The moment the door opened, something in the air snapped so fast I thought the world tilted beneath my chair. I looked up, just to be polite, just to pretend I was a normal new hire on a normal morning, but the second my eyes landed on him my breath knotted inside my throat.
Damon.
My stomach plunged so sharply I almost gripped the desk. For a heartbeat I convinced myself I was imagining him, that the light was playing tricks, that the alcohol I'd tried so hard to forget was crawling back into my bloodstream and creating hallucinations. I blinked once. Twice. He was still there.
His eyes hit me like a physical force and I swear the room shrank. My skin reacted before my brain did, heat creeping up my neck, the metallic taste of shock pooling under my tongue. Maybe I whispered something. Maybe I only inhaled wrong. I couldn't tell. My pulse pounded in my ears so loudly it felt like the building was shaking.
He didn't move. He didn't breathe. He just stared.
I felt naked again. Not literally. Worse. That kind of naked where your soul is suddenly on the wrong side of your skin, exposed and trembling and stupidly aware of every inch of you he had touched even though I didn't want to remember that. Not here. Not now. God. Why now.
I swallowed, and it hurt. "Good morning, sir." My voice came out thin and strange, like it didn't belong to me. Like I had borrowed it from someone braver.
His jaw tightened, and his eyes flicked down my face as if he needed to confirm I was real. There was something raw in the way he looked at me. Something searching. Something dangerous. He took one step forward and the soft sound of his shoe on the marble floor made my spine snap straighter.
I tried to break eye contact. Couldn't. My body refused to obey me.
Maybe because I remembered the way he breathed against my shoulder last night. The way he said a name that wasn't mine. Liana. God. What did that even mean. Why did he look at me like he was staring at a ghost he used to kiss.
I forced my eyes down to the folder in front of me. Words swam. My fingers shook so much I slipped the paper slightly out of alignment and fixed it twice because it gave my hands something to do besides tremble.
I could feel him walking closer. Not from the sound. From the way the air thickened around me. From the sudden scent of him drifting in, that clean, deep cologne with a hint of something sharper. Maybe cedar. Maybe sin. My throat tightened hard.
"Aria." He said my name like he had known it for years. Like it wasn't brand new information from thirty seconds ago. Like he had tasted it before. His voice was lower today, rougher, scraping along my skin.
I nodded. Tiny. Mechanical. My palms damp.
Do not remember last night. Do not remember his hands. Do not remember anything.
Daniel looked between us, confused, then quickly excused himself into his office like he felt the tension press against the walls.
The glass door clicked shut behind him and suddenly it was just the two of us, in a silence so sharp I thought it might cut me open.
He walked past me slowly, almost cautiously, as if I might vanish again. He opened the door to his office but didn't enter. Instead he stood there with his hand on the doorknob, eyes never leaving me.
"You work here." The way he said it made me feel like I was doing something forbidden. Like I had walked into a room I was never supposed to enter.
"Yes," I whispered. It was embarrassing how breathless I sounded.
He didn't blink. "You left before I woke up."
My lungs froze. My fingers curled against the desk until they ached. "I… had to go."
I didn't know what else to say. What apology existed for running out on a stranger whose name I didn't even know at the time. For pretending nothing happened when everything did.
His gaze softened for half a second. Then hardened again. "And now you're here."
"I didn't know you were the CEO," I whispered too quickly, too defensively, as if the universe would suddenly rewind and undo it if I explained fast enough. "I didn't come here because of you. I swear I didn't. I didn't even know your name."
He stepped forward. Barely. But it was enough to send my heartbeat into a painful sprint.
"I know," he murmured. "And that's the only reason I'm still standing here trying to make sense of any of this."
His voice dropped even lower, and my stomach twisted painfully.
"You look like someone I knew," he said slowly. "Someone I lost."
My throat closed. Liana. That name he whispered last night. I felt the cold edge of panic crawl up my spine. He wasn't looking at me like I was me. He was looking at me like I was her.
Before I could form words, someone knocked on the outer door behind me. Hard. Urgent.
Damon's head snapped toward the sound, and his expression turned sharp, protective, almost territorial. His whole posture changed like a switch had flipped.
Daniel's voice came through, breathless. "Sir. You need to see this. Immediately."
Damon didn't move right away. His eyes stayed locked on mine for one last burning second.
"Do not go anywhere," he said quietly. Not a threat. Not a request. Something heavier.
He turned and disappeared into his office. Daniel followed, shutting the door behind them with a click that echoed through my bones.
I sat frozen at my desk, body buzzing with leftover adrenaline, heart kicking against my ribs. Every breath felt wrong. Too shallow. Too shaky. I kept trying to convince myself I was fine but my brain wouldn't stop repeating the same frantic loop.
He recognized me. He shouldn't. He shouldn't. He shouldn't.
Seconds passed. Maybe minutes. I couldn't tell.
Then the glass door burst open so suddenly I flinched back from my chair.
Damon stood there, face tight with something I couldn't read. Something fierce. Something dangerous. His eyes pinned me in place.
"Aria," he said, voice low and unsteady in a way that terrified me. "You need to come inside. Right now."
My pulse spiked. "Why. What's happening."
He didn't answer.
He just held the door open, waiting.
And behind him, on his office screen, I caught a glimpse of something that made my blood run cold.
A blurry photograph.
A dark street.
A familiar silhouette stepping out of a cab.
My silhouette.
And a timestamp from last night's club.
Someone had been watching me. Someone had taken the picture. Someone had sent it to Damon.
My breath tripped.
Damon's jaw clenched as he looked at me, eyes burning with an intensity that made my stomach drop.
"Come inside," he repeated, softer but far more dangerous.
"We have a problem."