Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Hailey
I barely made it into the Ivanov Group building on time.
The second the elevator doors slid shut, I leaned into the mirrored wall and sucked in a deep breath, trying to look like a normal working woman—one who hadn't nearly wrecked herself last night with her phone.
My pulse was still stuck in last night's aftershock.
Every time I thought about it—Mr. X's voice message, his voice, the shit he'd said—my lower belly clenched hard.
"Come for your Master."
Jesus. Just remembering it made my thighs tighten. I yanked my skirt down like it could hide what I was thinking, then dragged in another breath until my head cleared.
I shook it off and forced my focus onto work.
Day two. I had to prove I deserved this job. Deserved that insane salary.
The elevator stopped on the thirty-fifth floor.
I stepped out, pasted on my most professional smile, ready to face the day—
And my phone went nuts.
I pulled it out. The name on the screen made my scalp prickle.
Fuck. My new landlord. The shiny-faced, bald asshole who always let his hand linger a beat too long when he took my rent.
I answered, and before I could even say hello, he exploded.
"Miss Woods! What the hell did you do? The cops came to my door!"
I stopped dead. Coworkers flowed around me in the hallway like I wasn't even there.
"What cops?"
"Two NYPD uniforms rang my bell first thing this morning. Asked if a tenant named Hailey Woods lived here. Asked if I'd seen you, if anything seemed 'off.'" His voice dripped anger. "And they said it was tied to an 'assault case'! So tell me—who the hell did you piss off?"
My heart launched from sixty to a hundred and twenty.
Matthew.
Who else. He'd promised he'd make me regret it. I hadn't expected he'd go this far—calling the police. He was an assistant DA. He knew people. Slapping an "assault" label on me would've been as easy for him as ordering lunch.
The thought stabbed into my temple like an ice pick.
"Miss Woods!" the landlord barked. "I'm talking to you! This is a respectable building, not some place for people like you to bring trouble. If I see cops at my door again, you're out today!"
"Wait, sir—"
"Either you handle your problem, or you handle your boxes. Pick one. You hear me?"
I inhaled slow, my nails digging into my palm.
"I'll handle it. I promise."
He snorted, and then his tone turned slick, lower. "Of course, if you want to 'work something out' a different way, we can talk. You know what I mean. I'm a pretty reasonable guy—especially with a pretty girl..."
My stomach rolled.
"I understand," I said fast. "I'll take care of everything. Goodbye."
I hung up and leaned against the wall, nausea churning.
I knew exactly what that disgusting old man had been hinting at.
"Woods?"
I jerked my head up. Robert stood a few feet away, brow drawn tight.
"You okay? You look pale."
"I'm fine." I forced myself upright and shoved my phone back into my bag. "Just a little dizzy."
"First day can wipe you out," Robert said, but his eyes stayed skeptical. "Go take a minute if you need it. We've got new tasks coming down today."
I nodded and hurried to my desk.
Everyone around me was already working, keyboards clicking in waves. I sat, booted my computer, tried to lock in.
But the landlord's slimy voice kept replaying.
That bald bastard had actually tried to cash in on my panic—trade my body for the right to keep renting.
It made me want to puke.
Honestly, I'd rather sleep on the street.
Which meant I had to move. Now.
I opened a browser and started searching listings.
Manhattan rent was brutal. Anything half-decent ran at least two grand a month, and most of it sat in neighborhoods you didn't want to walk at night.
My place was tiny, but it was safe, and it was close to work.
If I got kicked out—
"Woods."
A cold voice cut in above me.
I looked up. A woman in her forties stood beside my desk. Dark gray suit. Hair yanked into a tight bun. Her face wore that sharp, mean look like it came naturally.
"Hi?"
"I'm the team lead. Carol Smith." She sized me up. "I heard Robert brought you in himself?"
I ignored the hostility and pulled up a polite smile. "Yes, I—"
"You'd better prove you belong here."
