Chapter 9
HAZEL
I’m so happy it’s embarrassing.
My engagement ring is two-carats on a platinum band, and it catches the light every time I move my hand—which of course means I move my hand a lot now. I’m constantly adjusting my monitor, smoothing my skirt, reaching for my coffee. Even just talking with my hands more.
Yes, I’m that girl who can’t stop looking at her engagement ring. The only thing that stops me is my billionaire fiancé who made me come three times before breakfast today and told me I wasn’t allowed to wear panties to work…
…just in case he wanted “easy access.”
So now, sitting in my leather chair at work, the seat reminds me that I’m bare beneath my skirt.
Cassi nearly broke my eardrum when I told her. She shouted so loudly that her roommate called the police thinking she was being murdered. Then she made me send like twenty different photos of the ring from every angle imaginable.
“I told you you were waiting for someone to sweep you off your feet,” she told me.
Yeah, just not Brad Pitt. Better.
She was right; of course, she just didn’t know Dominic would use a contract to do it.
The contract. I think about it sometimes—the relief services clause and the non-termination language.
I know what I signed. I’ve known since he first showed it to me in his office.
I chose to stay, and not because of the fine print, but because the man behind the desk who couldn’t keep his eyes off me.
I chose this. All of it. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.
It’s Tuesday afternoon when the bottom falls out.
Dominic is in a meeting and Marcus is at lunch. The trading floor is humming with activity, and I’m reorganizing a shared hard drive because I’ve finally learned how to do something decently well. I’m consolidating duplicate folders when I open a directory called HR–Internal.
There’s a subfolder labeled Assistant Hiring–Confidential.
I click because it’s my job to organize his files. Inside, there are only three documents.
The first is a background report with my name and Social Security number on it. It also has my credit score, my bank balance ($214.12 on the day they pulled it), my rent ledger showing me three months behind on payments, my employment history and social media accounts.
At the bottom, in ink, are Marcus’s handwritten notes:
No competing job offers. No boyfriend. No family wealth. Recommend immediate hiring. High retention probable.
“High retention probable…” I say to myself. Basically just a polite way of saying I’m too broke to leave.
The second document is an actual job listing with my title as Executive Assistant. It’s an internal draft, nothing I saw online. And it’s time-stamped three hours after I submitted my blind resume in via e-mail.
So wait, the job I applied for never truly existed? That means that Dominic or Marcus—or maybe both of them—saw my photo, pulled my records, and built a listing around me to make it look legitimate.
An open door designed for me, specifically, to walk through.
My hands start to shake as I open the third document. It’s simply my photo—the one from my application. It’s circled.
My heart starts to race as I close the folder.
The screen is all blurry now because my eyes have started to water.
I’m not exactly crying, but there’s this intensity of emotion flooding through me that I can’t quite process.
It’s like looking down from the top of a tall building, realizing you’re about to jump without a parachute.
He told me last night while we were in bed, his forehead pressed to mine, his voice rougher than normal. He tried to tell me this, but I wasn’t listening.
I was too busy falling in love. Being proposed to.
What were the odds I’d submit a blind resume to a hedge fund and get hired?
Almost zero. But that doesn’t matter because the listing was made for me. The contract he had me sign—the one that bound me to his body and his office and his bed whenever he wanted—that was made for me too.
It was all made for me.
I didn’t luck out with this job. I was sought out.
My legs force me to my feet. My chair rolls back and slams against the glass of Dominic’s office. A few heads turn to look at me, but I don’t see them. I’m already walking to the elevator, my massive ring catching the lights with every step.
I find him coming out of a meeting. He sees my face and stops dead in his tracks.
The men filing out behind him glance at us but keep moving.
Dominic doesn’t even acknowledge them. His eyes are locked on mine, and I watch his expression shift from one of confidence and completion to anxiety.
And that’s something Dominic rarely shows.
He knows.
“Your office,” I say, my voice sharp. “Now.”
He follows me without a word. I feel him beside me—the heat from his body, the overwhelming size of him, the cologne that still fills my nose and makes my heart ache.
I have to grip my own wrist to keep myself from reaching for his hand. It’s a reflex my body has learned, and just having him this close is making it kick in.
We step into his office, and I wait for the glass to go dark.
