Chapter 4 Tessa #2
But if I tell her the truth, that her brother just looked at me like I was the only person in the room, I’ll lose this job and I’ll lose her trust.
I close my eyes and hit Send. It feels like swallowing glass.
I hesitate, my fingers poised over the glass screen again. I want to ask her about them. I want to ask if they’ve always been this… overwhelming. I want to ask if Asher ever speaks, or if he just communicates in binary code and intense stares.
“You’re lying to her.”
I yelp, dropping my phone on the desk with a clatter. I spin around.
Asher is standing right behind my chair. I didn’t hear him approach. The man moves like a ninja in a hoodie.
“Jesus, Asher!” I press a hand to my chest, my heart trying to escape my ribcage. “Do you have a bell? You need to wear a bell.”
Asher doesn’t smile. He’s looking at my phone screen, which is still lit up with the chat.
“You’re downplaying it,” he says. His voice is quiet, flat. “You told her it’s ‘intense.’ That’s a euphemism.”
I snatch my phone up, turning it face down. “It’s a private conversation.”
“It’s on company time,” he counters, but there’s no heat in it. He walks around my desk and places something on the glass surface.
It’s a small, white paper bag from a bakery down the street. And a bottle of green tea.
I blink, looking from the bag to him. “What is this?”
“I saw you from the server room door,” Asher says. He leans against the edge of my glass partition, crossing his arms. “You ate two tomatoes and then snapped a plastic fork like it had personally offended you.”
My mouth falls open. “You saw that?”
“I notice patterns,” he says simply. “You didn’t eat enough. Low blood sugar leads to cognitive decline and irritability. Hence, the fork destruction.” He nods at the bag. “Eat.”
I reach out and open the bag. Inside is a massive, dark chocolate brownie. God, it smells heavenly. My stomach growls.
“I… thank you,” I say, looking up at him. “This is…”
“Efficient,” he supplies. “Chocolate provides a quick glucose spike for focus. The green tea provides L-theanine to counteract the caffeine jitters.”
I stare at him. He’s describing a snack like it’s a bio-hack, but the gesture is… incredibly thoughtful. Ethan ordered me to eat. Asher actually brought me food.
“Why?” I ask softly.
Asher looks away, his gaze fixing on a point somewhere over my shoulder. “Ethan is riding you hard. He’s stressed about the investors. When he’s stressed, he forgets that people aren’t machines.”
“And you don’t?”
“I know people aren’t machines,” Asher says, his blue eyes snapping back to mine. “Machines are predictable. You aren’t.”
The office noise seems to fade, like someone turned the volume down. A sudden awareness of how alone we are in this corner of the office settles over me.
“You sent the text,” he says.
I freeze, my hand hovering over the brownie. “Asher, please.”
“You sent two photos,” he continues, his voice devoid of judgment, just stating facts. “The black and the red. You wanted data. You wanted a comparison.”
“I wanted my best friend’s opinion,” I whisper.
“But you got ours.” He tilts his head, studying me. “Ethan told you the red was trouble. Owen told you it would cause a riot.”
“And you?” I challenge him, feeling a sudden spark of boldness. “You told me to wear it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Asher pushes off the partition. He steps closer, looming over me in my chair. He’s not charming like Owen or imposing like Ethan. He’s just… intense. Like a live wire.
“Because the black was safe,” he says softly. “And safety doesn’t get results. You wanted to be seen, Tessa. I saw you.”
I saw you.
He holds my gaze for one second longer, long enough for me to see the heat simmering beneath the icy blue surface, and then he turns away.
“Eat the brownie,” he says over his shoulder. “I need you sharp. I’m sending you the unfiltered engagement logs. Don’t break my code. And Tessa? That data is volatile. We’re talking confessions, hidden desires, the kind of secrets that ruin lives. Treat it like live ammo.”
He walks away, disappearing into the shadows of the server room before I can say another word.
I look down at the brownie. My hands are trembling again.
Three brothers. Three completely different ways of driving me absolutely insane.
I take a bite of the brownie. It’s rich, sweet, and perfect. I have a feeling I’m going to need the sugar.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the main floor, I can see the sun dipping low, painting the sky in bruised purples.
But inside Ethan’s office, it looks like midnight.
The cleaners are moving through the rows of desks, the vacuum humming in the distance.
The blackout blinds are drawn tight, blocking out the world.
The only light in the room comes from the glow of his monitors and the amber strip of LEDs along the floor.
I stand outside his door.
I’ve been putting this off for an hour. I cleaned up my inbox. I organized my desktop icons. I even watered a plant that I’m pretty sure is plastic.