She cut me off and slammed a thick stack of documents onto my desk. The smack echoed. A few coworkers glanced over, then snapped their eyes back down like they hadn't seen a thing.
I stared at the stack. Hundreds of pages.
"What is this?"
"XM Group M&A financials," Carol said flatly. "Raw data. Full analysis and risk assessment."
My eyes widened. "But I just started."
"And?" She lifted a brow. "Robert said you had potential. Prove it."
I flipped open the top file. Dense numbers and tables swam in front of my eyes.
This was multinational acquisition-level work. A whole team would take weeks.
"How long do I have?"
"Three days." Carol tapped the desk. "I want the full report in three days. If you can't—"
She paused, mouth curling into a thin, mocking smile.
"Then Robert made a mistake. You can pack your shit and get out."
"Three days?" My voice jumped. "That's impossible—"
"Nothing's impossible, Woods," she cut in. "Unless you don't deserve the job."
She turned and walked away, her heels clicking like a sentence being read out loud.
I stared at the paperwork, throat tight.
This was on purpose.
She was setting me up to fail.
Because Robert hired me? Because she thought I'd been handed the job?
I drew in a hard breath and forced myself onto page one.
The structure was a maze—layered subsidiaries, nested holding companies, cross-border tax landmines. Stuff I'd never touched before.
Three days?
It would take me three days just to understand what I was looking at.
Coworkers stole glances. Some looked sorry for me. Some looked entertained.
I kept my head down, staring at the first page where the numbers blurred together. My throat burned. My eyes stung.
This morning it was my landlord. Now it was my team lead.
I'd escaped Matthew, escaped that life that ground me into dust, and all I'd gotten was a new landlord, a new boss, new people finding fresh ways to tell me, "You don't belong."
Maybe Mom had been right. Maybe all I'd ever been good for was being extra—unwanted—someone anybody could step on. Hailey Woods, the doormat.
I squeezed my palm until it hurt, forcing the tears back down.
No. I wasn't quitting.
I had to try.
Quitting easily had never been my style.
I clenched my jaw and opened the first spreadsheet.
By lunch, people stood up in little clusters. Someone called, "Food run," and the keyboard noise thinned out.
I didn't join anyone. I kept my head down, walked the hall, pushed into the restroom, slipped into the last stall, and locked it.
Then I sat.
The toilet seat was cold, seeping through my thin tights. I braced my hands on my knees, dropped my gaze to the grout lines in the tile, and felt like somebody had drained me.
Three hours.
Three straight hours of staring at those goddamn statements, and I still hadn't even mapped the basic structure. Those subsidiaries stacked like Russian nesting dolls—open one and ten more problems popped out.
I dropped my phone onto my thigh and pressed my fingers to my temples.
Matthew. Police. Landlord. Carol. The fucking spreadsheets.
Everything was collapsing at once.
I buried my face in my hands.
I couldn't do this.
I needed—I needed an outlet.
I pulled my phone out, just looking for anything to distract me. When the screen lit up, I saw one unread message.
Mr. X: Good morning, princess. Did you sleep well last night?
I stared at it, and my eyes went hot.
When everything else was falling apart, at least one person was asking if I'd slept okay.
Even if he was a stranger.
Me: Sorry, I just saw this. This morning was chaos.
A few seconds later, he replied.
Mr. X: What happened?
I hesitated, then dumped it all—my landlord's threats, the cops showing up, Carol's bullshit, the impossible financials.
After I hit send, I realized my fingers were shaking.
I stared at the screen, heartbeat racing. Was I annoying him? Talking too much? We'd only known each other three weeks—who was I to treat him like an emotional trash can?
But it was already sent. A moment later, the typing bubbles appeared.
I bit my lip, watching those three dots like they held my life together.
My phone buzzed.
Mr. X: Breathe, Hailey.
Mr. X: These are all fixable problems.
