Chapter 6
Willow
I jerked hard, a chill ripping through me as the heat drained out of my body. I reached up to shove him.
My palm hit his chest. Solid muscle. He didn't budge.
I did—off balance from pushing too hard, swaying like an idiot.
Artyom muttered a curse, but he didn't let go right away. He dipped his head and stole another quick kiss off my swollen, shiny mouth. Only then did he straighten, slow as sin, and tug my torn-open collar back into place like he owned me.
"What are you scared of?" The amusement in his eyes didn't even try to hide. "That is a free upgrade. You should praise my work ethic."
I shot him a glare.
It did absolutely nothing.
He kept smiling—lazy, knowing, the kind that said I know you can't do a damn thing about me. It almost felt like he enjoyed how flustered and embarrassed I looked.
I didn't answer. I turned to the sink, scooped cold water, and slapped it over my face.
The droplets slid into my collar. The chill finally cut through the fog in my head.
The woman in the mirror had cheeks flushed way too red, lips puffy and glossy. The marks on my neck were mostly hidden by my shirt, but a sliver still showed—enough that anyone with eyes would know exactly what happened.
I yanked the collar higher and rubbed at my lips with the back of my hand, trying to wipe away that too-bright red.
It only made them redder.
Everything that'd happened had moved too fast.
Like a midnight dream that felt too real to be a dream.
I was scared someone would see. Even more, I was scared it would land on him—that someone like him shouldn't get dragged into rumors because of me. I knew better than anyone how heavy those looks got.
But under the fear, something in me still burned.
He hadn't hated me.
When he looked at me, he didn't flinch. He didn't hesitate like he was settling. When he'd praised me, he'd sounded calm—like he was stating a fact he'd already confirmed.
No one had ever looked at me like that.
Even if he'd been lying, I wanted to believe it a little longer.
"Willow? You in there?"
Jessica's voice cut in again.
I wiped my face, pulled my expression into something that could pass as normal, and opened the door.
Jessica stood in the hallway with her arms crossed, head tilted as she sized me up. Her eyes still curved like she was smiling, but the smile stopped at her mouth. Her eyes stayed cold.
"Look at you," she said, scanning me head to toe. Her gaze paused at my neck for half a second—long enough to make the hair at my nape stand up. "I thought you were just desperate. Turns out you are smart enough to aim higher."
I frowned. I heard the venom, but I didn't even know what she meant.
When I didn't speak, she stepped closer. "You knew the director was a perv. Tossing your ass around like that—isn't it just so he'll notice you?"
Me? Showing off?
"Jessica," I said, my voice rougher than I expected, "you got it wrong."
"Got it wrong?" She laughed once. That little curve at her mouth stayed, but her eyes went flat. "You reek of it. Who the hell are you fooling?"
That disgust was real.
And it snapped everything into place—last night at the bar, her hand on my shoulder, telling me she'd "set me up" with an escort. This morning's office whispers.
Her friendliness had been a mask. A trap.
She'd set the whole thing up and waited for me to step in so she could watch me crash.
I stood there, nails digging into my palm.
It hurt.
But not that much. Like I'd been stabbed in the same spot so many times the skin had gone numb.
I'd thought I had a friend. Even one. In that company, no one wanted to spare me a glance, but at least one person had called me over at lunch, talked to me in the break room, asked me out for a drink on Friday nights.
I'd thought that tiny scrap of kindness was real.
Bitterness rose in my throat, and I couldn't even tell if it was for her or for myself.
"Aren't we friends?"
"Friends?" Jessica snorted. "Please. Standing next to you makes it easier for people to notice me, fatty."
My throat tightened like something had shoved itself in there.
So that was it.
It wasn't that I was too naive. She just acted that damn well—so well I couldn't tell what was real and what was scripted.
I'd been her backdrop. The fatter, dumber, louder backdrop. Next to me, she looked slimmer, classier, more worth looking at.
Jessica folded her arms tighter, chin lifting. "Every time I watch you stuff your face, I want to puke. Don't you ever feel it? Like what runs through you isn't blood—it's pure fat."
I lowered my head, staring at the toe of my shoe. I didn't say anything.
There was nothing to say. She wanted me to break—wanted to see me lash out, cry, beg, collapse. I wasn't giving her that.
I started walking toward the end of the hallway.
Behind me, she clicked her tongue—short and sharp, like nails on glass.
I didn't want to hear it anymore. Her words, her laugh, that fake sweetness—all of it shattered into dust. One breath and it blew away.
Then came a knock behind me.
Knuckles on wood. Two firm taps, like a signal.
I stopped and turned.
Jessica's voice changed instantly, from a sharpened blade into sticky sugar. "President!"
