Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Nick
If hell exists, it looks a lot like this: forty-two floors above Manhattan, encased in polished steel, the air filtered to surgical sterility, the agenda dominated by men who think market share is the apex of human achievement. But none of that is what brands today as hell.
No. This particular circle is reserved for me alone. It is defined by one presence. Sara Brooks.
She enters my boardroom with unstudied confidence, wearing a pencil skirt that borders on indecent not by design but by the simple, biological fact of her body within it. She takes her seat, crosses her legs with effortless composure, and when she speaks, the room stills.
Her ideas are clean, strategically sound, and delivered without performative flourish. Each point lands with the quiet precision of a blade, cutting through half-baked assumptions and derivative strategies with a clarity that leaves the entire table silent in her wake.
And then she looks at me.
Just a fleeting glance, accompanied by the faintest curve of her mouth, not a smile, not quite, and the entire machinery of my mind seizes. Words fracture in my throat. For a split second, I’m not Nick Ashford, CEO of Ashford Holdings. I’m just a man, wrecked by the mere fact of her existence.
She doesn’t even realize it. That’s the cruelty. She isn’t playing a part. She isn’t teasing. She’s simply herself. Competent, unapologetic, alive in a way that has undone every bolt holding me together.
By the time I return to my office, I’m running on adrenaline and restraint. I close the door behind me and remain there for a moment, leaning against it, trying to breathe through the electric chaos under my skin.
“You look two seconds from putting your fist through your own desk.”
The voice comes from my left. Calm. Amused. Infuriatingly observant.
Jonah. Chief operating officer. Oldest friend.
Occasional moral compass I ignore at my peril.
He’s seated in the visitor chair, ankle resting casually on my coffee table, peeling the wrapper from a protein bar with the indifference of a man who has trespassed here so often the notion of knocking is obsolete.
“You ever consider waiting for an invitation?” I ask.
He shrugs one shoulder, takes a bite. “You ever consider not pacing the executive floor like a predator trying to chew off its own leg?”
I glare at him. He only raises his brows in quiet triumph, unbothered.
“You’re going to have to address it eventually,” he continues, chewing slowly. “Or at least stop looking at her with the haunted desperation of a man being denied oxygen.”
“I’m not—”
“You are,” he interjects, with a finality that brooks no argument. “You’ve been orbiting her for weeks with that expression. It’s uncomfortable for everyone involved. If this were Regency England, I’d be taking bets on which corridor your restraint finally fails in.”
“She works for us,” I say, keeping my tone flat, unwilling to let him hear what simmers beneath it. “This is neither appropriate nor professional.”
Jonah leans forward, eyes pointed. “You can frame it however you want, but you’re not fooling anyone. Least of all yourself. This isn’t about propriety. It’s about control. And you’re losing it.”
I drag a hand across my jaw, stubble catching against my palm. Exhaustion presses against my temples, born not of late nights but of relentless internal argument. He’s right. And I hate that he’s right.
“I am trying to be responsible,” I say, each word ground out with careful precision. “She’s intelligent. Capable. She deserves a workplace that doesn’t… compromise her.”
“She deserves a boss who doesn’t stare at her like she’s a glass of water and you’ve been crawling through the Sahara for a week,” he replies, voice quiet now, stripping back the humor to expose its foundation.
“She’s not a casual distraction. If she were, you wouldn’t look the way you do right now. ”
I don’t answer. Because silence is safer than confession. Safer than admitting that the mere mention of her name has heat pooling low in my spine and a hollowness blooming in my chest.
Then comes the knock at the door.
I don’t need to look to know who it is. The certainty lands in my gut with the impact of a body blow. And when she enters, carrying a folder clutched in hands that remain steady despite the faint flicker of nerves in her eyes, my pulse fractures under the weight of her presence.
Sara. All sharp edges and quiet vulnerability, masking herself under professionalism that does nothing to hide what I already know. The room constricts around her. Around us.
And I remain silent, holding on to the last fragile threads of discipline I still possess.
