AUTHOR
Payton’s flirting intensified, becoming a performance with only one intended audience mber. She laughed too brightly at nothing, leaning over the glossy Giorgetti table to give Reon an unnecessary view down her Chanel jacket. She was laying it on thick, a blatant, desperate display.
And Reon played along. He didn’t encourage her outright, but he didn’t stop her either. His smirk was a permanent fixture, his engagent just enough to fuel her hopes.
He offered a dry comnt here, a raised eyebrow there, making it seem like he was genuinely entertained by her vapid charm offensive.
It was a masterclass in subtle manipulation, and Payton, in all her airheaded glory, was buying every second of it.
Across the table, Paige was unraveling.
A sick, hot knot twisted in her stomach. Her palms felt clammy against the cool leather of her Herman Miller chair. The numbers on her legal pad blurred into aningless lines.
Why does this bother ? The question scread in her head. I hate him. I loathe him. This is what he does. He plays gas. So why does seeing him play one with her feel like a physical violation?
It wasn’t love. It was sothing more primal, more confusing. It was possession. It was the gut-deep reaction of seeing a tool you hate being picked up by soone else, even if you never wanted to use it yourself.
It was the sheer injustice of it—that he could reduce her to a trembling ss with a single kiss and then turn around and give that cheap, mocking smirk to her vain, ridiculous sister.
She couldn’t breathe. The air in the boardroom, once cool and filtered, now felt stifling, thick with Payton’s cloying perfu and Reon’s silent, amused betrayal.
Without a word, she stood up. The movent was too sudden, too sharp. Her chair scraped loudly against the polished concrete floor.
Both Reon and Payton stopped their little performance and looked at her. Payton’s expression was one of smug triumph. Reon’s... was unreadable. His smirk didn’t falter, but his eyes sharpened, watching her closely.
Paige didn’t et either of their gazes. She just turned and walked out, her steps a little too loud, a little too hurried in her Christian Louboutin pumps. The heavy boardroom door swung shut behind her, muting their world.
She didn’t stop. She walked straight past her desk, past the curious glances of other analysts, and headed for the bank of elevators.
Her heart was still pounding, her cheeks flushed with a confusing mix of anger and humiliation.
It was her lunch break. She needed to get out. She needed air that didn’t sll like him.
The elevator doors dinged open, an empty, silent escape. She stepped inside, pressing the button for the lobby with a trembling finger, leaving the toxic ga—and the two players—behind her.
Paige pushed open the heavy glass door of the little Italian cafe, the bell jingling softly overhead. The crisp autumn air hit her face, a welco relief after the cloying heat of espresso and stead milk.
For the first ti since fleeing the boardroom, she felt her pulse begin to slow. The short lunch break and a few monts of solitude had helped untangle the knot of emotions in her chest.
She took a deep breath, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder, and turned to head back to the office.
And walked straight into a wall of pink tweed.
"Oh!" a shrill, familiar voice exclaid.
Paige stumbled back a step. Her coffee, half-finished, sloshed precariously in its cardboard cup. Her eyes focused, and her stomach dropped.
"Fuck," she cursed under her breath, the word a sharp, quiet exhale.
Payton stood before her, a vision of calculated annoyance. She brushed a non-existent piece of lint from the sleeve of her garish Chanel suit, her nose wrinkled as if she’d slled sothing foul.
"Well, look who it is," Payton drawled, her eyes doing a slow, dismissive sweep of Paige’s simple work attire. "The junior analyst, taking a very long lunch. I suppose the coffee here is more your speed than the espresso bar in the lobby."
She took a step closer, her smile a nasty, sharp thing. "I was just on my way to see Reon again. He simply insisted we finalize the details of our new partnership. He’s so... hands-on."
The insinuation hung in the air between them, toxic and obvious. All the calm Paige had scraped together evaporated, replaced by a fresh wave of white-hot irritation. The ga was everywhere. There was no escape.
Payton’s smirk widened, a viper sensing weakness. "I’m sure he is," she purred, her voice dripping with false sympathy. "He always is, isn’t he? A man like that has... appetites. I doubt he’s very patient."
The words were a poison-tipped dart, aid straight at Paige’s deepest, most confusing insecurity. She didn’t want to think the worst, but the image flooded her mind anyway: Reon, his smirk in place, entertaining Payton’s advances, finding her vapid flirtation amusing enough to string along.