I stared at the words, throat tight. What was he getting at?
Me: What are you saying?
Mr. X: Your landlord doesn't have the guts to actually evict you. He doesn't have legal grounds. A verbal threat isn't an eviction. New York's tenant protections are stricter than you thought.
Mr. X: As for the police, it was routine. Someone filed a report, they showed up. You didn't do anything wrong, so they wouldn't find anything.
I stared at the screen. The tension in my shoulders—wound tight all morning—loosened, just a little.
Mr. X: Nothing is going to happen. Trust me.
Mr. X: Now forget that asshole. Tell me about work.
Me: Work was me being screwed.
Me: Carol dumped an XM Group merger on me—hundreds of pages of raw statements—and told me to produce a full due diligence analysis in three days. Day two, Mr. X. She just wanted me to crash and burn so she could kick me out clean.
Me: I stared at it all morning and couldn't even untangle the basic structure. I couldn't even read it, let alone hand in a report in three days.
I typed it all in one breath, leaned back against the cold stall divider, and waited for some soft, empty comfort like, It'll be fine.
He didn't give me that.
A few seconds later, he sent a link.
I opened it. A public financial modeling site.
Mr. X: A Harvard Business School M&A template.
Mr. X: Follow the framework. You'll see those statements aren't as complicated as they look.
I skimmed the template fast, and the mess of numbers suddenly snapped into lines—like somebody had turned on the lights.
My heart hammered. The XM Group reports that had felt like they were about to crush me now looked like a challenge I could beat if I followed the steps.
The rush of it—being saved at the edge—hit so hard it made my skin prickle.
His next message popped right after, the tone all hard certainty, that possessive, predatory edge.
Mr. X: Now do you still think your team lead can tell you to pack your shit and leave?
A jolt shot through me. I almost made a sound.
Me: She can't.
Me: Oh my god. I don't even know what to say. That template is insanely helpful. I don't know how to thank you—
His reply came almost instantly.
Mr. X: Thank me with actions.
The words glowed on my screen in that dim bathroom like a black invitation.
My pulse sped up.
Me: Like what?
Mr. X: Take off your panties and throw them in the trash by your feet. That's your thank-you.
What the fuck?
My mind blew up—bright, dizzy, obscene. In a public restroom? At work? When someone could push the door open any second?
Insane. Completely insane.
And yet the humiliation—being ordered—hit with a wave of heat that drowned out my logic.
I didn't even register moving. My hands shook as I worked the fabric down under my skirt. When the slick material slid off and cool air kissed my skin, electricity tore straight through me.
Me: You bastard...
After I sent it, I couldn't even look at the trash can. I felt like I'd lost my mind. Like I'd turned into some desperate slut.
His reply came back cool, almost clinical—and somehow worse for it, because the satisfaction underneath it was sharp enough to cut.
Mr. X: You did it, didn't you, princess?
Mr. X: Every time you move, your skirt brushes your skin, and you remember who you did it for.
Mr. X: Now go back to your desk. Make the people who look down on you shut the hell up.
I drew in a deep breath, fixed my clothes, and walked out.
When I got back, the whole department buzzed, everyone gearing up for the afternoon meeting. I sat at my desk, right under that heavy stack of merger documents.
It felt unreal.
Without my panties, my thin tights rubbed against the most sensitive part of me. If I shifted even a little in my chair, that faint friction shot up my spine. Every breath, every tiny movement reminded me exactly what kind of filthy, dangerous state I was in.
It was so damn... addictive.
A bold thought hit me—bold enough to be stupid.
I looked around, made sure no one was watching, then slipped my phone under the desk.
I angled it, snapped a shot of my crossed legs. Black pencil skirt. Nude tights. The black heels I'd put on on purpose this morning. My hem had ridden up with the way I sat, showing a strip of thigh.
From that angle, it looked wicked.
I bit my lip, hit send, and sent the photo to him.