She has been working late almost every night.
I notice it without intending to, the subtle indicators of exhaustion layered beneath her focus: the slight drag in her gait when she thinks no one is watching, the faint shadows under her eyes that speak to long hours spent revising campaign decks long after the rest of her team has left the building.
She isn’t merely competent. She’s hungry. Determined to prove her worth in an environment that devours the weak and resents the strong in equal measure.
And I am the obstruction in her path. The immovable force standing between her and her ambitions.
Worse than that, I am distracted by her.
Not her strategy or her numbers or the angles she identifies that elude others, but by the tilt of her mouth when she challenges me, the hollow at the base of her throat, the quiet ferocity with which she exists in every space she enters.
My attention should be on her budget projections. Instead, it’s caught on her presence, anchored there by something I refuse to name.
Jonah rises from his chair, stretching with deliberate indolence. “Ms. Brooks.”
“Mr. Miles,” she replies evenly, though amusement flickers in her eyes as she acknowledges him.
“Enjoy your campaign review,” he says, injecting far too much implication into the word review. As he passes me, he claps a hand to my shoulder with calculated force. “Try not to burn the place down, Romeo.”
Then he’s gone, leaving silence in his wake.
We’re alone.
She approaches with the folder in her hands, fingers braced against its edges with quiet purpose. When she hands it to me, our fingertips brush. The contact is brief, barely more than static, but my chest tightens with instinctive urgency.
Inside the folder is the fall launch breakdown.
A single misstep in this rollout will compromise Q3 projections, undermining every assurance I gave the board last month.
They’re watching this campaign as a bellwether for long-term viability in an increasingly volatile market.
Her work is precise, sound, and positioned with a clarity I have rarely seen at her level.
“You’re good at this,” I tell her.
She glances at me. “You wanted to review the launch budget.”
I nod once, opening the folder, deliberately focusing on the printed spreadsheets.
I shouldn’t look at her. I know this. But my gaze shifts regardless, drawn to the exposed edge of her collarbone where her blouse has slipped half an inch lower than professional decorum recommends. My restraint falters. Fails.
She smells faintly of burnt coffee and whatever shampoo carries that clean, subtle scent that reminds me of unguarded early mornings and decisions made in darkness.
“You’re good at this,” I repeat, because it’s the only safe truth I can offer.
A short, awkward laugh escapes her. “Careful. I might start expecting compliments, sir.”
That word. Sir. Spoken without irony, devoid of flirtation, yet carrying an undercurrent I feel vibrate down to my bones.
My grip on the folder tightens. Neither of us moves. For a moment that is elongated beyond measure, we remain suspended in a silence filled with possibility and consequence. Her lips part slightly. Her posture shifts imperceptibly backwards, but not far enough to sever what has sparked between us.
I remain absolutely still. Because if I speak, if I shift toward her even a fraction, it will be done. There will be no returning to professionalism. No amount of discipline will salvage what follows.
Eventually, the moment recedes, though not entirely. We continue the meeting, my focus fractured, hers resolute. I force myself to remain contained, to behave as if I’m not standing on the edge of something that threatens to consume us both.
It’s late by the time we finish. The office lies in semi-darkness, shadows pooling against partitions, the quiet hum of the HVAC system amplifying the unnatural stillness. The absence of other voices makes the space feel closer, more intimate—dangerously so.
She closes her laptop with a soft, weary sigh. “I think that’s everything.”
I nod, the motion clipped. “You produced strong work.”
“Careful,” she says again, her voice gentler this time, devoid of the earlier levity. “That’s two compliments in one day. People might start thinking you like me.”
I don’t smile. I can’t. Because if I do, the words waiting just behind my teeth will emerge. Truths that cannot be spoken here, or anywhere, without destroying everything I have spent a lifetime building.
I remain silent instead, watching her gather her things with quiet efficiency, knowing that this isn’t over. That silence is the only refuge left to a man standing on the edge of something he can’t afford to want.
