Farhan Raksamudra stared at the fast-moving streets outside the car window. The feelings enveloping him were not the euphoria of victory, but a complex blend of professional satisfaction and unsettling anxiety. He had acknowledged in his heart that Sekar was more than he had imagined. That acknowledgment raecognition of Sekar's intelligence and crucial role in safeguarding his wealth was the first he had ever given to anyone outside his father. Yet, that realization came alongside Rival's sharp warning: hired intelligence always carries dual loyalties.
Sekar sat silently beside him, reviewing the meeting minutes on her tablet. She had once again donned her shield of calm professionalism, restoring the strict boundary she had briefly broken to win the negotiation war. The silent pause between them felt like cold tension.
Farhan turned to Sekar. "You know, Rival wanted you fired three months ago. He saw you as a weakness because you were vulnerable on the domestic level."
Sekar paused typing. "But tonight, Mr. Farhan, my vulnerability protected your vulnerability at the negotiation table. My compliance ensured no emotional variables. My intelligence secured financial gain."
"Is your loyalty guaranteed by the contract or by the fear of losing money for your mother?" Farhan asked bluntly. This was the question Rival had planted in his mind. If control was currency, he had to ensure Sekar's currency wouldn't fluctuate.
Sekar turned off her tablet, storing her tools with measured movements. "In terms of our Contract Act, Mr. Farhan, loyalty is a liability I've exchanged for cash payment and my mother's health insurance. It's not fear; it's transactional. If Raksamudra Group offered a higher bid for the role of contract wife, I would have to consider it. However, your Act is sufficient, so I am not looking elsewhere."
Farhan felt a small jolt. He hated how logically and flawlessly Sekar held onto her commitment. She was right. Sekar's loyalty was efficiency without emotion.
"Good," Farhan said flatly. "Keep it that way. I like certainty."
Yet, in introspection, he knew something was off in that statement. He loved certainty, but he felt drawn to Sekar's hand that brushed him moments ago. A touch that crossed boundaries yet anchored him amid the whirlwind of negotiation.
They arrived at the penthouse. The silent lobby air felt colder than before. Sekar immediately walked toward the private elevator, her steps fast and disciplined.
"Sekar," Farhan called as they entered the elevator, its walls made of elegant frosted glass. Sekar turned immediately, standing at attention her body tense, awaiting work instructions or criticism.
"Tonight, we've exceeded official work hours," Farhan began, watching his reflection in the glass. "Have you prepared a detailed report on mental losses due to overwork?"
Sekar gave a thin smile, but her eyes remained cold. "My mental health is insured, Sir. No losses. My efficiency remains 100%. Unless you feel emotionally guilty for breaking work rules?"
The sharpness of her teasing should have angered him. Farhan hated it when Sekar flipped control back onto him. But this time, he felt only a mixture of irritation and a strange curiosity.
"I don't feel guilty," Farhan countered. He moved closer, not as a superior, but as if pulled by a gravity he didn't notice. The elevator felt smaller. "I was just observing. Earlier, during the negotiation, you…"
Farhan paused, raising his hand. The hand wasn't lifted to command, but as a reflexive gesture. He noticed a stray strand of Sekar's hair clinging to her cheek. Carefully, he moved his fingertips and brushed it away. It was a touch as light as air.
Sekar froze instantly. She did not step back, but her body tensed with near-spinal-breaking intensity. The sensation of Farhan's touch supposedly sterile, purely business had now crossed the boundary she had fiercely maintained.
Her body screamed to recoil. This was a violation. Their contract explicitly stated "no personal contact that triggers emotional attachment." Yet her compliance, her habit of obeying every Farhan request, restrained every instinct to resist.
Farhan, feeling Sekar's cold physical response, withdrew his hand. Sekar stood tall and straight, but her breath caught. This was not efficient compliance; it was a painful self-restraint.
"Sorry," Farhan said, his baritone lower than usual. "There was a hair."
"Thank you, Mr. Farhan," Sekar replied, managing to keep her voice steady, though internally alarms were blaring. It was the first time Farhan had touched her without an urgent context, without a clear formal purpose.
"You seem… disturbed," Farhan observed. Their silent pause was filled with electric tension. He realized he wanted to disturb her. He wanted to see cracks in the Perfect Secretary mask.
Sekar regulated her breathing. "I have never been instructed on how to respond to non-verbal touch from a superior. I must ensure my response is efficient."
Sekar's philosophy viewing personal interaction as an operating system requiring efficient response once again surprised Farhan. He wondered whether Sekar truly lacked instinct, or whether she had buried it so deeply for the sake of this Black Act.
