Chapter 5 Nico
Nico
Iwatch her leave my office and close the door behind her with more force than necessary.
The glass walls mean I can still see her at her desk. She’s not crying. Good. That would make this worse. Instead she’s sitting perfectly still, staring at her computer screen like it holds the secrets to surviving this disaster.
Fuck.
Disaster is an understatement.
This is a nightmare.
An actual waking nightmare where my past bad decision walks into my present and takes a seat twelve feet away with glass walls between us so I can never stop seeing her.
I should fire her right now and be done with it.
Except I... can’t.
Literally can’t.
Not because I’d need a reason to fire her. It’s my company, I can do what the fuck I want. For the most part.
But because...
I don’t actually want her to leave.
Which is the most fucked up part of this entire situation.
I rub the scar along my jaw and force myself to look at my computer screen instead of at her.
FUCK.
She’s probably going to quit anyway. Most people would. Show up for your first day and discover you slept with your new boss? Yeah. That’s a resignation letter waiting to happen.
I tell myself that would be easier.
Yes. I’ll just wait until she quits on her own.
But maybe she needs the money.
Shit fuck shit.
My phone buzzes. Paloma, VP communications, needs to meet about donor engagement strategy.
I stare at the text. She should be contacting Bree directly for scheduling, but then again, Bree’s been here all of five minutes? HR probably hasn’t sent the announcement email yet with her contact information, or if they did, it’s buried under a hundred other messages.
I text back: Schedule with my secretary, Bree Dawson.
Then I forward Bree’s email and extension.
There. Done.
For a moment, I wonder if I could just handle my own scheduling.
That would mean I don’t need a secretary.
But if I don’t need a secretary then I’d have to admit I hired someone I didn’t need.
Or worse, admit that I’m keeping her around despite the catastrophically bad judgment that would represent.
No.
She stays.
She does her job.
Because I do need a secretary. My time is important to me.
We’ll just have to pretend Friday night never happened.
Simple.
Right?
Except nothing about this is simple. I can still smell the perfume from when she entered my office.
That alluring mix of vanilla and jasmine that was all over my body Saturday morning when I finally made it back to my penthouse and stood in the shower trying to scrub it away, along with the memory of her.
Didn’t work.
I force myself to focus on the quarterly projections spreadsheet Dashiell, my CFO, sent over.
I’m halfway through the second tab when movement catches my eye.
Bree’s standing. Smoothing her skirt. Walking toward my office.
Oh fuck.
Here it comes.
The resignation.
Well, I suppose it’s what I wanted.
She knocks.
“Come in,” I say.
She opens the door and steps inside. Closes it behind her.
Then she stands there with her hands clasped in front of her.
“Paloma needs to meet with you about donor engagement strategy,” she says, reading from her notebook. “She suggested tomorrow at one, but that’s during your lunch block. Would you prefer a different time?”
“One is fine,” I tell her. “Next time just pick the time, so you don’t have to interrupt me.”
Her composed expression shifts just for a second. Something that looks like hurt flashes across her face and her lips part like she’s about to say something, then press together.
She smooths it all away in an instant.
“Understood, Mr. Rossi,” she says. “I’ll use my judgment going forward.”
“Anything else?” I press impatiently.
She bites her lip for a moment, like she doesn’t want to say this next part, but barrels on anyway. “I’m learning preferences for the executive team. How do you take your coffee?”
Coffee.
We drank coffee together. Saturday morning. On her fire escape with the sun coming up over Queens. She’d handed me a mug and we sat there in silence mostly, both knowing what came next.
I don’t remember how she made it. I just remember thinking I’d never tasted anything better.
“One sugar,” I tell her now. “No cream.”
She writes it down in that notebook of hers. “Thank you.”
I nod curtly.
She smiles, and leaves.
I watch her return to her desk and add the note to whatever system she’s building.
How did you end up as my secretary?
Why are you staying?
Why am I sitting here trying to forget what you look like when you cum?
My phone buzzes again. Elspeth, my COO, needs my sign-off on the Q4 expansion contracts. I pull up the documents and try to focus.
The words blur.
I’m watching Bree instead. The way she answers the phone. The way her fingers move across her keyboard. The way...
This is bad.
Really fucking bad.
I tear my eyes away and make myself read the contracts.
Three hours later I’ve accomplished exactly nothing except confirming that having Bree twelve feet away is going to destroy my productivity.