We leave the conference room together, falling into step without discussion, our strides aligning in silent accord as we move down the long corridor lined with offices and dormant workstations.
Neither of us speaks as we enter the lobby. The hush between us isn’t uncomfortable, but charged in a way that tightens something low in my chest. We continue walking until, almost in unison, we slow to a stop in front of the elevators.
She glances at me then, her expression composed but edged with something I cannot name. “Going down?” she asks, one brow arching with subtle amusement
I exhale, a short, humorless sound. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“Don’t sound too enthusiastic,” she murmurs, the corners of her lips twitching in faint mockery.
“It’s not…” I start, but the words falter. I drag a hand across my jaw. “It’s not about you.”
She tilts her head, eyes glinting with that quick intelligence I’ve come to expect from her. “I know. You’d probably prefer being trapped in here with an over-caffeinated intern and a stale tuna sandwich.”
“Actually, that has happened,” I mutter, the memory surfacing with reluctant clarity. “It was… worse than this.”
She laughs then, quiet and genuine, the sound catching me off guard. It slices through my composure with surgical precision, leaving behind an ache I don’t want to examine too closely.
I reach forward and press the call button.
The doors slide open in a smooth metallic whisper, revealing the empty elevator waiting beyond.
We step inside together, and the instant the doors close, the atmosphere shifts.
The air thickens around us, silent but weighted, vibrating with something neither of us acknowledges but both of us feel.
She stands beside me, her body angled forward, her arm brushing mine in a fleeting contact that is almost nothing. Almost. But it sparks through me with ruthless efficiency, igniting every nerve ending I have tried to numb with discipline.
She exhales, a quiet, unsteady breath that betrays what her posture tries to conceal.
Her gaze remains fixed on the illuminated floor numbers ahead, but I see the tension in her jaw, the rapid pulse at her throat, the way her fingers tighten around the strap of her bag in a futile attempt at self command.
My hands remain at my sides. I don’t move. I don’t allow myself the indulgence of turning toward her.
But internally, I am chaos.
When I speak her name, it comes out low and deliberate, a private invocation spoken into the charged silence.
“Sara.”
She turns to me immediately, eyes wide and unguarded. Expectant. Cautious. And beneath both, wanting.
The force of it hits me with brutal certainty, the memory of her against me, the taste of her, the fractured sounds she made as she came apart in my arms. I feel her sway toward me, not enough to close the distance, but enough to destroy my equilibrium.
I almost do it.
Almost reach for her, almost drag her against me with a ferocity I know would leave neither of us untouched by consequence. Almost reclaim what I have spent every day since trying to forget.
But I grip the safety bar behind me instead, my knuckles whitening around the cold steel.
“You should get out on the next floor,” I say, my voice stripped raw.
She wets her lips, and the small, unconscious movement fractures my restraint further.
“Why?” she whispers.
I inhale, my chest tight. “Because if you don’t…”
The words die in my throat. I’m breathing hard now, struggling to keep my expression neutral when every instinct I have is screaming to touch her.
“If you don’t,” I finish quietly, “I’m going to make a mistake.”
The elevator hums around us, mechanical and indifferent. The numbers blink past in silent succession. She doesn’t respond. She doesn’t step back. She simply watches me, eyes dark and steady, and the knowledge is there in her gaze: She wants the mistake.
And I want it, too.
Want it with a desperation that trembles through every muscle in my body, coiling deep and dangerous in my gut.
But I remain still. I don’t reach for her. I don’t stop the elevator. I don’t taste her mouth the way I’m dying to.
The doors open.
I step out into the empty hallway, leaving her behind. My shoulders are tight, my pulse a riot beneath my skin.
She remains standing where I left her, silent, unmoving, but her eyes follow me as the doors close.
I keep walking, each step pulled from somewhere deep within me that still remembers how to choose discipline over desire.
But it costs me.
Because as I move down the corridor, each stride heavy with restraint, there is no doubt in my mind that next time, I will not stop.