Chapter 20
Grey
I wake up sore and stupidly happy.
My body is a map of last night. The ache in my thighs from holding him there. The faint sting at my throat where his teeth grazed my skin. The deep, bone-level looseness that only comes after you finally stop pretending you don’t want something.
Cain is still asleep beside me. One arm heavy over my waist. His hand splayed over my stomach like he’s pinning me in place even in his dreams. I watch him breathe for a few seconds, because I can. Because he let me. Because he said I’m not going anywhere and then proved it.
For a moment, the world is simple. There’s his bed, his sheets, his warmth, and the echo of his voice in my head: You’re mine, and I’m never letting you go.
Then my phone buzzes on the nightstand.
Work notification. 7:11 AM. Subject line preview: Executive safety notice.
The feeling in my chest changes so fast it makes me dizzy. The happiness doesn’t vanish; it curdles. Cain’s eyes open. He doesn’t move his hand.
"Morning," he says quietly.
"Hi," I whisper back.
He watches my face. "What’s wrong?"
"Nothing." It’s automatic, a lie. My phone buzzes again. Another notification: HR: follow-up on safety notice.
I flinch. He sighs. The sound is soft but heavy. "Shower," he says. "We’ll go in together."
"You don’t have to."
"I’m doing it anyway." His fingers tighten once on my waist.
The shower doesn’t fix anything. Hot water doesn’t erase the memory of subject lines waiting for me at my desk.
I scrub until my skin is pink. It doesn’t help.
When I come out, Cain is fully dressed: dark suit, white shirt, tie loose but present.
CEO instead of the man who fucked me into his mattress all night.
He looks at me like he wants to strip me again but instead, he hands me my jacket.
As he drives I find myself staring out the window, stalling I don’t want to open the emails. It's childish I know, but it’s the only option I have right now. For some few extra minutes, I can pretend the messages are about someone else. Some other executive. Some other problem.
The elevator to the executive floor is crowded with our reflections.
His, mine, the mirrored walls. My stomach knots tighter with every floor we pass.
When the doors final slide open, the air feels wrong.
Usually, there’s humming, typing, phones ringing, low voices.
Today, it’s quieter. The kind that isn’t silence, it’s restraint. People pretending not to look.
Reception glances up, sees us and her eyes go wide for half a second before she drops them to her keyboard. The analyst at the far desk closes something on his screen too fast. Another pretends to be on a call, but his grip on the receiver tells another story.
Cain’s hand finds the small of my back. A simple touch that feels like I'm being marked in red.
"Ignore them," he murmurs.
I try and I make it five steps before I hear it.
"That’s him," someone whispers, not as quiet as they think. The words cling to the air like damp smoke.
My name is on a subject line on the nearest monitor. I see it before they can close tab away. Employee: Grey – behavioral review.
My skin goes cold, then hot, then nothing. At my desk, my chair is wrong. Not just moved; tilted. Like someone sat in it, then stood up fast and didn’t bother putting it back the way they found it. My mug is gone. The little plant that used to sit in the corner of my desk is missing too.
I sit anyway. My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it in my fingers. Cain doesn’t go into his office. He leans against the frame of my desk instead, body blocking half the room’s view of my screen. It doesn’t matter. They’ve already seen enough.
"Open the email," he says quietly.
"I don’t..."
"Grey." His tone doesn’t rise. It doesn’t have to. "Open it."
I do, inbox, two new messages flagged high priority. The first is from Security Oversight: Executive safety notice – patterns of concern. The second is from HR: Follow-up re: safety notice / employee support.
My vision tunnel-narrows. I click the first.
Team, the email begins. During a routine review of executive floor surveillance, we identified concerning patterns of behavior from an employee. In order to promote safety and transparency, we are sharing anonymized examples and reminding everyone of appropriate boundaries with senior leadership.
There’s a link. View incident summary and selected footage.
My hand hesitates on the trackpad.
Cain’s voice is steady. "You don’t have to watch it."
"I do," I say, "besides they all watched it."
He doesn’t argue. The browser opens a company portal. Incident: Executive safety – file package. A video thumbnail loads: hallway, timestamp, blurred faces.
I hit play. The first clip is the hallway outside his office. Camera 15. I know it. I’ve lived in it. Me, at midnight, standing in front of his door, facing the wood. My hands at my sides. Too still. The footage zooms in. My forehead touches the doorframe. My lips move. There’s no sound.
The second clip: lobby. Camera 12. Me in the corner, at 11:48 PM, staring at the elevator instead of the clock. The caption reads: Employee loitering in common area long after hours.
The third: interior feed from his office. Grainy and dark. My silhouette near his desk. The cut is brutal they slice out the lead-up, the context, the carefulness. They jump straight from me standing in his space to me on his desk, shirt off, back arched.
They blur my face but they don’t blur my body. They pause me mid-movement. Hand halfway down my stomach. Frozen there like a confession.
My stomach lurches. "Stop," I whisper, but the video keeps going.
Caption: Employee entering executive office after hours without clear authorization; engaging in explicit behavior in proximity to executive’s workspace.
The summary text appears alongside the video.
Over several months, the subject appears repeatedly outside Mr. Micheals’ office after hours, loiters in common areas, and enters executive spaces without authorization.
Given Mr. Micheals’ position and visibility, this pattern raises serious concerns about his safety and the integrity of our workplace.
We remind all staff that stalking, harassment, and boundary violations will not be tolerated.
They never use my name. They don’t have to. Someone behind me gasps softly. Another laughs under their breath and then cuts it off, too late.
"Jesus," someone murmurs. "I heard he broke into Mr. Micheals apartment, too."
My lungs forget how to work. The world tilts.
I see myself on the screen, paused mid-masturbation in Cain’s office, and realize that the worst thing I’ve ever done is now a training clip on the company portal.
My cursor shakes. I click the tab closed like it will erase what everyone saw; it doesn’t matter; the image is already burned into their vision.
HR’s email sits below it, polite and poisonous.
Grey, it says. We’d like to invite you to a confidential conversation about recent events and how we can support you and ensure safety for all parties.
Support, safety, confidential, my face is literally all over the company’s portal...
Cain’s voice cuts through the noise. "Stand up."
I blink. "What?"
His expression is calm and neutral; his eyes are not. "Stand up," he repeats. "Now."
My legs obey before I can argue. He steps closer, takes my wrist, not gently, not cruelly. Firm enough that the whole floor sees it.
"That’s him," someone whispers again, this time in a different tone. Less gleeful. More afraid.
Cain doesn’t look at them. He looks past them.
"Everyone who has opened that package," he says, voice carrying without a shout, "close it. Immediately."
A beat, then screens dim, tabs vanish. The sound of mice clicking too fast fills the room.
"And if any copy of that footage leaves this building," he continues, "if any of you forward it, save it, show it to someone who doesn’t work here, Benjamin will see it in your logs. He will flag your credentials. And then I will handle you myself."
He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to.
Benjamin’s name ripples through the floor like a small earthquake. Internal risk. The man whose files decide who gets quietly removed from the system.
Cain turns his attention back to me.
"Grey," he says, not loud but very clear, "my office. Now."
It sounds like discipline. Every eye on the floor is on us as he leads me across the room by the wrist. No one pretends to work. No one pretends to be on the phone. They watch the man from the video walk beside his boss, the supposed victim. They watch the victim touch him like he owns him.
My face is burning. My legs feel like they might give out. But his hand is steady.
Inside his office, he closes the door with a soft click that feels like the only real barrier between me and the noise outside.