? Another dismissive remark.
Her jaw twitched. "Maybe the printer missed them."
"Maybe the person in charge of the printer should've noticed," he said, those storm-blue eyes never wavering from her face.
She was quiet, too stunned to speak at first. The unfairness of it all crashed over her like a wave. She'd worked harder in three weeks than most people worked in three months, and still—nothing was ever good enough.
He's not just cold. He's a walking glacier with built-in sarcasm.
"I'll print the missing pages now," she said, her voice tight with barely contained frustration.
He didn't answer. Just returned to his papers, dismissing her like she was invisible. Like her effort meant nothing. Like she meant nothing.
As she turned on her heel, something inside her snapped. The words slipped out before she could catch them: "Jerk."
"I heard that," came his dry reply.
Nia froze halfway to the door, her cheeks burning with mortification. She didn't dare turn back. If she did, he'd see it—the war raging behind her eyes. The part of her that wanted to prove him wrong. The part of her that wanted to throw something hard at his perfectly structured face. The part that was tired of being treated like she was disposable.
What kind of boss insults their employees for sport?
Back at her desk, she printed the missing pages with shaking hands, stapled them together with unnecessary force, and marched back into his office. This time, she didn't bother hiding her frustration behind politeness.
"Here are the missing pages. Printed. In daylight," she said, placing them on his desk with perhaps more force than necessary.
He looked up, and for a second, there was something different in his expression. Not quite amusement, but... interest? "You'll need thicker skin if you plan to work here longer."
The comment was meant to sting, but it revealed something else—an assumption that she would be here longer. That thought alone should have been reassuring. Instead, it made her angrier.
"Maybe you should try growing one that's not made of ice," she retorted, the words tumbling out before she could stop them.
Silence stretched between them like a taut wire.
Then, Lucien said something that made her blood run cold.
"Careful, Miss Amara. Ice breaks. Fire burns. But arrogance ruins the naive."
She stared at him, her heart hammering against her ribs. The threat was subtle but unmistakable. Yet underneath it, she heard something else—something that sounded almost like... concern?
Was that a threat? A warning? Or just another mind game?
Whatever it was, she was officially done for the day.
---
Lunch break came as a salvation. She escaped to the rooftop garden, the only quiet place in the building that didn't smell like ambition or stress. The autumn air was crisp against her heated cheeks, and she gulped it down like medicine.
Jade found her there twenty minutes later, sprawled on a bench with her face tilted toward the sky.
"I swear if one more client sends me a seven-slide mood board with nothing but beige tones, I might actually lose it," Jade announced, dropping beside her with dramatic flair.
Nia let out a hollow laugh. "At least your boss doesn't make you feel like a failure before noon."
"Ah." Jade's expression softened. "The Ice King strikes again?"
"Lucien Vale," Nia corrected automatically, then immediately regretted giving him the dignity of his full name.
"Right. What did he do now?"
Nia recounted the morning's events, her voice getting tighter with each detail. When she finished, Jade was quiet for a long moment.
"You know what I think?" Jade finally said.
"That I should quit and become a barista?"
"I think he's testing you."
Nia turned to stare at her friend. "Testing me? For what? How much abuse I can take?"
"No." Jade's voice was thoughtful, almost gentle. "I think he's trying to figure out if you're going to run."
"Why would he care if I run?"
Jade was quiet again, picking at the sleeve of her sweater. When she spoke, her voice was softer than usual. "Can I tell you something? And promise you won't get weird about it?"
Nia's stomach clenched. "Okay..."
"I've been watching him. Vale. And... I think I'm developing feelings for him."
The words hit Nia like a physical blow. Her chest tightened, and for a moment, she couldn't breathe. "You... what?"
"I know how it sounds," Jade rushed on. "He's cold and impossible and probably has the emotional range of a marble statue. But there's something about him, Nia. The way he moves through the world like he's carrying some invisible weight. The way he looks at people—really looks at them, like he's trying to solve them."
"He looks at me like I'm a math problem he can't solve," Nia said bitterly.
"Exactly." Jade turned to face her fully. "Don't you see? He doesn't look at anyone else that way. Not the board members, not the other executives. Just you."
Nia's heart was beating too fast. "That doesn't mean anything good."
"Maybe not. But it means something."
They sat in silence after that, the weight of Jade's confession settling between them like a stone. Nia stared at the city skyline, trying to untangle the knot of emotions in her chest. Why did it matter if Jade liked him? Why did the thought of someone else wanting him make her feel like screaming?
"He's all yours," she finally managed, standing abruptly.
Jade caught her wrist. "Nia..."
"I mean it. He's clearly not interested in lowly assistants anyway."
But even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. Because there had been moments—fleeting, barely-there moments—when she'd caught him looking at her with something that wasn't disdain. Something that made her skin feel too tight and her breath catch in her throat.
She hated those moments most of all.
---
Later that afternoon, Lucien stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office, ostensibly reviewing quarterly projections. But his attention kept drifting to the woman sitting at the desk outside his door.
Nia was concentrating on something, her brow furrowed in that way that made her look younger than her years. She'd tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and he found himself tracking the movement of her fingers, the curve of her neck as she leaned forward.
She was explaining something to Marcus from accounting, her voice patient and warm. He'd given Marcus the same information three times with increasing irritation, but somehow Nia made it sound simple. Natural.
She had no idea he was watching. That's when she was most herself—unguarded, genuine, achingly human in a world that had forgotten how to be soft.
And it terrified him.
She wasn't supposed to matter. She was supposed to be temporary, forgettable, just another face in the endless parade of assistants who came and went. But every time she looked up with those defiant eyes and refused to back down, she carved herself deeper into the spaces he'd spent years keeping empty.
Every morning when she walked through that door with her second-hand clothes and determined expression, she brought something into his sterile world that he'd thought was gone forever. Hope. Warmth. The possibility that not everyone was playing a game.
She was dangerous in a way that had nothing to do with corporate espionage or political maneuvering. She was dangerous because she made him remember what it felt like to be human.
He turned away from the window, jaw clenched.
Cold.
Unbothered.
Just as he had always been.
But something in his chest felt less like stone today.
And more like cracking ice.
In the distance, his phone buzzed with an encrypted message from home. Another reminder of who he really was. Another chain pulling him back toward a life he'd temporarily abandoned.
The clone had 6 months left.
6 months to figure out what to do about the girl who was slowly, systematically, dismantling every wall he'd ever built.
6 months to decide if Lucien Vale was worth saving.
Or if the Crownless King should finally claim his throne.