Alicia's POV
The morning light slipped through the high-rise blinds like an accusation.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling for a full minute before daring to move. My body was still buzzing from last night, though not in the way it should have been. No, there hadn't been sex. Not technically. But the way Liam Knight looked at me, spoke to me, touched my chin like he owned it…..hell, like he owned me…..had left my skin flushed and my thighs aching with memory.
I rolled over and groaned into the pillow. What the hell was I doing?
I wasn't the kind of girl who got tangled up in billionaire games or smudged-lipstick penthouse drama. I was here to work. To prove myself. To build something that wasn't dependent on my curves or the stupid fact that Liam Knight used to kiss me like I was the answer to a question he hadn't dared ask.
Seven years ago, he'd wrecked me.
Now, it felt like he was about to do it again… just more slowly. More cruelly. More completely.
I sat up and swung my legs out of bed, grounding myself on the cold floor. Focus, Alicia. Just get through today. No more folder-snooping. No more secret elevator visits. No more whiskey-voiced billionaires staring into your soul.
Just work.
By 6:45 a.m., I was back at KnightCorp, dressed to the nines in a navy pencil skirt and silk blouse, hair sleek, clipboard in hand like a damn shield.
"Morning," one of the other assistants whispered as we passed in the hall. She looked at me like I was marked. Like she knew something happened.
Did everyone know? Could they smell it on me? that forbidden air of something intimate, something stupid?
I told myself it didn't matter. Ms. Delacroix gave me my first assignment the moment I stepped in.
"You'll be assisting on a confidential internal audit today," she said, clicking across the marble floors in stilettos that could kill a man. "Mr. Knight specifically asked for you."
My heart dropped. Or maybe it shot into my throat, I wasn't sure.
"Audit?" I repeated, trying to keep my voice level. "As in… finance?"
"No," she said, handing me a leather-bound folder. "As in loyalty."
Loyalty?
Before I could ask what the hell that meant, she was gone, heels echoing like a countdown.
I was led to a glass-walled room two floors down from the penthouse.... sleek, sterile, and lined with files. A man in a grey suit was already there, face unreadable, posture military. He gestured to the folder I was clutching.
"Inside are five employee profiles," he said. "KnightCorp suspects a leak. One of them is feeding confidential data to a rival firm. Your task is to review behavioral anomalies and flag anything suspicious."
I blinked. "You want me to investigate employees?"
"Mr. Knight believes you have… insight. A fresh perspective."
My stomach knotted. This was a test. A real one. One with consequences.
I opened the folder and began scanning.
And then I saw her.
The redhead from last night.
Her name: Harper Lang.
Department: Legal Liaison.
Shit.
Her photo stared back at me, all smudged lipstick and secrets.
Coincidence? Or a trap?
By 1 p.m., I was exhausted. My head throbbed from cross-checking call logs, timestamps, and HR reports. But something wasn't adding up there were whispers in the data, fragments of something bigger.
I needed to get air.
I slipped out, found the executive break lounge, and leaned against the counter with a coffee that tasted like asphalt. My nerves were fried.
"Alicia." I froze.
That voice again like honey and heat and trouble. I turned.
Liam Knight stood by the doorway, dressed in black today. No tie. Top button undone. Casual in a way that still screamed dominance.
"How's the audit?" he asked, stepping into my space without hesitation.
"I didn't realize I was a spy," I said, arms crossing.
"You're not," he replied smoothly. "You're my lens. Clean. Untouched. You see things my people overlook."
"And what if I see something I'm not supposed to?"
He leaned closer, his voice low. "Then you close the folder. And bring it to me."
My breath caught.
This man was a master manipulator. But damn if he didn't do it beautifully.
"You're pulling me into something I don't understand," I whispered.
He smirked. "That's the point."
Then he reached behind me to grab a glass, I thought. But his fingers brushed my hip, slow and deliberate, and I swore my knees almost buckled.
"You still tremble," he murmured.
"I'm not trembling," I lied.
He turned and left, just like that.
Leaving me standing there, heart in my throat, coffee forgotten.
And on the lounge table behind me where I hadn't noticed before sat a single item:
A manila folder.
My name printed on the tab.
I didn't touch it.
Not yet.
Liam's POV
She still wore navy when she was nervous.
Alicia Blake, standing by the break lounge counter, hands wrapped around a mug like it was the only thing keeping her grounded. She didn't know I'd been watching her long before she stepped through the doors of KnightCorp. Seven years ago, she'd burned herself into my memory like the scent of jasmine on a lightning storm. Untouchable then, Unavoidable now.
I didn't hire her to play secretary. I hired her because she was the only wild card I couldn't predict and the only one I wanted to. Every move she made stirred a part of me I had long buried beneath contracts, wealth, and silence.
And today? Today was about seeing how far she'd go before she snapped.
"She's in," Delacroix said earlier that morning. "Started reviewing profiles without hesitation."
"Good," I muttered, not looking up from my screen. "She needs to feel the weight."
"She'll figure out Harper."
"She's meant to."
A pause.
"And the folder with her name?"
"She'll find it before the end of the day," I said, leaning back in my chair. "Make sure it's the original. No redactions."
Delacroix gave me a look....sharp, professional, almost maternal. "You're walking a line, Liam."
"I built the damn line," I said coldly. "Now I'm testing who deserves to stand on it."
Back to the lounge.
I watched her body tense the moment she felt me.
Good. That tension was honesty. That hesitation? Pure. Alicia always wore her heart where I could read it on her lips, in the way her lashes fluttered when I came too close.
I stepped into her space not out of impulse, but strategy.
Control.
I asked about the audit. Saw the way her mouth tightened.
"You see things my people overlook," I told her.
Which was true. But not the whole truth.
She wasn't just my lens.
She was my storm.
The closer she got to the truth, the more chaos she would stir. In my world. In herself.
I let my fingers trail across her hip as I reached behind her for a glass I didn't need.
The tremble in her breath was almost better than a scream.
"You still tremble," I whispered.
She denied it. Of course she did.
I left without waiting for her answer. I didn't need it.
Inside my private office, I watched the surveillance feed of her discovering the manila folder.
She didn't touch it yet.
Smart girl.
Her name on that tab wasn't just theatrics. That folder contained everything I had on her background, history, her previous employer, her high school and university scholarship, her mother and brother, the fact she almost didn't finish university. I knew she'd skipped meals to pay for books and care for her family. I knew she once applied for a night job as a bottle girl at Obsidian and then withdrew the application after we met and parted.
And still! she intrigued me.
She was strong, stubborn, loyal to a fault.
But I needed to know her limits. What she'd do when backed against a wall. What she'd choose? herself or me. Truth or protection. Love or survival.
The intercom buzzed.
"Mr. Knight," came Ms. Delacroix's voice. "Alicia is requesting your presence at the audit room." I allowed myself a slow smile.
She'd touched the folder.
Curiosity was the first crack in loyalty.
And once she started digging…
There'd be no climbing back out. Exactly how I wanted it.