Chapter 12
Grey
"On your knees, Grey."
"Prove it."
"See you in the office."
That's all he said, no I'll call you later, just see you in the office, like I was just an employee he ran into, not someone he had on his knees. Did it mean anything? I punch my pillow and hate myself for wanting him again.
I get to the office at 6:30 AM, it’s too early. His door is closed. He's not here yet. Good. I need time to put myself back together. He arrives at 8:30, I know without looking, it’s the way the air changes when he walks past.
"Morning, Grey." His voice is neutral, like the voice of a man who didn't spend last night with his hand gripping my hair and shoving his cock down my throat.
"Good morning, sir."
I look up with a smile my mask back in place. He pauses at my desk. Looks down at me.
"You're here early."
How did he know?
"I wanted to get a head start on the Thomas file."
He nods and walks into his office. Every email feels like a trap, every phone call a test, and every time his door opens my heart stops, waiting for him to prove that last night was real.
He doesn't.
At 10 AM, he walks past my desk without looking at me.
At 11 AM, he asks me to schedule a meeting with Rose Sophie.
Rose. The woman who apparently is with him each time I'm not. I schedule the meeting but my hands can’t stop shaking. At 2 PM, he calls me into his office.
He's standing by the window. Back to me. Hands in his pockets. "The Thomas file," he says. "Did you finish the revisions?"
"Yes, sir."
"Send them to legal by three."
"Of course, sir."
He turns around and looks at me. For a moment I think I see heat and want in his eyes. But then it’s gone.
"That's all," he says. "You can go." He's pretending it didn't happen. Like it didn't mean to him what it meant to me. Or was he using...I stop the thought before it can finish.
At 3 PM, he asks me to bring him coffee.
Coffee.
I'm his secretary. That's my job. It's not a test. It's not a message. It's just coffee. I walk to the break room. Pour a cup. Black, no sugar, the way he takes it. My hands are still shaking.
Stop falling apart. You're better than this.
I walk back to his office; he's on the phone and doesn't look up. Waves me toward the desk. I set the coffee down too hard, the cup rattles, liquid sloshes over the rim. A dark stain spreads across a stack of papers.
No, no, no.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't mean,"
He holds up a hand. Covers the phone. "It's fine. Get a towel."
It isn’t fine. I'm standing in your office with coffee on your desk and your voice in my head saying prove it and you’re acting like I'm a stranger.
"Grey." His voice is sharper now. "The towel."
I wipe up the coffee. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold the towel.
"Something wrong, Grey?" His voice is careful. Like the voice you use with a scared animal.
"No, sir. I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You've been shaking all day. And you've been looking at me like I killed your dog." He says. "What happened last night..."
"Nothing happened last night." I say to fast to loud. "I had drinks with friends. You had drinks with...someone. We happened to be in the same place. That's all."
"That's all."
"Yes."
He walks toward me, slowly. Don't come closer. I'll break.
"Grey."
He stops in front of me. Close enough to touch.
"Look at me."
His eyes are intense. The same look he had in the bathroom. The same look that made my knees buckle.
"You're lying," he says. Yes. I'm lying. I'm always lying.
The mask is a lie, the politeness is a lie, the "good morning, sir" is a lie. The only truth is what I did in that bathroom. The only truth is that I'd do it again without a second thought.
"Why won't you just say something?" The words explode out of me.
He doesn't flinch.
"You've been acting like nothing happened. Like I'm just your secretary. Like I didn't prove anything."
The room goes silent. I can hear my own heartbeat.
His breathing. The distant buzz of the city outside his window.
I can’t believe I actually said it. He looks at me for a long moment but doesn't speak.
Just stands there, gray eyes fixed on mine, reading everything I'm trying to hide. Then he smiles.
"There you are," he says quietly. "I've been waiting for this, the moment you stopped pretending."
I'm not pretending. I'm terrified, I'm furious.
"You wanted me to say something," he says.
He steps closer. His chest is inches from mine. I can feel the heat of him. God. He's going to kill me.
"I watched you last night," he says. "Not just in the bathroom. The whole night. From the moment you walked into the club. I watched you drink. I watched you laugh with your friends. I watched you pretend you didn't see me."
I wasn't pretending.
I saw you.
I couldn't stop seeing you.
"I didn’t say anything this morning because I wanted to see what you’d do, if you’d break. And now you have." He reaches out, touches my face. The same way he did in the bathroom, gentle, possessive.
"You're not invisible, or harmless," he says "You're a mess, obsessed, and you're mine. My prey."
I don't think I can answer even if I wanted to, my lungs feels empty, and my heart is pounding so hard. I'm surprised he can't hear it.
"Go back to your desk," he says. "Finish the Thomas file. Send it to legal."
"And then?"
"You’ll go to my apartment, you’ll wait in my bed. You won’t touch yourself." He leans in. His mouth brushes my ear. "Then you're going to show me just how hopeless you really are."