He stood at the head of the room, top floor, Vanguard Corp, shoulders relaxed under a tailored suit. White shirt crisp. Tie loosened, just barely. A centimeter off. Intentional.
Not laziness. Not fatigue. Just enough imperfection to make them think he bled like the rest of them.
They wanted to read him.
They never could.
Light from the chandelier caught the grain of the long walnut table. The quiet whir of the projector hummed like static under the surface of silence. One click. One shift of his hand. A new slide.
"In the next six months," he said, voice low, even, threading through the room like smoke, "Vanguard will launch its newest line… Levier."
White logo. Simple. Clean. Controlled.
He didn't need to look long. The room was filled with polished predators. Senior directors, executives carved from quarterly profits and stainless steel.
All but one.
Far end. Right corner. Old man. Too-thin fingers wrapped around a glass. Watch too loud for the suit.
Blackwell.
Officially: Regional Operations Director. Unofficially: One of Darian's open doors. And not the kind that led to fashion or five-star hotels.
He moved on. Didn't linger.
One glance was enough.
"Levier is discreet luxury," he continued, pacing his voice like a metronome. "Designs that hide power beneath minimalism. Function without compromise."
Measured. Clean. Promise. Threat. Whispered between lines. And every person in that room, ruthless, expensive, jaded, listened.
A flicker ran just beneath his skin. Not excitement.
Caution.
Blackwell always brought something with him. Something invisible and sharp. Like the weight of a blade still in its sheath.
Darian kept speaking, locked in tempo.
Every word counted. Every pause weaponized. He wasn't offering a vision. He was offering a door.
And Blackwell, of course, was already halfway through.
"Prototypes will be ready in three months," Darian finished, voice cooling to finality. A soft click. "I'll be overseeing distribution personally."
The word personally wasn't protocol. It was a boundary.
Blackwell raised an eyebrow, slow. Darian didn't look at him again, but he could feel the man's smile forming like fog.
Applause followed. Polite. Expected. Hollow. Darian nodded once. A performance. Nothing more.
The meeting was over. But the real game had just begun.
The directors filtered out one by one. Footsteps echoed, expensive soles kissing marble like a quiet parade of power.
Darian stayed where he was, at the head of the table. Fingers tapping once, then again, against polished wood. Unhurried. Not dismissing. Just... waiting.
Until she was the only one left.
Violette.
Slim in pastel, a sharp silhouette dressed soft. Pomegranate lips curved into something that resembled a smile, but didn't quite qualify.
She moved closer. Smooth steps. The kind that never rushed.
"Well," she said, sweetly, too sweet…"another masterpiece, Mr. Gravelle."
He didn't turn. Just shifted his gaze to the window's reflection. Saw her there, composed. Calculated.
Luxury sprayed too thick.
He said nothing.
Let silence stretch just far enough to make it uncomfortable. Violette didn't flinch. She never did.
"You know," she added, voice light, "you could be so much more... if you wanted."
That made him look. Just slightly. A sliver of a smile at the corner of his mouth, hollow, unreadable.
"If I wanted," he echoed. Quiet. Rough around the edges. Almost a tease.
Almost.
But closer to a warning. She tilted her head, subtle. Their eyes met, held. A moment too hot, too cold.
Perfectly misaligned. Like gasoline and flame. Both knowing. Neither trusting. Before it could turn into something more, his phone buzzed.
A single vibration. Long. Custom tone. He didn't glance at her again. "Excuse me," he said simply, already pulling the phone out.
That tone meant something. He stepped away, her gaze clinging like static at his back.
Answered.
"Gravelle," his voice low, clipped. On the other end, gravel and smoke.
"Little problem," the man said. "Needs your hand." Darian stilled. Not visibly. Not audibly. Just... felt.
"Define little," he replied, voice dry, shoulders angling toward the window like he could press himself deeper into glass.
A short laugh followed. Flat. Familiar. "Nothing you haven't cleaned up before, kid." One word slipped through. Deliberate. Private.
Kid.
He gripped the phone tighter.
"Fifteen minutes," he said, then hung up. No goodbye.
