Chapter 7
I’m in a foul mood. A black, bitter, consuming hole of darkness. And for the life of me, I don’t even know why.
I spent the whole damn night staring at the ceiling, perplexed at my own mind—why the fuck am I reacting like this to Mila leaving? And I think I’ve figured it out. I’m used to her. That’s it. I’ve been so goddamn used to her that the thought of her gone is hard to swallow.
She’s been flawless. Three years of her perfection, and I’ve rarely had to raise my voice, rarely had to correct her. But she’s found a replacement—Veronica—who’s competent enough. I need to give her a chance.
This possessiveness? I’ve always had that streak—a dark, ugly, possessive streak. Never liked sharing anything, not even with my brothers. And Mila… she’s been essential to the company.
But I keep telling myself: she’s an employee. Soon, she’ll be an ex-employee. Nothing else. No more “my Mila” bullshit. I swear it.
And yet… that confrontation in the kitchenette included me saying things that could make her think I was some lovesick, jealous bastard. That I felt something more than professional.
I’m not a lover. Love is a sickness. A disease. It poisoned my father until he couldn’t cage it anymore, until he killed himself. I don’t want love. I’m meant to be alone. It’d be a shame if she ever thought I would, no matter how I acted in the kitchenette.
I walk into the office first thing in the morning, expecting maybe, just maybe, to see her waiting at the edge of my desk, asking, What are we?
Instead, it’s Veronica trailing behind me with a cup of coffee in her hands. “Good morning, sir. Here’s your coffee and the schedule for today. Anything you’d like me to start with?”
I look at the cup, at her, at the skyline beyond my window—the city I built half of. My head has never been like this, never this messy.
Where the fuck is Mila?
For the first time in three years, I force myself to drink coffee that isn’t hers.
I last one minute. One fucking minute.
My tongue moves before I can stop it. “Where is Ms. Wilson?”
“She said… she wants to give me independence, sir. To get used to working without her presence. She’ll be here in an hour or so.”
I feel the warmth of my blood in my palms—I’ve been digging my nails into my skin so hard I didn’t notice.
“Anything else you need, sir?” Veronica mumbles, barely able to meet my eyes.
“Nothing,” I spit.
I stare at the skyline, thinking about how quickly Mila could misread me. How easy it would have been for her to see me as… jealous. Possessive. A fool. A man chasing something he doesn’t even want to have.
I am none of that. And yet the line between me and that man is blurry as hell. I don’t want her to think I’m anything other than professional.
I sip the coffee again, grimacing. I tell myself: this is my new normal. She’s leaving. She’s making her choice. I have nothing to claim.
An hour passes. I can’t fucking take it. The rational part of my mind is a whisper, drowned out by this poison slithering through my veins.
I get up to pace the hallway, checking the main floor, the side offices, and the kitchenette to see if she’s here.
She’s not here yet, and with a growl, I move to walk back to my office. Girlish laughter stops me—it’s coming from somewhere in the break room. Usually, I don’t give a shit about gossip, but I could swear I heard Mila’s name.
I creep closer. A group of employees on an early lunch break are gossiping like teenagers in high school.
“She did… a body shot?” one of them whispers.
“She—Mila? Really?” Another giggle. “With her boyfriend, maybe?”
My blood boils. My Mila. My quiet, tight-lipped, uptight, meticulous Mila… doing a body shot? With another man. My mind fires off sparks of rage, disbelief, obsession, jealousy, horror.
It seems like my nightmare is materializing—the family curse that haunted my father is now haunting me.
I step into the break room. All heads snap up. Their laughter dies. They look at me like I’m a bloodied-mouth monster that just crawled out from under the floorboards.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I hiss.
They look at each other, but not one speaks.
“I said. What. The fuck. Are you talking about?”
Finally, one of them stammers. “L-Lindsay from marketing… she was at a bar yesterday. Mila—she saw her with… with a man. We shouldn’t have been gossiping, we’re sorry…”
“Who. Was. He?”
“He’s the son of some oil tycoon,” someone mumbles.
Oil tycoon. Another man. Laughing with my Mila. What’s inside me currently feels like it has teeth, and those teeth are tearing me from the inside out.
“No more gossiping. You’re here to work, not to act like tweens,” I bark at them. They all nod, heads down, not looking at me.
The walk back to my office is rushed because I know if I don’t get there fast enough, I’ll explode. The employees will see the devil I hide beneath this Burberry suit.
I’m losing it.
I keep telling myself I’m not, but I am. I fucking am.
She’s nothing but my assistant.
That’s the line I repeat like a prayer.
My assistant.
My employee.
Replaceable. Temporary. Rotating staff.
But the second I think of her with another fucking man—
I go insane.
My assistant. That’s all she is.
But she’s mine.
God, she’s fucking mine.
I don’t know when that happened, or how, or why. She organized my calendar one day and rearranged the wiring in my skull the next. It was slow, quiet—unnoticed until today, until the possibility of another man’s hands on her made something in me snap.
The second my office door shuts behind me… I let my insanity creep through.
I put my hand on my desk, and the next thing I know, it’s flipped.
She isn’t mine.
She isn’t mine.
She isn’t mine.
But the words taste like a lie.
I slam a fist into the wall, and pain shoots up my arm. I welcome it. Anything to drown the fucking curse taking over my system. This isn’t normal. I’ve seen this before—in my father. I swore I’d never end up like him.
But fuck, obsession has a way of creeping in without asking for permission.
The door bursts open.
“Sir?” Veronica’s voice cracks.
“Get Mila.” I order.
“Sir—”
“Now.” It rips out of me.
As the door slams shut again, I stand there in the ruins of my control, blood dripping from my palm, fury and obsession twisting together in a way I don’t want to examine.
She has been mine, quietly, for years. In the smallest ways. In the ways I didn’t see until today. In the routines she built around me, the rhythms she trained my days into. In every cup of coffee only she can make right. In every solved problem before I even knew it existed.
She has no fucking right to be inside my head like this. But she is. And now that I’ve noticed it, now that the illusion shattered, I can’t put it back together.
The doorknob turns.
She’s here.