But I can’t leave without reporting. He asked for the analysis of the acquisition stats. If I leave without giving it to him, he’ll think I couldn’t handle it.
And I refuse to let him win.
I smooth my hands down the front of my trousers, take a deep breath, and knock.
“Come in.” His voice is rough and tired.
I push the door open. Ethan is sitting at his desk, staring at the drawn blinds, and holding a tumbler of amber liquid.
He looks exhausted. His tie is gone, his top button undone, his sleeves rolled up to reveal thick forearms corded with muscle.
“Ms. Hartley,” he says without turning around. “You’re still here.”
“I finished the analysis,” I say, stepping into the room. I clutch my tablet to my chest. “I wanted to go over the findings before I left.”
“It’s after six,” he says. “Go home.”
“But you’re still here.”
“I live here,” he mutters. He spins his chair around slowly to face me. His gray eyes are heavy-lidded. He takes a sip of his drink. Whiskey. I can smell it from here. “What did you find?”
I walk forward, placing the tablet on his black marble desk. I can hear my own heartbeat. The room feels too small, too dark, too intimate.
“It’s the onboarding,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “I ran the numbers. We lose forty percent of users when we ask for the ‘Deep Dive’ vulnerability questions. It’s too much, too soon. It scares them off.”
Ethan looks at the tablet, scrolling through the graphs I built. He nods slowly. “We need that data to make the matching algorithm work. If they don’t answer the deep questions, the matches are superficial. Like Tinder.”
“I know,” I say. “But you’re asking for their darkest secrets before you’ve even bought them a drink. You have to earn the trust first, Ethan. You have to court them.”
Ethan looks up. His gaze locks onto mine.
“Court them,” he repeats, letting the words linger on his tongue like the aftertaste of the whiskey. “It’s a valid strategy. But it requires patience.”
“Yes,” I say, my throat going dry. “You can’t just demand intimacy. You have to build it. Slowly.”
He stands up.
He comes around the desk like he has already decided the outcome. I hold my ground, though every instinct in my body is telling me to run. Or step closer.
He stops a foot away from me. He towers over me, blocking out the ambient light from the monitors.
“Is that where I failed?” he asks quietly. “Did I demand too much?”
He’s not talking about the app anymore.
“I…” I falter. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Friday night,” he says. The words hang in the air. “I told you it was trouble. I told you not to wear it.”
“And I wore it anyway,” I whisper.
“You did.” He steps closer. I can feel the heat radiating off him. “You defied me. You walked into my world, wearing that dress, knowing exactly what it would do to us.”
“I didn’t know who you were,” I say, my voice shaking. “I knew you were Harper’s brothers—who I didn’t intentionally send those photos to, by the way—but I didn’t know you were my new bosses.”
“And if you had?” He leans down, his face inches from mine. “You think that makes it safe? You thought you were just teasing Harper’s boring older brothers?”
“I don’t think I’m safe right now,” I admit, my voice trembling.
“You’re not,” Ethan growls. “You are in my office, Tessa. Everyone is gone. And I am tired of pretending that I haven’t spent the entire day thinking about how you looked in that red silk.”
My stomach drops. “Ethan, we can’t. I work for you.”
“I know.” He clenches his jaw, his grip on the marble so intense I expect the stone to crack under the pressure, the muscles in his forearms rigid and taut.
He’s physically restraining himself. “That is the only reason you are still standing there. If you weren’t my employee… if you weren’t Harper’s friend…”
He trails off, his eyes dropping to my mouth.
“What?” The word is barely audible. “What would you do?”
“I would answer your question,” he says roughly.
Which one guarantees I get laid?
The implication slams into me. My knees go weak. Ethan closes his eyes for a second, inhaling sharply through his nose. Then he steps back, putting distance between us. The mask slams back into place. The CEO returns.
“Leave the tablet,” he says, his voice cold again. “Good work on the analysis. We’ll implement the changes tomorrow.”
I blink, reeling from the whiplash.
“Go home, Tessa,” he commands, turning his back on me to look at the blinds again. “Before I make this worse.”
I stare at his broad back for a heartbeat. Then I turn and walk away.
I move fast, rushing past the empty desks and into the elevator. I mash the button for the lobby, my chest heaving so hard I can barely aim.
The doors slide shut, cutting off the view of the Mosaic logo. I lean back against the cool metal wall and slide down until I’m crouching on the floor. I press my hands to my burning cheeks.
This job is impossible. They are impossible.
And the worst part? I can’t wait to come back tomorrow.