10. Cloe
CLOE
I didn’t touch the Post-it right away.
I just stared at it.
The handwriting was too clean to be rushed. Too sharp to be gentle.
Fix it. – B
It wasn’t a request.
It wasn’t even a reprimand.
It was a pulse check.
Are you still useful, little girl?
Or should we dress you in something tighter and silence you for good?
I peeled the note off and folded it slowly between my fingers. Set it in the drawer I never used. The one where I kept other things that weren’t mine. Then I opened the spreadsheet.
And started over.
At first, my hands were too fast. Clumsy. I made three more mistakes in the first three rows.Then I stopped.
Closed my eyes .
Breathed .
Not deep—the corset still wouldn’t allow it—but enough.
Enough to find my spine again.
Camille used to say spreadsheets were like men.
They’ll lie to you if you don’t learn their language.
So I spoke it.
Formula after formula.
Cell by cell.
I corrected every tab, cross-checked totals, rewrote headers. I restructured the budget breakdown like I was carving my name into it.
It didn’t matter if no one noticed.
It mattered that I did.
The whispering never stopped.
But it didn’t cut the same.
Maybe because I’d already bled all over the bathroom floor.
Or maybe because now I knew what they were really afraid of.
Not that I didn’t belong here.
But that I might survive it.
Loyal passed by me once. Then again. The third time, I caught the flick of his eyes.
A glance down the back of my neck.
At the bow.
Still tied.
Still his.
I didn’t turn.
Didn’t flinch.
Just kept typing.
And for the first time all day, my hands didn’t shake.
I hadn’t seen him all day.
Not really.
Glimpses. A glance across the floor. His name in an email. But not him— not the man behind the weight I wore like silk and wire.
Until the elevator.
I stepped in first.
Mid-afternoon. Empty car. I pressed the button for floor five—delivery confirmation for Loyal’s revised numbers. My fingers hovered near the door as it began to close.
Then it stopped.
Reversed.
Opened again.
Barron.
He walked in like the space belonged to him.
Because it did.
He didn’t look at me.
Not at first.
He pressed a button. One floor above mine. Then stood behind me—just slightly to the left. Close enough to radiate heat. Power. That scent again. Tailored charcoal and control.
The doors closed.
And then there was nothing.
No music.
No words.
Just breath and restraint.
I didn’t turn.
But I felt him.
His eyes.
Dragging over the blouse.
The bow.
The skirt.
“You fixed it.”
His voice wasn’t gentle.
It was precise.
Like the words were there to measure me .
I nodded.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t trust myself to.
“Good.”
That was it.
Until the doors opened at his floor, and he stepped out like the ground owed him passage.
But just before he left, he paused.
“Cloe.”
I looked up.
Met his eyes.
Stillness. Steel.
Then, low?—
“Wear your hair up tomorrow.”
The doors closed before I could reply.
The elevator moved.
But the space didn’t shift.
Not really.
His breath was still in the air.
His command still pressed to the back of my neck.
Wear your hair up tomorrow.
I didn’t know what that meant.
But I knew I’d do it.
And that answer came far too easily.
I stepped off on five. Walked through the corridor with the kind of posture that wasn’t quite mine.
Not yet.
The hallway was quiet—glass doors, closed offices, everything sterile and untouched. But then I saw it. The mirrored wall between the two corner suites. Floor to ceiling.
I hadn’t looked at myself all day.
Not since the corset.
Not since the Post-it .
Not since him.
I paused.
Turned toward the reflection.
And looked.
It didn’t feel like spying anymore.
It felt like surveillance.
I studied the way the blouse clung across my chest—satin molded to skin. The way the pencil skirt cupped my hips. The faint shimmer of stocking where the split moved when I breathed.
My hair still hung damp around my shoulders from earlier—dark, curling at the ends.
I reached up. Slowly. Gathered it in one hand.
And watched the shape of my neck change.
Longer. Bared .
More delicate.
More… open.
Camille used to stand in front of mirrors and narrate.
You always look for the flaws first, C.
Men don’t. They look for the weakness.
She’d pull her hair up and smile like a blade.
Give them both. Make them guess which is which.
I tried to smile.
It cracked.
Still, I kept my hand at my nape, hair pulled high, exposing everything Barron had asked to see.
And it didn’t feel like surrender.
It felt like strategy.
Like I was finally learning the rules of a game I didn’t know I was playing.
I stepped closer.
Studied the details.
The garter clip just visible when I shifted .
The faint smudge of lipstick Wolfe never mentioned.
The bow still tight at the back of my blouse—Loyal’s knot, untouched.
And the eyes in the glass?
They didn’t belong to someone who cried on a bathroom floor.
They belonged to someone who learned something there.
“They want a doll,” I whispered. “Pretty. Silent. Replaceable.”
But dolls remember everything.
I released my hair.
Straightened my shoulders.
And smiled.
Just a little .
The kind of smile they’d never expect.
The kind that looked like permission—until it was too late.
I walked back into the main office with my head higher than I’d ever dared.
Not proud.
Just enough to keep the ribbon visible.
Barron had asked for my hair up.
It wasn’t up yet.
But I wanted him to see the choice I hadn’t made.
My desk was untouched.
The spreadsheet still open. Balanced now. Perfect.
The silence shifted around me. Not obvious. But there.
Like the sound of a needle lifting from vinyl.
Soft.
Sudden.
Aware.
I sat. Crossed my legs slowly.
Straightened my blouse with one tug.
And looked up .
Right at them.
Barron stood at the far end of the floor. Talking to two board members. Not facing me.
But he glanced over his shoulder once.
Quick. Sharp.
Our eyes didn’t meet.
But I felt it.
The question.
The weight.
The heat.
He saw me sit straighter.
Saw the hair still down.
Said nothing.
Didn’t look away.
Loyal passed through the bullpen, file in hand.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t pause.
But his gaze lingered.
Right at the bow.
Still tied.
Still his.
And he knew it.
Wolfe was across the room, half-shadowed in his glass corner. Pretending to read something I knew he wasn’t seeing.
His jaw was tight.
Fingers tapping.
He hadn’t looked at me since the elevator.
But every time I moved, I felt the echo of his gaze.
And Royal?
Royal wasn’t watching from afar.
He was perched at the edge of the shared table, legs stretched, phone in one hand, sipping coffee like I was scenery.
But when I turned, he was already watching.
Grinning.
Not a smirk.
Something else.
They don’t know what to do with you now, sweetheart.
The words weren’t spoken.
But I felt them in the look.
I turned back to my screen.
Opened a new file.
Started typing something that didn’t matter.
Because what mattered now?—
Was who was watching me.
Not the assistants.
Not the staff.
Them.
And if they wanted a doll?
I’d make sure I was the one they couldn’t put down.