Chapter 2 - Waking Up in the Lion’s DenWhen consciousness slowly dragged me back to the land of the living, the first thing I noticed was not the harsh fluorescent glare of the office ceiling, but the deep, luxurious scent of expensive leather and cedar.
My cheek was pressed against something remarkably firm and warm. A steady, rhythmic thudding vibrated beneath my head—a heartbeat.
Oh god, my groggy brain supplied. I’m dead. I died of sheer embarrassment, and now I’m haunting the executive suite.
"Are you planning on staying down there much longer, Miss Summers, or should I bill your health insurance for the tactical retreat?"
The dry, sardonic voice sent a jolt of pure electricity straight down my spine.
I scrambled backward so fast I nearly rolled off the leather sofa, my elbows tangling in the fabric as I sat up. My head spun, but I forced my eyes open.
I was lying on the custom black leather couch inside Ethan Hawkins’s private office—a sanctum sanctorum where no ordinary employee was ever permitted to set foot without an engraved invitation and a signed non-disclosure agreement.
Standing right beside the couch, holding a crystal tumbler of ice water, was Ethan himself. He had crouched down to my eye level, looking entirely too composed for a man whose employee had just desecrated his lobby artwork.
"You fainted," Ethan stated matter-of-factly, extending the glass toward me. "An admirable physiological response to mortal terror, but highly inefficient."
I ignored the water, pressing my palms against my burning cheeks as the full, crushing weight of reality came crashing down on my head. Every single word I had screamed at the portrait. Every confession. The rant about Sienna. The five-second kiss.
"I kissed it," I whispered into my hands, my voice muffled by absolute despair. "I actually kissed your portrait. In public. In your building. While you were... while you were here."
"Technically, the lobby is private property," Ethan corrected smoothly, setting the glass down on the mahogany coffee table. He straightened up, towering over the couch with his hands tucked into his pockets. "And regarding the kiss—as I noted before, your dedication to my likeness is... notable."
I dropped my hands, glaring up at him with a mixture of fury and mortification. "Please fire me."
Ethan raised a dark eyebrow. "Pardon?"
"Fire me right now," I demanded, scrambling off the couch and standing up, though my knees still felt like overcooked noodles. "Clear out my desk, revoke my security badge, throw me out the forty-second-floor window, I don't care! Just let me disappear from this building and never speak of this night again!"
Ethan didn't flinch. He didn't blink. He simply watched me with those terrifying, brilliant green eyes, a subtle, dangerous curiosity playing at the edges of his mouth.
"Fire you?" he repeated, his voice dropping an octave. "After you spent twelve months revolutionizing my supply chain, keeping my calendar free of assassins and incompetent politicians, and waiting until eight o'clock at night to finally tell me how you really feel?"
My breath hitched in my throat. "I didn't... I didn't mean to say all that. I was tired. I was exhausted! You called my logistics proposal adequate!"
"Because it was," Ethan replied instantly, his tone razor-sharp.
I stared at him, my jaw dropping. "It was a masterpiece! I spent three nights—"
"It was structurally sound, brilliant, and completely unfeasible for our current operating model in the Mediterranean," Ethan interrupted, stepping closer. The air between us suddenly felt charged, heavy with a tension that had nothing to do with corporate spreadsheets. "If I had approved it on the spot, you would have spent the next six months managing a syndicate proxy war in Marseille that you aren't equipped to handle."
"I could handle it!"
"I know you could," Ethan said softly.
The casual, absolute certainty in his voice stopped my tirade dead in its tracks. I stared up at him, my chest rising and falling rapidly.
"That is why," Ethan continued, closing the remaining distance between us until I had to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact, "I cannot possibly fire you, Alexa."
"Why?" I breathed, my voice barely audible over the hum of the office ventilation.
May you like
Ethan reached out. His fingers, warm and calloused, brushed a stray lock of hair away from my forehead, his thumb lightly grazing the skin of my cheekbone. A shiver raced down my spine, so intense it made my toes curl inside my shoes.
"Because," Ethan murmured, his gaze dropping briefly to my lips before rising back to meet my eyes, "for a year, I have watched the smartest, most competent woman in New York run my life with terrifying efficiency... while I spent every single day trying to figure out how to make her look at me the way she was just looking at my portrait."
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