"A man like Reon Daki needs a woman who understands his world," Payton continued, her eyes glinting with malice. "You had your chance at a crown, Paige, and you threw it away for... freedom."
She said the word like it was a disease. "You deserve to be where you are. Scraping for crumbs. You should stick to peasant boys and bartenders. Leave the king to his queen."
The arrogance was so staggering, so perfectly delusional, that Paige actually choked on her sip of coffee. She sputtered, the hot liquid burning her throat.
But the shock was quickly incinerated by a white-hot fury. The mory of the night before—the demanding pressure of Reon’s mouth on hers, the raw, desperate hunger in his eyes, the possessive way he’d cupped her face—erased all doubt. That hadn’t been a ga. That had been real.
Her resolve solidified, cold and sharp.
She lowered her coffee cup, eting Payton’s gaze with a blade-sharp smile of her own. "A queen?" Paige echoed, her voice dangerously calm. "Don’t flatter yourself, Payton. You’re not a queen. You’re the pawn everyone sacrifices to protect the real players. And kings," she added, her eyes flicking over Payton’s outfit with deliberate disdain, "don’t usually settle for cheap plastic knock-offs when they have access to the real thing."
Payton’s face contorted with rage. The insult about her suit—the implication that she was the fake and Paige was the genuine article—hit its mark with devastating precision.
Her perfectly manicured hands curled into fists at her sides. For a horrifying, thrilling second, it looked like she was going to launch herself across the sidewalk and scratch Paige’s eyes out.
But before she could move, a firm hand closed around her upper arm.
"Ms. Ristone," Denki Fujii’s voice was calm, but it held an undercurrent of steel. He seed to have materialized from nowhere, his Tom Ford suit impeccable, his expression neutral. "Your car is waiting. We don’t want to keep your father waiting."
Payton whirled on him, sputtering. "She just—!"
"I’m sure it was a misunderstanding," Denki interrupted smoothly, his grip firm as he began to gently but insistently steer her away from Paige. "Let’s go."
He glanced back at Paige over his shoulder, his gaze inscrutable. "Ms. Isumi. I’ll escort you back to the office." It wasn’t an offer.
Paige watched, her heart still hamring, as Denki efficiently defused her sister and bundled her into a waiting black town car. He’d resolved the issue with chilling efficiency.
He returned to her side, his face a polite mask. "This way."
They walked in silence for half a block before Paige muttered, more to herself than to him, "Well. He did his job for once."
Denki gave a slight, non-committal hum, but said nothing. His silence felt heavier than any reply.
Paige and Denki walked the final blocks to the Daki Tech tower in a silence that felt heavier than the city’s noise. The elevator ride up was a study in contrast: Denki, perfectly composed in his Tom Ford suit, and Paige, her Alexander Wang blazer feeling less like armor and more like a costu after the sidewalk showdown.
The elevator doors slid open onto the main executive floor. The air humd with quiet efficiency. And there, in the center of the open-plan space, stood Reon.
He was holding court with a small group of senior executives, all of them nodding along to whatever point he was making.
He looked every inch the king of his domain, his charcoal Kiton suit sharp, his expression one of cool command.
As if sensing a shift in the atmosphere, his gaze flicked away from his audience. It landed first on Denki, giving a brief, acknowledging nod—a boss confirming a task was handled. Then his eyes slid to Paige.
A slow, familiar smirk touched his lips. It was a look that said he knew everything. That he’d anticipated the confrontation, the fallout, and her return. It was infuriatingly smug.
Paige’s spine went rigid. She didn’t return the look. She didn’t acknowledge his silent greeting at all. Instead, she pointedly turned her head away, her gaze fixed on a point sowhere past his shoulder.
Without a single word, without breaking her stride, she walked a wide berth around his little group. The click of her Christian Louboutin pumps on the polished concrete was loud and decisive. She didn’t look back. She just beelined straight for the sanctuary of her glass-walled office, slid inside, and closed the door with a soft but firm click.
The ssage was clear: his gas, his smirks, his manipulations with her sister—they were noted. And she wanted no part of them. For now, the battle was over. She had a spreadsheet to conquer.
