Chapter 6
Over the next few days, Margo would leave bread crumbs for both Rune and Tom – small mistakes to correct, minor fires to put out while she worked hard to strut her stuff on her way into Dorian's office and back.
Wrong time zones, inconsistent headers, confusing clients with vendors, but she corrected them all with charm and flourish.
And when all else failed, she simply delegated the blame.
It was the fifth morning. Rune had arrived at the usual time. Margo had taken over Dorian's breakfast run –"Because Dorian likes to see my pretty face first thing.”
Tom, meanwhile, was picking up the slack, moving into Rune's role. Rune was beginning to feel a little redundant. Every day made it clearer that she no longer belonged here and was easily replaceable.
She was at her desk, replying to emails, when she heard the soft click of Dorian's office door open behind her.
Out stepped Margo, her expression carefully composed.
Her blouse, a sheer ivory chiffon, was slightly misaligned.
She paused just outside the doorway, lifted both hands, and deliberately began fastening the top two pearl buttons with precise, unhurried movements.
Her lipstick, slightly smudged, was quickly checked in the chrome base of the nearby kettle.
She tilted her head to side-eye Rune. Then she adjusted her collar and smoothed her skirt as she straightened.
She met Rune's eyes with a sly, deliberate smirk- small, smug, and knowing. Then she walked back to her desk and got busy on her laptop. Probably playing solitaire.
Rune didn't follow her with her eyes. But inside, something knotted tight. It was a familiar sensation now.
She knew what was happening. She had known since the first day.
It was the same pattern. The same routine.
She was just watching the next version of herself slide into place.
And no matter how many times she castigated herself for being a fool, it hurt.
Not because it was Margo, but because it was so easy for Dorian to let it happen.
Hadn't she known from the beginning that she was as dispensable as a paper cup to Dorian?
Dorian didn’t believe in doling out one huge helping of pain. No, he liked to make it last, like papercuts.
There had been no more knocks at her door. No late-night visits. No hangovers on her welcome mat.
That night had been a glitch in his matrix. He had rebooted and recalibrated like the fucking automated cunt he was. He was also revamping her vocabulary.
Rune had started packing in earnest now. One or two boxes every night in that quiet, methodical way that she had learned from Dorian. Her small flat was slowly emptying itself of the life she breathed into it.
Yesterday, she'd opened the drawer beside her bed and found the small silver compass.
It had been a joke from a time when it felt like Dorian and she could become.
.. more. She'd gotten lost on a business trip to Edinburgh, and Dorian had bought it the next morning, tossing it on her desk without a word.
The inscription said – "For your future lapses in judgment."
It had made her laugh. She'd kept it in her bedside drawer ever since.
Later, in an old folder, tucked behind tax receipts, she found the polaroid – an accidental photo from a company retreat.
Hugh, a former employee, had snapped her mid-laugh, Dorian in the background, looking at her with something dangerously close to softness.
Obviously, Dorian had not liked it at all.
She stared at the image, allowing herself to trace the familiar lines with her eyes in a way she never did in reality.
Sometimes, looking into Dorian's eyes felt like looking at the sun too long.
Hooded dark eyes, impossible to read yet devastating when they locked onto you.
Curly blonde hair, tousled in a way that was almost boyish until you saw the rest of him.
The contrast of thick, dark brows, a few shades deeper than his hair, lent his face a severity the curls could never soften.
A precise bristle traced the high planes of his cheeks, swept over the curve above his upper lip, and framed the strong line of his chin, turning his beauty into something temptingly male.
It framed a mouth that could be cruel or.
.. once, long ago... kind on the rare occasion when his guard was down.
He stood at six-foot-three to her five-foot-nine, built like someone who was religious about the gym and never skipped leg day.
Not an ounce of spare flesh on him, just lean, controlled power.
Without his clothes, he was a god. And when he had her under him as he liked, he had been dominant and unyielding.
Until a few weeks ago, his focus on her had been absolute when they were alone, like she was the brightest star in his sky.
Like she was his little secret from the world.
His, and only his, though he never said so.
Then Crispin had unravelled over the last few months, and somehow Dorian had changed too, becoming a cruel stranger, pulling away without explanation. She didn't know why, though she had a suspicion. Dorian was a commitment-phobe, for reasons known only to him.
Their memories together weren't grand. They were tightly controlled, just like him. But sometimes a stray one escaped his tight net like the compass in her palm. And now, all of it was fading – bit by bit, day by day.
***
The next few weeks were hell. There was that slow, grinding erosion of self that came from watching a fantasy fade away. And it was her own fault. Nobody had promised her a happy ending or even a decent goodbye.
Rune wasn't technically part of the team anymore.
But Dorian, in one of his curious power plays, insisted she stay on through the transition.
She had put in a request to use all the leave that she never got to use, and Dorian promptly produced a copy of her contract from his top drawer, like he was waiting for her to ask the question.
He did not say a word but pointed to the pre-highlighted section in her contract, which clearly stated ‘No leave during notice period.’ So her attempt at escape was quietly derailed.
"To ensure continuity," he'd announced to the three of them when he almost gave her a heart attack when he joined them at the coffee corner.
And so she came in, every day, knowing exactly what she stepping back into .A kind of payback from her boss and former lover for reasons unknown. A huge stinking pile of shit, courtesy of the biggest predator in this particular food chain.
Surprisingly, Rune rarely heard him speak to the two replacements: Tom Burton, the quietly competent grad, and Margo, a polished blonde with endless legs, a master's degree in PR, and a mouth that rarely closed unless she was pouting or flattering someone important. Especially Dorian.