The penthouse suite lay submerged in shadows, fractured only by the amber halo of a solitary floor lamp. Its light carved jagged patterns across silk sheets, illuminating the woman trembling beneath the man's merciless grip. Clara Morgan's breath hitched, her tear-glazed eyes reflecting the predatory gleam in Sebastian Hartwell's gaze. She curled inward, a drenched sparrow caught in the jaws of a wolf, her plea dissolving into the charged silence. "Mr. Hartwell…please. I'll—I'll do better. Just…stop."
Her fragility ignited something primal in him.
Sebastian's fingers slid through her disheveled hair, his thumb dragging across her cheekbone with calculated roughness. "You crossed the line the moment you walked into my office," he murmured, the velvet menace in his voice belying the violence of his actions. The tear of fabric echoed as he ripped her blouse open, buttons scattering like fallen stars. His tie—midnight silk still knotted at his throat—became a shackle around her wrists, binding her to the bed with ruthless efficiency. When his mouth claimed hers, it wasn't a kiss but a conquest, and Clara surrendered to the tempest, her silent tears seeping into the pillow.
Dawn arrived as a blade of sunlight slicing through blackout curtains. Clara stirred, every muscle protesting as the shower's hum ceased. Sebastian emerged, a towel slung low on his hips, water cascading from his sculpted torso. He scrolled through his phone, indifferent to her nakedness, droplets tracing the harsh angles of his jaw before vanishing into the hollow of his collarbone.
A chime shattered the stillness. Clara fumbled for her phone, the bank notification glaring up at her: $1,000,000.00 DEPOSITED.
"Pill or procedure." Sebastian's voice cut through the room, colder than the Manhattan skyline beyond the windows. He didn't glance up as he fastened his cufflinks, the platinum catching the light like his eyes—sharp, unyielding. "Choose quickly. I detest indecision."
Clara's throat constricted around the acid rising in it. She forced a smile, brittle as antique glass. "How…generous of you, Mr. Hartwell."
Shrugging into her coat, she ignored the fabric clinging to sweat-slicked skin. Outwardly composed, her mind spiraled: Stupid. Reckless. You walked into the lion's den and expected…what? A fairytale?
"Today's agenda," Sebastian demanded, knotting his tie with military precision.
"Nine-thirty with the CFO to discuss the Tokyo merger. Lunch with the British consul—he's pushing for tariff exemptions. Three o'clock video conference with London regarding the—"
"Skip the recap. My coffee?"
"Sixty-degree Americano. Jamaican Blue Mountain, ground ninety seconds before brewing." The words rolled off her tongue, automated as her pulse.
A curt nod. "Office by nine. The Kyoto reports need—"
"—cross-referencing with last quarter's offshore holdings. Already queued on your tablet." She dipped her head, the subservient gesture at odds with the fury simmering beneath her ribs.
His gaze tracked her retreat—the sway of her hips, the defiant set of her shoulders, the damning blush of pink staining the sheets. As the door clicked shut, Sebastian's fist collided with the wall, the impact shuddering through his bones.
Clara's Brooklyn walk-up welcomed her with the reek of mildew and burnt toast. She stripped, hurling her clothes into the corner as if the fabric itself were contaminated. The shower's scalding needles punished her skin, steam fogging the cracked mirror until her reflection blurred into a ghost. Scrub harder. Erase the scent of his cologne, the memory of his hands, the—Her phone blared 7:47 AM. No time for breakdowns.
At her vanity, she reconstructed herself layer by layer: foundation smothering the shadows beneath her eyes, liner sharp enough to draw blood, lips stained the crimson of fresh wounds. This apartment—her hard-won sanctuary—reeked of compromise. Two years of parsing Hartwell's emails, smiling through his boardroom humiliations, laundering his secrets into a down payment. Her parents' inheritance moldered in a vault, its key buried with the girl who'd wept over a melted engagement ring.
Columbia's summa cum laude hadn't been mere ambition—it was armor. A weapon forged to infiltrate Hartwell Industries, to stand within breathing distance of the man who'd turned corporate ruthlessness into an art form.
Sebastian Hartwell: a myth stitched from tabloid headlines and boardroom whispers. The "Wall Street Titan" who'd disemboweled competitors before breakfast, whose romantic entanglements ended in NDAs and shattered stilettos. Yet here she sat—his personal secretary, his obsession, his ruin.
It began in a parking garage slick with rain. She'd cornered him beside his Rolls-Royce, heels sinking into asphalt as she lied through her teeth.
"Clara Morgan from Admin. I want your secretary position."His glance had been a scalpel, flaying her to the bone. "You're underqualified."
"A month's trial. Fire me if I disappoint."
The car door closed on her hope. Yet the next morning, HR summoned her to the 90th floor.
For thirty days, she became a machine: memorizing his schedule down to the minute, calibrating his coffee to the exact shade of obsidian, smothering scandals before they reached his desk. He'd kept her, and she'd let herself believe in her own invisibility—a useful ghost in Prada heels.
Then came the game.
A brush of fingers when handing him contracts. A strategically loosened button during late nights. The day she'd "accidentally" smudged her lipstick on his espresso cup, his gaze had lingered a heartbeat too long. "Tread carefully, Miss Morgan," he'd warned, voice dipping into dangerous velvet. "I don't play nice with trespassers."
"Good thing I'm not here to play," she'd countered, too reckless to care.
But this was never about him.
Ethan Windsor's sneer haunted her—the boy who'd mocked her thrift-store prom dress, who'd fucked the homecoming queen in his father's study while Clara melted her future in a cereal bowl. This was about clawing her way into the kingdom that had spat her out, about becoming someone desired where she'd once been discarded.
Instead, she'd ignited a war.
Clara snapped her compact shut, the click echoing like a gunshot. Her purse yielded two necessities: a burner phone encrypted beyond Hartwell's reach, and a blister pack of birth control pills. She pocketed both, her reflection hardening into something unrecognizable.
A text flashed: Clara, dinner tonight? Mrs. Walsh made your favorite.
The Windsor Estate—a mausoleum masquerading as a home. She blocked the number, the motion practiced.
On the subway, commuters recoiled from her aura of contained fury. She rehearsed the day's lies: Yes, Mr. Hartwell. Of course, Mr. Hartwell. Anything else, Mr. Hartwell?
But as the train lurched into darkness, her phone vibrated with a Bloomberg alert: Hartwell Industries shares surge 8% pre-market on rumors of hostile takeover. A screenshot followed—Sebastian's doing, no doubt.
Her lips curved. Let him play his games. She had a different endgame in mind.
Revenge, she'd learned, was best served not cold, but scalding—and Clara Morgan had just turned up the heat.