He towers over me, at least a foot taller, broad shoulders wrapped in a tailored suit that fits like it was sewn onto him. Dark hair that’s quickly growing silver in an almost perfect way, just messy enough to look accidental, a sharp jaw dusted with stubble. Eyes as cold and clear as winter sky, a mouth made for giving orders or starting wars. There’s something mythic about him—like he stepped out of marble, or thunder, or some old story where men are kings and gods.
My heart hammers against my ribs. It takes all my willpower not to stare. He has to be late thirties, maybe early forties, but there’s nothing soft or fading about him. He wears power like a second skin.
“Oh—sorry!” I blurt, my voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t see?—”
He glances at me, icy blue gaze sweeping down with the barest flicker of annoyance. For a moment I think he’s going to say something, maybe even smile. But his mouth is set, unreadable. He doesn’t say a word. He just steps around me, grabs his own mug, and pours coffee with the easy grace of a man who expects the world to get out of his way.
Heat floods my face. I want to shrink into the floor. I murmur another apology, but he’s already gone, striding from the room without a backward glance.
I stand there, breathless, heart pounding, coffee trembling in my hand. My skin prickles with the aftershock of pure, physical attraction. The kind that makes your mouth go dry and your thoughts scatter. I’ve never felt so invisible or so…charged.
Everyone was right though. The boss is impossible to ignore—even when he’s doing his best to pretend you don’t exist.
5
ALEKSEI
I closethe door to my office and lean against it, eyes squeezed shut. My pulse is still racing from that accidental collision in the pantry. I didn’t even say a word to her—barely managed a glance—but the scent of her, fresh and a little sweet, is stuck in my head, as vivid as that voice that’s been haunting me for days.
I wasn’t ready for her. I thought I was, after hearing that recording a dozen times, tracing every curve of her voice like a man tracing a lover’s spine. I’d pictured someone sultry, a platinum blonde with practiced smiles and curves poured into a red dress—someone who would walk into a room and claim it. I’d built that expectation like armor, something I could control.
But she’s nothing like that.
A femme fatale out of a bad noir film, long legs and a mouth that spells trouble. A woman who could look you dead in the eye and not flinch.
But she’s nothing like that.
She’s…smaller, for one. Barely comes up to my shoulder, even in her sensible shoes. Dark hair tucked into a messy knot, a fewstubborn curls escaping to frame a face that’s more open than sultry, eyes impossibly big and brown. Not movie-star beautiful, not in the traditional way, but arresting. There’s a kind of vulnerability there that makes me want to look twice—and a stubborn tilt to her chin that suggests she’s braced for a world that’s already been rough with her.
Her clothes are simple, careful in her dark jeans, a blouse that’s seen better days, sleeves rolled just so. Her hands shake a little when she nearly spills coffee on me, but there’s determination in the way she straightens up, tries to meet my gaze.
I meant to ignore her. I told myself I would. But now, with the image of her in my mind—real, flesh and bone, nothing like the seductress from my fantasies—I find myself distracted, unsettled. I can still hear her voice in my head, low and sure, saying words she’d never speak out loud in an office like this.
I settle behind my desk, coffee untouched, the city spread beneath my windows. I try to focus on work, on contracts and deadlines and the relentless churn of business. But it’s no use.
Her face keeps rising up before me. Her scent—a faint trace of something floral and cheap, clean, not like the cloying perfume I’d expected. Her voice, when she apologized… It was soft, almost timid, nothing like the wicked confidence of her recording.
She shouldn’t interest me. Not this way. She’s not what I pictured. Not my type, not even close.
And yet, I can’t stop thinking about her.
Maybe it’s the contrast—the innocence in her eyes and the memory of her words still echoing in my head. Maybe it’s the way she looked at me, flustered and trying so hard to hide it.Or maybe it’s just that, for the first time in a long time, I can’t predict what happens next.
I take a long sip of coffee, cold now, and lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
This is going to be a problem.
I try to work.
I really do.
Emails blur together, numbers lose meaning, and words slide off my mind like rain on glass. Every few minutes, my attention drifts—unbidden, unwelcome—back to the hallway outside my office. To the faint echo of footsteps. To the possibility ofher.
This is ridiculous. I’ve handled hostile takeovers, negotiations that ended with men bleeding in alleys, situations where one wrong word could cost lives. And yet my body refuses to listen to reason.
I’ve never been this unmoored by a woman, and it makes me restless, irritated, almost…hungry.
There’s a knock at the door before it opens.