My stomach dropped.
Artyom stepped out of the bathroom.
His tie hung loose around his neck. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, showing a faint red mark along his collarbone.
I recognized it.
I'd done that.
His gaze landed on me first and held for a second—so brief I almost thought I imagined it.
Then he looked at Jessica, eyes cold as a frozen lake. Nothing stirred in them.
"Done yapping?"
His voice stayed mild, but the air in the hallway went tight and heavy.
Jessica's face changed faster than a blink.
She smiled sweetly and stepped forward half a pace. "President, I was just reminding Willow to mind her appearance. We've got important clients coming in, and she—"
"What the hell does that have to do with you?" he cut in, sharp as a blade sliding free. "And who told you you have any 'appearance' to brag about?"
He paused.
"A ruler has more curves than you."
Jessica's face went red.
Not makeup-red. Real red—blood rushing up from her neck into her cheekbones, humiliation bleeding through her foundation like she'd been stripped in public.
Artyom didn't look at her again. "And your marketing department has zero manners. Do you not know this is a private corridor? Who the hell let you stand here making noise?"
Each word hit like ice on tile.
Jessica twisted the hem of her dress in her fingers. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. I came to find Willow. She accidentally wandered in here."
She tried to dump it on me.
I opened my mouth. The knot in my throat loosened just a little—
But before I could speak, Artyom let out a low laugh.
"She's my guest," he said. "And who the hell are you?"
The last of Jessica's smile froze on her face.
She didn't argue. She lowered her head. "I'm sorry. I'll leave right away."
Her heels snapped against the tile, fast and messy, and then she was gone down the hallway.
I stayed where I was.
Wind pushed in from a window at the far end and brushed my calves, cool and thin.
I knew Artyom had stepped in for me.
"She's my guest." The words dropped into my chest like a pebble and sent warmth spreading in soft rings.
He walked up and stopped in front of me.
His shadow fell over me, swallowing me whole. He tipped my chin down with his gaze, staring into my eyes. In his deep gray irises, my face looked smaller, cornered.
"After the way she ran her mouth, you didn't even clap back?"
I looked up and met his stare.
My throat felt dry. My voice came out barely there. "I am used to it."
His brow tightened. His eyes went darker.
"Used to it?" he repeated. "Used to people pointing in your face and saying you have no class, no manners?"
Yes. I was used to it.
I dropped my eyes again, fixating on a speck of dirt on my shoe. "People talk. I listen. Talking back never helps. Sometimes it makes it worse."
He went quiet for a few seconds.
Then he reached out and grabbed my cheeks, pinching them into a stupid little O. "So when someone tells you you're wrong, you just take it? That mouth of yours is for decoration?"
He dipped his head and kissed me.
Quick. Gone before I even had time to close my eyes.
"Listen to me," he said. "Next time someone talks to you like that, you grab whatever is in reach and smash it over their head."
I stared at him, my brain lagging behind.
"I can't," I blurted without thinking. "I'd have to pay for it."
Artyom looked at me for two seconds, then laughed.
Not amused—more like he got pissed and it escaped anyway. His mouth twitched like he tried to hold it in and failed.
His voice turned sharper. "Pay for it? Nobody makes me pay for shit."
He looked at me, and the laughter faded into something serious.
"Willow, you remember this—when someone bullies you, you fight back. You don't care who they are. You get that breath back first. The more you curl up, the more those trash assholes think they can step on your head."
I knew he wasn't wrong.
But he was born at the top. He didn't fear falling. I wasn't like him. I'd fought back before, and I'd only gotten punished harder.
I didn't argue. I kept my head down, silent.
And he saw straight through it.
"You think I am holding you to my standard?" His voice dropped, low and dangerous. "Willow Pierce, life is short, and you are letting cowardice run yours."
The emergency light at the end of the corridor flickered once.
He stared at me, anger burning in his eyes—like he was furious because he'd tried to pull me up and I kept shrinking away from his hand.
He waited.
I still couldn't get the words out.
His mouth pulled into something that almost looked like a smile, but wasn't.
"People like you can't even respect yourselves," he said. "And you expect anybody else to?"
Then he walked past me and kept going.
I didn't chase him.
I stood there a long time, staring down the empty hallway. And I thought about last night in that private room—me straddling his lap, clutching his shirt, telling him he wasn't getting away.
Back then I'd been drunk. I hadn't been afraid of anything.
Now I was sober, and I was afraid of everything.
Maybe I really wasn't worth liking.
Maybe meeting him had been the only good luck my shitty life ever handed me.
And that little bit of luck had been walking away, and I didn't even have the guts to call it back.