"Consider that part of an experiment, Madam Raksamudra," Farhan said with a thin, dangerous, rare smile that did not reach his eyes. "An experiment in control boundaries. Both of us. Is control as strong as we think?"
The elevator doors opened. Sekar stepped out, forcing her stride to appear unaffected. In her mind, she logged the earlier touch as "Red Level Threat: Non-Professional Physical Violation", and began drafting the protocol for future incidents. She needed to formalize her control over Farhan not by rejecting him, but by documenting her non-interest.
Sekar knew well. Her extreme compliance had always been her shield. As long as she never opposed Farhan, as long as she obeyed all protocols perfectly, she was safe. But if Farhan began deliberately breaching the protocols she had set, what remained of the safety in this contract?
She dashed to her office, also her bedroom. With trembling hands, she retrieved the silk robe demanded by Farhan in Chapter 3, shedding her formal attire. Behind the door, Sekar took a deep breath. The physical tension she had felt was familiar the choking sensation before a panic attack. But she could not panic. Not under Farhan's roof.
Sekar pulled out her phone. She deleted her old "Emergency Emotional Control Protocol" list and began a new file: "Domestic Protocol Modification. Clause: Unexpected Touch." She needed to control Farhan not by resisting, but by formalizing her detachment.
Meanwhile, Farhan walked slowly toward his penthouse office. He did not enter immediately. He stopped in the corridor, where he could observe Sekar unseen by her still working, keeping busy. Yet her previously rigid posture now appeared slightly looser, though still defensive. There was something intensely vulnerable in the way she clung to efficiency.
Farhan touched his fingertips. The touch on Sekar's cheek. Why did he do it? He had restrained himself for months, considering touch an emotional commitment too foolish to risk. But tonight, he had broken that rule. And Sekar's tense response did not anger him it gave him a strange satisfaction.
Not the satisfaction of dominance. But the satisfaction that there was something behind Sekar's wall he could touch. That the Perfect Secretary's compliance, though transactional, was still made of flesh and blood not a programmed robot.
Farhan sat behind his large office desk, staring at Sekar's closed door. His heart did not beat in fear of losing stock control, but in confusion over the emotional boundary he had just breached. Sekar had become his newest, most dangerous experiment.
He no longer wanted Sekar to leave not out of fear of losing shares, but fear of losing the anchor of calm he had never requested.
He watched. The door to Sekar's room was slightly ajar, letting out a thin shaft of light. Farhan realized it was past midnight. Sekar was still there, probably sitting on the bed, analyzing a new business scheme or perhaps… writing about that touch.
Farhan made a decision. He picked up the internal phone and dialed Sekar's room extension.
Sekar answered almost before the first ring ended. "Yes, Mr. Farhan? Any updates on Project Alpha? I can be there in a minute."
"No," Farhan cut in, his voice controlled again. "Not business. I just wanted to know, Sekar."
He paused, letting Sekar on the other end hold her breath, tensing once more.
"The touch in the elevator earlier. How do you measure liability for an incident like that?" Farhan asked, his voice as soft as a whispering wind. It was a trap. He wanted to see if Sekar would lie and claim zero, or admit the psychological impact.
Sekar responded without hesitation. "Measured in time, Mr. Farhan? Ten minutes. The time required to recalibrate my body and mind to focus. Measured in professional risk? Zero. Measured in "
Sekar stopped. For the first time, Farhan heard a genuine emotional pause from Sekar, not a tactical one. She was trying to phrase something she believed he would approve of, without being too honest.
Farhan smiled in the darkness of his office. "Measured in what, Sekar?"
"Measured in threat to compliance, Sir," Sekar concluded, returning to her safe persona. "If you breach the rules you set yourself, I feel the map is lost. And a commander without a map is a risk."
Farhan slowly placed the phone on his desk, offering no further response, letting Sekar hold her breath. He had found a gap. He had found Sekar's limit. And he planned to test it further.
That night, Sekar slept clutching the edge of her pillow. Her heart raced not from financial fear, but from the vibration Farhan had left on her skin, which she now refused to acknowledge as… feeling. In his office, Farhan stared at Sekar's closed door. He knew sleep would elude him, disturbed by the calm he himself had fractured but at the same time, he enjoyed how that fracture made him feel alive again.
The next morning, as Farhan passed the corridor, he noticed a small sealed envelope neatly placed outside his office door.
On the envelope was a single line, written in elegant black ink:
"Addendum Clause 7b: Protocol for Unexpected Physical Contact. To avoid risk of losing control, please review immediately. Sekar."
Farhan picked up the envelope. Sekar's control over her emotions was absolute, formalizing the tension she had felt. Farhan smiled coldly. The game had just begun.