Chapter 38
MILA
Mila’s office seems colder than it did a week ago.
Not literally, although the late winter chill still claws at the windows. But everything else feels off. Like someone crept in during her absence and scrubbed away every trace of warmth and familiarity with bleach, leaving behind nothing but the shell of what used to be hers.
Mila stares at her computer screen, watching the cursor blink in rhythm with her anxiety. She’s opened and closed the same email three times. Her inbox is full. Her hands won’t stop fidgeting.
God, she misses him.
His hands fisting her hair. His rough voice in her ear.
Instead, she’s stuck in this sterile office, drowning in dread and pretending nothing’s wrong.
Her phone buzzes against the desk.
Richard
Come to my office.
Mila glares at the screen. The way he summons her, like she’s a dog trained to heel. She should ignore it, block the number, hurl the phone into traffic. But she can’t—not with the threat of him telling Jaryd hanging over her head like a guillotine.
So she gets up. Straightens her blazer. Reapplies her lip gloss with shaking hands.
The hallway feels like it’s grown an extra mile overnight. Her heels click against the tile with each step, her pulse thudding in her ears. Every nerve in her body is begging her not to give him this. But what’s the alternative? She’s trapped, and she knows it.
She knocks once.
“Come in,” Richard calls out cheerfully. As if he hadn’t turned her insides to ash less than twenty-four hours ago.
Mila steps inside, every muscle tight with resistance. She doesn’t sit. Can’t. Her body won’t let her.
He glances up, gestures lazily at the chair across from him. “Suit yourself.”
His desk is immaculate. Not a file out of place and several shiny industry awards strategically positioned so anyone who walks in is reminded who owns the air in this room. A man so in love with his own reflection, she half expects to catch him whispering to the glass.
“I’ve been thinking,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “And I’ve decided I’m willing to keep what I saw...between us.”
Her stomach turns sharp and sour, like she’s swallowed something rotten. The floor might as well tilt beneath her.
“How generous,” she manages, her voice taut with restraint.
“Richard can be merciful,” he says.
Mila swallows a full-body gag,
“In exchange,” he goes on, tone smooth and self-important, as if this were a polite negotiation over coffee instead of—let’s call it what it is—blackmail, “for a few minor concessions.”
Of course.
She crosses her arms, already bracing for the blow.
“The Whalers account,” he says. “You’ll hand it over. Effective immediately.”
Her jaw goes slack. “Are you serious?”
“And you’ll step back from any credit related to the gala. No interviews. No internal recognition. I’ll take the meetings with Jaryd. You’ll stay where you belong—behind the scenes.”
It takes every ounce of her self-control not to recoil.
Her vision tunnels with rage, but beneath the anger is a rising tide of something uglier—helplessness, thick and choking.
She has worked too hard, sacrificed too much, clawed her way through every sexist boardroom and passive-aggressive performance review to get here, only to watch it all dangle by a thread in this man’s smug, manicured hands.
“Jaryd will never buy it,” she says, her voice brittle. “I built that account from the ground up. He’ll ask questions.”
“Did I stutter?” Richard says, low and wicked.
The fury is instant and blinding, hot in her throat.
“You weren’t so full of yourself when Theo was staring you down and deciding which wall to put you through,” she fires back, her control fracturing.
“You’ll make Jaryd believe it,” Richard repeats cooly, as if he hasn’t heard her. “Or I go to him with what I saw. Your job won’t survive it. Neither will your precious reputation.”
And then with a smirk he adds, “Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it, sweetheart?”
Mila’s mouth opens. Closes. She wants to throw something. Break something. Instead, she takes a measured breath and lets her voice drop to a knife’s edge.
“I hate you.”
His eyes flash, but she doesn’t stop.
“I hate the way you speak to people. I hate that you think everyone owes you something because you managed to string together a few half-decent campaigns in your life. And I deeply regret every moment I spent pretending you were someone worth taking seriously.”
She doesn’t wait for a response.
Just turns, storms out of his office, and slams the door behind her hard enough to make the glass shiver.
Back at her desk, her hands won’t stop trembling.
She exhales through clenched teeth, trying to hold herself together, but her shoulders ache with the effort.
Her eyes sting, too full, too hot. She doesn’t cry, but it feels like something inside her is unraveling, stitch by careful stitch.
She wants to call Theo and hear his beautiful, careful voice whisper something soft just for her.
But she doesn’t move. Because right now, she has no idea how to fix any of it.