The screen went black. His gaze narrowed, not out of anger. Not quite. Impatience. He could tolerate a lot. But not messes he didn't make.
And if his blood moved just a little faster, it wasn't fear. Wasn't dread. It was instinct.
Every Gravelle was raised to wipe blood clean before it had time to dry.
He drew a short breath. Quiet. Measured. Then turned back to the meeting room.
Violette was still there, of course she was, one brow lifted like she'd been waiting just for this.
Darian rolled his shoulders. Small movement. Barely visible. "Urgent matter," he said, calm.
No elaboration. No apology.
She tilted her head. Cat-like. Like she'd caught a strange scent she couldn't name. Her lips curved, sharp, deliberate.
"Of course," she said sweetly. "Your secrets are safe with me." He didn't sigh, though his lungs itched for it. Not because he feared her.
Violette knew the line. She just enjoyed toeing it. "Good," he replied, clipped. Then he walked out.
Controlled pace. Shoes silent against marble. The hallway stretched ahead, sterile and polished, humming faintly with distant elevator noise.
He didn't wait. Took the stairs. Faster. The next floor down, cleaner air, colder light. He turned a corner, barely registering…
Until someone appeared. Not a director. Not staff. Eris Moreau. He almost stopped. Almost. But instinct intervened. Slowed his steps instead. Subtle. Contained.
Just enough to look.
Just enough to see.
Caramel hair, a little too messy. Slim figure, sharp eyes, though right now, her face read somewhere between lost and pissed.
Alive.
Too alive.
More dangerous than anything he'd left behind upstairs. She stormed down the hall, heels clicking like gunfire. Breath ragged. Cursing under it.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
She needed to vanish before someone asked why she looked like she'd just been chewed up and spat out by the universe.
Naturally, the universe doubled down. She turned, and nearly crashed into someone. Tall. Clean-cut. Expensive.
Darian Gravelle.
Second shit of the day. Eris pulled back half a step. Almost stumbled. Didn't fall.
Thank God.
Falling would've meant eternal humiliation. His eyes landed on her. Steel-grey. Calm. Too calm. She fiddled with her watch strap like it needed fixing.
It didn't. He said nothing. Just looked.
The kind of look that scraped skin without touching it. Like being unwrapped and inventoried.
"Excuse me," she muttered. Half-growled.
Their eyes met. Brief. Sharp.
Burned.
He tilted his head, barely. Something twitched at the corner of his mouth.
Not a smile. Not anger. Just... something. Something that made her want to smash her laptop into his perfect face and run.
She didn't.
Just walked past him. Fast. Knees steady, steps louder than they needed to be. But her chest wouldn't stop pounding like war drums.
And even after she rounded the corner, she felt it. His stare. Still there. Still stripping her down.
Goddamn.
Why did it feel like she just lost a round...
...without even stepping into the ring?
She could still feel it.
The ghost of his stare, clinging to the back of her neck like leftover heat in a crowded elevator.
God. Get it together.
Eris shoved the door to the Corporate Strategy team room open with a little too much force, whatever. Not the time for a meltdown. Especially not the kind that involved locking eyes with her CEO like some hormonal teenager catching her first whiff of cologne and power.
Hell. No.
She took a shallow breath, fingers twitching to fix her already-disaster hair, a lost cause, honestly, and stepped inside.
The room was buzzing.
Way more crowded than she remembered. Back when she was just an intern, it was a graveyard, three people max, two of them barely conscious and neck-deep in PowerPoints. Now? Full-blown hive.
Her name was printed on a neat little label in front of a monitor. Eris Moreau. Junior Analyst. Junior. Cute. Still, it was real. A real damn job.
She moved through the room like she belonged, offering clipped nods, a faint smile here and there, noncommittal, polite. No time for chitchat. Eyes scanning fast, who looked safe, who looked like they'd eat interns for sport.
Mental notes. Prioritize survival. Build alliances. Or at least know who to avoid at the coffee machine.
She dropped her bag under the desk, pulled the chair out, sat. The second her fingers touched the laptop keyboard, her mind slipped.
