The first time Aaria Sen met Rafael Viera, he looked like a mistake she couldn't afford to make.
Her black heels clicked sharply against the marble floor of Viera Tower, each step echoing with a kind of reluctant confidence. The lobby was made of money—clean lines, glass walls, and whispers behind tailored suits. It was her first day as an intern in the empire she had no desire to be part of. But rent didn't pay itself, and secrets didn't stay buried without leverage.
She stabbed the elevator button and exhaled through her nose, clutching her tote bag like a lifeline.
Then he stepped in behind her.
She noticed the scent first—dark wood and spice, expensive and exacting. Then the weight of a gaze that seemed to slice clean through the back of her skull. The elevator doors slid shut, trapping them in silence.
She turned, out of instinct more than curiosity, and her breath caught.
The man was tall—well over six feet—with a frame sculpted by power, not vanity. His suit was ink-black, his shirt crisp white, and his face… criminally calm. As if he'd ordered the world to still itself for him. His dark eyes didn't look at her. They studied her, the way wolves might study a bleeding thing in snow.
"You're standing on my coat," he said.
His voice was velvet wrapped in a knife.
Aaria blinked and looked down. The hem of his coat had slid beneath her boot. She moved, stepping back without apology.
"You could've just said excuse me," she replied flatly, arching an eyebrow.
He finally looked her full in the face. The moment their eyes locked, something electric, unnerving, passed between them. Not attraction. Not even curiosity. Something darker. Something she couldn't name.
"I don't say things I don't mean," he said.
The elevator pinged.
She stormed out without another glance, not knowing his name, not knowing his legacy, not knowing that the man she just insulted owned the company—and very soon, would try to own her too.
—
Upstairs, Rafael Viera stepped out onto the executive floor, one hand adjusting his cufflink, the other sliding his phone from his pocket.
"Find out who she is," he said to his assistant without breaking stride.
"Who, sir?"
"The intern in the red blouse."
"...There are over fifty interns."
He stopped, turned, and spoke with the quiet command of a man used to obedience.
"Then check all fifty."
His assistant swallowed. "Yes, Mr. Viera."
Rafael's gaze drifted toward the camera feed on the hallway monitor—paused on a single frame of her walking out of the elevator.
His lips curved into something far from a smile.
"She just made things interesting."
To Be Continued...