Normally, I’d be excited for what comes next. If this was one of those times. But it’s not. This time, things are tense as I stand on one side of his desk and he stands on the other.
I take a deep breath and force the confrontation from my lips.
“There was no Executive Assistant position.”
He stands stoic and shakes his head. “No.”
“Marcus ran my finances, my credit, my rent. All before you even saw my face.”
“Before I saw your photo but after you sent your resume in.”
My head’s starting to spin. “And the job—the actual job? It was created for me?”
He pauses, swallows, then nods. “Yes.”
“Were there any other candidates?”
“No. I didn’t need an assistant, Hazel. But when I saw you, I knew I needed you…”
I’m starting to shake now. Not because I’m afraid but because of the effort of staying still while every instinct I have makes me want to run or hit him.
Both impulses are equally strong.
“You were trying to tell me this last night, weren’t you?” I ask, my voice thin and strained.
“Yes.” He nods, hands at his sides. His knuckles are white, balled up like a fighter’s. “I should have admitted everything to you. I wanted to, but…I told you I love you instead because…because I’m a coward.”
I shake my head immediately. “No, you’re not a coward, Dominic. You’re a liar.”
He doesn’t even try to defend himself. He just stands there, six-foot-three, slabs upon slabs of muscle, and takes it.
“I thought I found you,” I whimper. “I thought that for once in my life, something good happened to me. The universe looked at Hazel Briggs and said, ‘Okay, fine. Give her something good.’”
Dominic twists his lips as he looks at me, his eyes blazing like he wants to speak.
“But the universe didn’t do that. You did.” I’m lightheaded now. On the verge of needing to brace myself. “You and Marcus saw a broke girl with no options, and you trapped her.”
“Hazel—”
“You know what makes this worse?!” I snap, my voice cracking with weakness. I stab my nails into my palm and keep going. “It’s not the file I found, or Marcus’s creepy note about retention probability either. It’s that you let me believe it was fate. You let me believe I was special.”
Finally, Dominic’s composure cracks. “You are special, Hazel. When I saw your photo, I—"
“Built a trap for me?”
He sighs, leans against his desk with his head down. “I didn’t know how to just ask you.”
“Ask me? Ask me what?”
“To stay!” His voice is ragged, stripped of its normal confidence.
“I’ve never asked anyone to stay. Never wanted it.
But when I saw your photo, I knew. I knew that if I let you slip away, I’d spend the rest of my life knowing that the one person who could have saved me is out there somewhere because I let her go. ”
Something softens in my chest. My vision starts to clear.
“Hazel, I trapped you because I was afraid you’d never truly choose me on your own.”
The silence that follows is heavy, enormous, and fills the space between us like an invisible barrier.
I look at Dominic—this brilliant, broken, ruthless man that controls more money than most countries—and my mind spins. How could he not know how to ask a girl to stay?
I pull the massive ring off my finger, and his face goes white. His chest stops moving. I’ve never seen him look so vulnerable. Not even when we’re in bed together.
Slowly, I set the ring down on his desk, right next to the smiley-face cup.
He looks at me, his jaw loose like he wants to scream. Then I pick the ring back up and slide it onto my finger. I move slowly, deliberately, watching his eyes the entire time.
“You’re right, Dominic,” I say. “I wouldn’t have chosen you. Because I never thought a man like you would ever even know a girl like me existed.”
I move around to his side of the desk, closing the distance between us. For the first time since we met, I feel like now is the real moment where I get to make a truly informed choice. My own choice.
“Hazel—”
“But you saw me,” I say, tears spilling down my eyes. “Before I even walked through the door.”
He takes a big step forward and slips his hand over my cheek, threading his fingers through my hair. My body reacts to his touch, lighting up inside. Goosebumps pop up all over my arms.
“Stay with me, Hazel,” he says. “However we met, it doesn’t matter now. All that matters is we’re together. That we love each other. That is the universe telling us that this is fate.”
My words nearly choke in my throat, but I manage to get them out. “I am staying, Dominic. And I want you to know that I would have loved you without the contract, without the trap. But Dominic, if you ever lie to me again—”
“I won’t,” he snaps, wrapping his arms around me so tightly I can barely breathe. I inhale his scent and bathe in the warmth of his body. “No more lies, no more secrets, Hazel. Just me and you.”
I nod, spilling tears against his shirt. “Just me and you.”