Just for a second.
Flash.
HR office. That weirdly bright lighting. The recruiter's face stretched into a plastic smile, voice sugarcoated to the point of rot.
"We've decided to bring you on board full-time, Miss Moreau. Congratulations." Like expecting a bullet and getting a party popper.
She remembered blinking. Once. Twice. Relief, yes. But also something else, crawling just under her skin. Doubt?
Not because she didn't deserve it, please. She bled for this damn job. Stayed late. Took work that wasn't hers. Cleaned up messes no one else even noticed.
But this was Vanguard Corp. They didn't hand out contracts like candy. Especially not to the intern who had, ugh, projectile vomited near their CEO.
(Do not replay that scene. Don't)
And yet the final interview had gone… smooth. Too smooth. Suspiciously smooth.
Eris wasn't naïve. She knew how the game worked. Sometimes it wasn't just about clean charts and tidy KPIs. Sometimes it was about who noticed you.
Who saw... potential. Or something else. She clenched her jaw, smothering a dark laugh. If that's what it took, fine. She wasn't here for fairy tales. She was here for money.
She typed in her password, screen flickering to life. Task list: two meetings, one competitor report, one research brief.
Focus, Eris.
If the world wanted to play dirty, she'd respond in kind, but with polish. With three-inch heels and Excel sheets sharp enough to draw blood.
She started typing. Fast. Clean. Efficient.
And for a moment, just one, she could almost forget how that gray-eyed bastard had looked at her.
Almost.
Goddamn it.
"Well, well, if it isn't the legendary intern."
The voice slid over from the desk beside hers, too close for comfort during work hours, but casual like it was happy hour.
Eris turned her head, bracing herself to throw on a poker face. What she got instead?
Adam.
Senior analyst. Laid-back, with a blue shirt rolled up at the sleeves like he cared more about the bar than the KPIs. His tie hung loose, like he'd forgotten it even existed, just the way he wanted it.
"Congratulations," Adam drawled, his grin crooked and knowing. "You've officially leveled up. Welcome to the gladiator ring."
Eris raised a brow. "Gladiator? Sounds a bit dramatic."
She kept it light, but her brain was already clicking. Adam. Flirty. A little dangerous, but only in that low-key way that made him more manageable than he thought he was. The kind who liked to flirt more than sabotage. Noted.
Adam chuckled, leaning back against his desk and pointing to her screen. "If you need a personal tutor on how to navigate office politics, you know where to find me."
Right. On the list of "people to keep an eye on with a sweet smile." Before she could fire back, a softer voice drifted in.
"Eris, congrats..."
Mira.
Eris turned, meeting the soft brown eyes and the sweet smile that could melt the coldest hearts.
If Vanguard Corp was a concrete jungle, Mira was a rabbit. Pure, innocent, no clue how she survived in this place.
"Thanks, Mira," Eris replied, her smile more genuine this time. Mira gave a little bow of her head, her warmth radiating like sunshine. No strings attached, no hidden agendas.
And then there was Clara, who had been glued to her phone in the corner, suddenly looked up and chirped without a care.
"Yaaay, finally some fresh gossip for the team!" she said, voice too chipper, like she just got a lollipop.
Eris suppressed a soft huff. Great. Now she had a new title: fuel for the rumor mill.
Adam chuckled quietly, and Mira looked like she wanted to defend her but was too sweet to speak up.
The others? They were too busy. Some plugged into headsets, pretending to drown in spreadsheets. Others typing away like their emails were life-or-death, fingers moving like they were racing the clock.
This office, Eris thought, was a weird mix of a battlefield and a zoo. She could survive this. She would survive.
With three-inch heels, Excel sheets sharp enough to cut through steel, and a smile sweet enough to kill someone slowly.
Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she settled into the new rhythm.
Outside the window, glass buildings reflected the harsh afternoon light. A flash of bright, almost cruel.
Welcome to the jungle, Eris. Play pretty. Play hard. Play until everyone realizes, she wasn't just a wildflower growing in the cracks.
She was a thorn. Ready to stab anyone who grabbed too tight.