The rest of the workday passed in a frosty, silent standoff. Paige buried herself in her work, her focus absolute, her gaze never once straying toward the corner office.
Every ti she replayed the image of Reon’s smirk as Payton fawned over him, a fresh wave of hot, irrational anger washed through her. It was a confusing, ssy emotion, and she hated it.
When 5 PM finally ca, she packed her things with sharp, efficient movents. She didn’t wait for him. She took the elevator down alone and was already sliding into the back of the waiting rcedes-Maybach when he erged from the building.
He got in a mont later, the car dipping with his weight. The familiar scent of his Creed Aventus cologne filled the space, a sll that now felt synonymous with conflict and confusion.
He didn’t speak imdiately, and neither did she. The silence was a heavy, living thing.
As the car pulled away from the curb, he finally broke it. His voice was a low, teasing purr in the quiet cabin.
"Rough day, Black Cat?"
Paige stared straight ahead, her jaw clenched. She didn’t reply. She didn’t even flinch.
A few blocks later, he tried again, his tone even more deliberately provocative. "Cat got your tongue?"
Nothing. She kept her eyes fixed on the traffic ahead, her posture rigid.
He waited until the car was idling at a long light. He shifted slightly in his seat, turning to look at her profile. She could feel his gaze on her.
"Fine," he murmured, the word laced with a dark, amused challenge. "Be that way. But the silence just makes wonder what you’re thinking about, Black Cat."
The third ti. Three tis he’d used the nickna, each ti trying to get a rise out of her, to break her stubborn silence.
She continued to ignore him, offering no reaction, no acknowledgnt. Her silence was her weapon. Her refusal to play his ga was the only power she had left.
The rest of the drive passed in a tense, unbroken quiet. When the car finally glided to a stop in his private garage, she pushed her door open before the driver could and walked toward the private elevator, leaving him behind without a single glance.
The ssage was clear: he could tease all he wanted. She was done listening.
The silence in the guest room was deafening. He’d followed her in, shutting the door with a soft but definitive click that echoed in the spacious, minimalist room.
The only light ca from the city skyline glowing beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting sharp lines of blue and gold across the polished concrete floor.
He ran a frustrated hand through his perfectly styled hair, ruining it. The casual, teasing mask was gone, replaced by a raw tension she’d only seen glimpses of before.
"Paige."
Her first na. Not ’Black Cat.’ Not ’Ms. Ristone.’ Just Paige. It was a shock to the system. She froze mid-step, her back to him.
He let out a short, exasperated breath. "This is childish. Are you really going to give the silent treatnt all night because of a bit of harmless flirting?"
She didn’t turn around. She just kicked off her Christian Louboutin pumps, letting them fall to the floor with two dull thuds.
She walked to the bed and sat on the edge of the pristine Frette linens, her arms crossed, finally glaring at him. The silent treatnt was clearly still in effect.
He stood in front of her, his hands on his hips, studying her. He truly didn’t seem to understand the depth of her reaction. He saw it as a ga, a minor irritation. The thought made her anger burn hotter.
A familiar, calculating glint returned to his eyes. The frustration shifted back into a weapon. The smirk reappeared, though it was tighter now.
"You know," he began, his voice dropping into that low, taunting purr that never failed to get under her skin. "If you don’t want , it’s fine. Plenty do. I’m quite the catch, or haven’t you heard?"
He let the arrogant words hang in the air, the implication clear. He was referring to Payton. To her fawning, her desperate attempts to gain his favor. He was throwing it in her face, trying to provoke a reaction.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to launch herself off the bed and strangle that smug look right off his face. How could he be so brilliant and so utterly, stupidly blind at the sa ti?
But her tongue betrayed her.
The words were out before her brain could engage, a raw, husky admission torn from the deepest, most frustrated part of her soul.
"I want you."
The three words hung in the air between them, stark and undeniable. The second she said them, her eyes widened in pure horror. Her hand flew to her mouth, as if she could physically shove the confession back in.
The smirk vanished from Reon’s face. His eyes widened, all traces of teasing gone, replaced by sheer, unadulterated shock.
He stared at her, completely still, as if she’d just pulled the pin on a grenade and dropped it at his feet.
The silence that followed was more terrifying than any argunt.
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