She brings me coffee. Sets it down on my desk without a word. One sugar, no cream, exactly as ordered.
I don’t thank her.
She doesn’t expect me to.
The coffee tastes wrong anyway.
Tuesday is worse.
I’m even colder. More clipped. I pass her desk without making eye contact. I route all communication through email even when talking directly to her would be faster.
She matches my professionalism with something that looks like composure but I can see the hurt underneath.
Good.
Maybe she’ll quit.
Except she doesn’t.
Wednesday there’s an executive team meeting. Board prep. Paloma presenting the donor engagement strategy she’s been working on.
“We need to be in the room,” Cressida, Elspeth’s assistant, announces that morning at my desk while dropping off some papers that need my signature.
I glance up. “What?”
“The meeting. Eleven AM. Conference room. Paloma asked if you want Bree to take notes.”
I should say no. Keep her at her desk.
“Fine,” I hear myself say instead.
At eleven I walk into the conference room. Elspeth is already there along with my CFO and general counsel. The CTO is on video call from the Long Island City facility. Paloma’s got her laptop open and a presentation queued up.
Bree enters last. Takes a seat in the corner. Opens her laptop.
I force myself not to look at her.
Paloma starts presenting.
“We’re being positioned as transactional,” Paloma says. “Donors see us as a tax write-off, not a mission-driven organization.”
Elspeth frowns. “So what’s the solution?”
“More personal engagement. We need Nico doing more public events.”
My jaw tightens. “No.”
“Nico.” Elspeth’s voice has that patient-but-firm tone my COO uses when she thinks I’m being unreasonable. “You’re the face of this company. Donors want to meet you.”
“They want to meet the guy with the scarred face who survived a home invasion.” My voice comes out harder than I intended. “That’s not engagement. That’s voyeurism.”
Silence.
Larissa, my general counsel, clears her throat. “What if we reframe it? Make it not about your story, but about the mission.”
“It’s always about my story,” I snap. “That’s the whole problem.”
More silence.
I glance up and catch Bree watching me. Her fingers have stopped moving over the laptop. She’s studying me with those amber brown eyes like she’s seeing something the others miss.
I look away fast.
“Let’s table this,” Elspeth says diplomatically. “Paloma, send around revised options.”
The meeting ends. Everyone files out.
Bree stays behind, still typing.
Finally she looks up. Sees me waiting.
“Did you need something, Mr. Rossi?” she asks.
Yeah.
I need you to quit so I can stop torturing myself twelve hours a day.
“No,” I say.
She nods and gathers her things.
Goddamn it.
Friday evening everyone else has left. It’s just me and Bree and the distant sound of cleaning crew moving through the lower floors.
I should send her home. She’s been here twelve hours. But I don’t.
Instead I’m reviewing patient files from the Long Island City facility. The ones Yael sends over when my CTO wants me to remember why we do this work.
Case studies. Treatment outcomes. Photos that should probably require therapy to look at but I’ve built up enough scar tissue of my own.
Then I get to the letter.
It’s from a seven year old girl named Mia.
Dear Dr. Rossi,
Thank you for my new face. The other kids don’t stare anymore. My teacher says I’m brave but I think you’re braver because you help people even though you got hurt too. I saw your picture. Your scar is cool. Mine is too now.
Love, Mia.
I read it again.
Then a third time.
This.
This is why I built the company. Not for the board or the investors or the billion dollar valuation.
I set the letter down carefully.
When I look up, Bree is watching me through the glass walls.
Our eyes meet.
For half a second, maybe less, the masks slip.
I see her seeing me. Not Mr. Rossi. The man who reads thank you letters from children and lets his face go soft with something that might be hope or grief or both.
The vulnerability is intolerable.
I slam the walls back up so hard I can feel them snap into place. My expression goes cold. The same face I use in hostile board meetings and contract negotiations.
She actually flinches.
Then looks away.
Good.
Better she learns now that whatever she thinks she saw, it’s not real.
I don’t do vulnerability. I don’t do softness. I built my entire life around making sure no one ever sees behind the prosthetic personality I wear.
She goes back to her computer. I go back to my files.
The letter sits on my desk between us.
I should put it away.
Instead I read it one more time.
Your scar is cool. Mine is too now.
Yeah. Except mine isn’t cool.
It’s a reminder that the people who were supposed to protect me couldn’t.
That the only person I can rely on is myself.
Best to keep the walls up.