Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
MORGAN
I’ve dismissed hundreds of employees without remembering what direction they walked when they left. Yet I find myself listening for her footsteps long after they’re gone.
I reopen the file and force myself to slow down.
That shouldn’t be difficult. Control is what I’m supposed to be good at. It’s why this company exists. It’s why men twice my size and twice my experience don’t test me.
And yet my focus slips, unwelcome and intrusive, back to Constance Hale standing in front of my desk.
Her face comes first. Dark eyes that didn’t flinch even when they should have.
Full lips that looked too honest for this building.
Hair dark and thick, pulled back but not tamed, a few loose strands softening her temples and the line of her neck.
I remember noticing how exposed that made her, how easily I could’ve closed the distance and felt her pulse jump beneath my thumb.
And then there were her curves. Not delicate. Real. A body built to endure, to carry weight, to take up space even when she was trying not to. The kind of curves that don’t ask for attention but demand it anyway, drawing the eye whether a man wants to look or not.
Desire flares before I can stop it—hot, unwelcome.
She hadn’t tried to save herself. Not once.
She’d stood in my office knowing exactly who I was and chosen the stranger on that page over her own security.
I recognize that kind of instinct, and it’s rare. I want to see if that defiance survives when pressure is applied, and the realization unsettles me more than it should.
I exhale once, measured, and drag my attention back to the file.
My jaw tightens as I read the first page. Then the second.
I read every line—not as a CEO, but as a man who understands exactly what his name can be used to justify. Each paragraph tightens something in my chest. The language is too clean, too generous—permissions expanded where they shouldn’t be, safeguards loosened with careful intent.
This didn’t come from me.
Anger starts as irritation, then turns into something colder as I flip the page. Whoever did this counted on my reputation to carry it through. They counted on speed, secrecy, and the assumption that Morgan Creed doesn’t make mistakes.
They forgot that I notice patterns.
There’s a knock at my door. I don’t look up when I say, “Come in.”
Miles Hunt, my COO and second-in-command, steps inside, taller than most men but relaxed where I’m controlled, dark hair threaded with early gray at the temples, sleeves rolled.
He’s got a tablet tucked under his arm, expression already guarded.
He knows the tone in my voice. He knows I didn’t call him in here to exchange pleasantries or discuss quarterly projections.
I slide the file across the desk toward him. “Explain.”
He doesn’t pretend to not understand. He sits, pulls the document closer, reading faster than most people can. His jaw tightens with every page. When he looks up, his eyes are sharp and cautious.
“This authorization was altered,” he says. “Someone duplicated your signature block and expanded the permissions after initial approval.”
I lean back in my chair, fingers steepled, watching him. “Without triggering alerts.”
“Yes,” he admits. “They used your authority and the speed of Black Tier processing to push it through before secondary review.”
“So someone internal,” I say. “Someone with access and the confidence to assume I wouldn’t notice.”
Miles nods. “That would be my assessment.”
The anger settles now, no longer loud or hot. Betrayal always lands quieter than people expect. It seeps in and takes root, rearranging priorities in its wake.
“Who?” I ask.
Miles exhales. “I can try tracing the access logs to find out, but this wasn't a junior mistake. This was deliberate.”
I nod slowly. “Damage control.”
“We can freeze the operation,” he says. “Pull teams back before anything moves. Contain exposure.”
“Do it,” I say. “And find who touched this.”
Miles doesn’t move to stand right away. His gaze lingers on the open file.
“The mailroom clerk found it,” he says casually. “Hale, right?”
I look up. “You know her name?”
One shoulder lifts beneath his rolled sleeve. “Hard not to notice someone who stays invisible that long.”
The answer sounds reasonable enough, so I let it pass.
My mind flicks, unbidden, to Constance Hale. The quiet woman who stood in my office earlier with her hands clenched and her spine straight. The woman who didn’t fold when I pressed. The woman who looked me in the eye and told me I had a moral problem.
I should’ve been angrier than I was.
I dismiss Miles with a nod, already half gone from the conversation. When the door closes, the office feels different, tighter, like something has shifted under the surface.
I think about Constance again.
I see her as she stood in front of my desk, polka dots against crisp white, a blouse that should have been unremarkable and somehow wasn’t. She carried herself like someone used to being overlooked, which means she learned how to watch without being seen.
People like that are dangerous.
People like that notice things everyone else misses.
She’s a liability, yes. She read what she shouldn’t have read. She challenged me when most people would’ve apologized and shrunk back.
But she’s also proof.
Proof that my system failed. Proof that someone honest caught it. Proof that the problem is not external, but inside my walls.
Keeping her close is no longer optional.
It’s strategy.
The fact that my thoughts keep drifting to the way her pulse jumped in her throat when I stepped closer is an irritation. Attraction is inconvenient, worse, distracting, and I’ve never allowed distraction to dictate my decisions.
I don’t move. Not because I don’t want to—but because I do.
Still, the idea of her standing in my office, composed and defiant, does something unsettling to my focus.
There’s a sharp intelligence in her, a quiet strength that doesn’t ask permission.
I respect it. I want to break it down and see what’s underneath, but that’s not a thought I indulge any further right now.
There’ll be time to examine why I want to keep her where I can see her.
For now, I press the intercom. “Ms. Hale, come back in.”
As I wait, I look once more at the file on my desk, at the forged authority, the expanded permissions, the audacity of it. Someone thought they could use my name as a weapon.
Whoever did this will regret it.
And Constance Hale, whether she realizes it yet or not, has just stepped into the center of something far larger than a mailroom correction.