PAIGE
The day's work was a breeze, a stark, almost mocking contrast to the emotional typhoon of the last twenty-four hours. With the massive project completed, my desk was unnervingly clear.
The silence in my office was deafening, broken only by the faint hum of my computer and the distant murmur of the office beyond my glass walls.
It gave me too much time to think. Too much time to weigh the options.
My fingers stalled over the keyboard, my gaze drifting past the monitor, through the glass wall of my office, and across the open floor to the corner office.
His office.
The blinds were open. I could see him there, a powerful silhouette against the window, talking on the phone, his gestures sharp and decisive.
"You'll eat every one of those words soon enough." "You're going to need a lot more from this snake than just a kiss."
His voice echoed in my head, a taunt and a promise all at once. I looked down at my lunch—a sad desk salad from a corner deli. I thought of the impossible bail money, the mountain of work I'd conquered, the way he'd looked at me in the car. Not with pity, but with a challenging gleam, like he was waiting for me to finally get in the game.
My pride screamed to go it alone. To keep fighting with my single match.
But my ambition, my cold, calculating need for vengeance, whispered something else. It pictured the resources. The allies. The sheer, destructive power he was offering. It wasn't just about money. It was about access. It was about burning their world down with a flamethrower, not a matchstick.
I took a deliberate bite of my salad. It tasted like compromise. Like surrender.
My eyes flicked back to his office. He had hung up the phone and was now staring directly at me, as if he'd felt the weight of my gaze. He didn't smile. He didn't smirk. He just watched me, his expression unreadable from this distance, but his attention absolute.
A shiver ran down my spine. The decision was crystallizing, not with a bang, but with a cold, quiet click in the deepest part of my soul.
I looked away first, breaking the connection. I minimized the financial reports on my screen and opened a new, blank email.
My fingers hovered over the keys, my heart hammering against my ribs. This was it. The point of no return.
I typed a single name in the recipient field: Reomen Daki.
The cursor blinked in the empty subject line, a tiny, relentless metronome counting down to my surrender.
I had no idea what to write. But I knew, with a terrifying certainty, that I was going to send it. The game had changed. And I was finally ready to stop playing by my old rules.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a final, heart-stopping second. Then I typed the three words, the admission that felt like both a defeat and a liberation.
To: Reomen Daki Subject:(blank)
I'll play your game.
I didn't allow myself to think. I didn't draft. I just clicked 'send'.
The whoosh of the email leaving my inbox seemed to suck all the sound from the room.
I sat there, staring at the screen, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. There was no taking it back. The line had been crossed.
Across the office, through the glass, I saw him. He was leaning back in his chair, but his posture was alert. A notification must have flashed on his screen.
His eyes, which had been scanning a document, flicked up. He didn't look toward my office. He looked at his monitor.
I watched, frozen, as he read the message. His expression didn't change. No smirk. No triumph. He was utterly still for a long moment, a statue carved from ambition and power.
Then, slowly, a single, deliberate movement. He picked up his phone. My own phone, face-up on my desk, lit up with a new notification seconds later.
A single line from an unknown number, but I knew. I knew.
Unknown: My office. Now.
The command was absolute. No acknowledgement of the message. No gloating. Just an order.
I stood up, my legs feeling strangely weak. I smoothed down my second-day blazer, a pathetic attempt at armor, and walked out of my office.
The walk to his door felt endless, a parade past curious eyes that I refused to see.
I didn't knock. I turned the handle and walked in.
He was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, his back to me, looking out at the city he commanded. He didn't turn around.
"The terms have changed," he said, his voice low and without preamble. "The debt is not forgiven. It is merely... repurposed."
Finally, he turned. His dark eyes were not smug. They were blazing with a cold, fierce intensity I had never seen before.
"This isn't a game of business, Paige. It's a war. And you just enlisted in my army." He took a single step toward me. "Your first mission? A gala at the Met, next week. You'll be on my arm. You will be flawless. You will be undeniable. You will make every single person in that room, especially your family, understand that you are not a fallen heir. You are a queen they were too stupid to keep on the throne."
He stopped, now directly in front of me, close enough that I could see the silver threads in his tie, smell the clean, sharp scent of his cologne.
"And you will do it," he finished, his voice dropping to a whisper that vibrated through me, "because you want to burn it all down even more than I do. Welcome to the real game, Black Cat. I hope you're ready to play."
I held his fierce gaze, my own frustration from the car ride solidifying into cold resolve. I gave a single, sharp nod of agreement. But I wouldn't let him frame this as my surrender.
"I'll play," I said, my voice steady, reclaiming a shred of control. "But I won't be eating my words, and I certainly won't be begging. Consider it a transaction. My strategic mind for your resources. You know its capability. Put it to use."
A slow, dark amusement flickered in his eyes, as if I'd just said exactly what he wanted to hear. He inclined his head, a mockery of graciousness.
"A transaction it is," he obliged, his voice a silken purr. He took one final step closer, eliminating the last bit of space between us. His gaze dropped to my lips, then back to my eyes, the heat in his look a stark contrast to the cold business terms.
"But make no mistake," he whispered, the promise a dangerous thing in the quiet office. "I won't touch you. Not a single finger. Not until you're the one begging me to."
He leaned in, his breath a ghost against my ear, sending a traitorous shiver down my spine.
"And you will beg, Paige. Not for my money. Not for my help. For me."
He didn't move back. He held his ground, his presence enveloping me, the air crackling with the unsaid thing he was about to voice. A wicked, knowing light glinted in his eyes.
"And when you do," he continued, his voice dropping to a husky, intimate register that felt like a physical touch, "I will make you understand the fundamental difference between a king and a pawn."
His gaze was searing, leaving no doubt about the arena he was referring to. It wasn't the boardroom.
His eyes traced a slow, deliberate path down to my lips and back up, the implication hanging thick and heavy between us.
"A king," he murmured, the word a dark promise, "commands. He takes. He grants pleasure on his terms, and his terms are... absolute." He let the silence stretch, letting the image form in the space between us. "A pawn simply receives. And after I'm through with you, you'll never want to be a pawn again."
He finally leaned back, the smirk returning, colder and more triumphant than before. He had drawn the new lines of their battlefield, and they led straight to his bed.
"Now," he said, his tone shifting back to business, as if he hadn't just set my entire world on fire. "The gala. We have work to do."