"Why don't you have any art on the walls?"
"Has anyone ever told you this place feels like a very expensive prison?"
"Do you always dress like you're attending a funeral, or is this just for me?"
It's deliberate. Has to be. No one is naturally this disruptive without intent.
But the chaos isn't the real problem.
The problem is me. The way I react when she's near. The way my control fractures at the edges, letting in sensations I've spent years learning to suppress, to redirect, to weaponize into something useful instead of something that makes me weak.
I set down my pen. Straighten it so it's parallel to the edge of my desk, exactly one inch from the contract. The small ritual usually centers me.
Today it does nothing.
My mind drifts back to the wedding. To the moment the officiant said those words.
"You may kiss your bride."
I'd planned a chaste kiss. Cheek, maybe forehead. Enough to satisfy the audience, sell the performance. Respectful. Sterile. A transaction calibrated to convince without engaging.
That's not what happened.
The kiss started controlled. My lips brushing hers, testing boundaries, maintaining discipline. Then she made this small sound, surprise caught in her throat, and my restraint shattered like glass under pressure.
I deepened the kiss. Claimed her mouth. Tasted her until the applause roaring around us faded into irrelevance and the only thing that existed was the softness of her lips, the way she yielded before pressing back, turning submission into challenge.
How she tasted like promises I don't deserve and danger I should avoid.
I haven't stopped thinking about it.
The memory surfaces at inopportune moments. During meetings. While reviewing contracts. In the shower with my hand on my cock and her name on my lips as I came harder than I have in years, imagining what she'd look like beneath me, what sounds she'd make, how she'd feel.
Once. Maybe ten times. Possibly more.
This is unacceptable.
I drag both hands over my face, feel the rough texture of scarred knuckles against my jaw. The sensation grounds me, reminds me who I am and what I've survived.
I'm always in control. Control is what separates the living from the dead, the powerful from the victims. Emotions are liabilities. They cloud judgment, weaken resolve, make you vulnerable to exploitation.
I learned that at fifteen.
The night my parents were murdered in front of me while I lay paralyzed with shattered hands, unable to help, unable to fight, unable to do anything but watch them bleed out on marble floors.
My hands curl into fists on the desk. The scars across my knuckles pull tight, white lines against skin. Reminders written in scar tissue of bones broken deliberately, methodically.
But they failed to kill me. And in failing, they created someone far more dangerous than the boy who dreamed of concert halls and Rachmaninoff.
A knock interrupts my thoughts.
Before I can respond, the door swings open.
Victoria walks in like she owns the room, all motion and energy, brightness invading my carefully constructed dark. She's wearing black leggings and an oversized cream sweater that slips off one shoulder, revealing a collarbone I shouldn't notice and definitely shouldn't want to trace with my tongue.
My body registers her presence immediately. Pulse accelerating. Awareness sharpening.
But underneath the performance—the bright smile, the confident stride—I see the truth. The slight tension in her shoulders. The way her energy feels forced, manufactured. Like she's performing vitality she doesn't actually feel.
