The elevator doors slid open with a polished chime that echoed faintly across the marble lobby of Bergen Global's top floor, a sound that carried far more weight than any bell had the right to. To most of the employees who rarely ventured this high, it was a noise that could twist their stomach with nerves, for this was where the king of the empire resided. The CEO's suite stood at the end of a long glass corridor, a place cloaked in equal parts prestige and rumor.
For Lilly Levine, who was in her very first week of employment at the company, the sound did not yet carry dread, only anticipation. The polished tiles reflected her careful steps as she clutched the folder of financial reports against her chest, her knuckles whitening with the effort to keep them steady. Maria, her supervisor, had handed her the task so casually, as though it were no more than fetching coffee, though Lilly knew well enough that being sent directly into Mark Bergen's office was not a privilege handed out lightly.
"Levine, take these to Mr. Bergen," Maria had said, her tone clipped but her eyes carrying something unreadable, a flicker that could have been amusement. Lilly had been too eager to impress to analyze it. She had smoothed her skirt, nodded quickly, and taken the file with the earnest smile of someone who had not yet learned the darker language of corporate games.
Now, with each step that carried her closer to the frosted glass doors marked with "CEO", her heartbeat grew sharper, like the roll of distant thunder. She had never seen Mark Bergen in person, only from photographs and company bulletins, the way the media sometimes splashed his image across articles like a young mogul, dangerously handsome, married too early, but unwilling to tame himself. The stories of his wandering eyes, of the women who drifted into his orbit, had already brushed her ears in whispers around the office kitchen. Still, they felt like stories belonging to someone else's world. Surely none of it could matter to her.
When she reached his door, her reflection stared back at her faintly in the glass: wide hazel eyes framed by a fall of chestnut hair, lips pressed together in determination. She exhaled, lifted her hand, and knocked softly. For a heartbeat, there was silence, the kind that stretches thin and taut, then a deep voice rolled from within, low, commanding, wrapped in a husky edge that made her breath falter.
"Come for me."
The words were velvet dragged over steel, intimate in a way that seared through her skin. She hesitated, pulse stuttering, but reason told her he must have meant come in. She reached for the handle, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped across the threshold.
What she saw rooted her to the spot.
The CEO of Bergen Global was not sitting behind his imposing mahogany desk reviewing reports, nor standing at the window that overlooked the city skyline. Instead, Mark Bergen was leaning back in his leather chair, his shirt halfway undone, his powerful frame flexed with movement as Luna Bernard, the glamorous director from marketing, straddled his lap. Papers were scattered across the floor like careless confetti, and the sound of muffled moans tangled with the soft creak of furniture.
Lilly's lungs seized as though the air had turned to smoke. For a fraction of a second, her mind refused to process, but then reality hit with scorching clarity. The voice she had obeyed had not been meant for her at all. The "come for me" had been his command to the woman clinging to him, not an invitation to step inside.
Mark's head tilted at the disturbance, his sharp, dark, and predatory eyes snapping toward the doorway. For one endless beat, their gazes collided. He did not stop, did not break rhythm, as though the intrusion was nothing but an inconvenience, yet something dangerous flickered in those eyes, recognition of prey caught where it should not be.
Lilly's stomach lurched violently. Heat shot to her face, not the warmth of desire but the blistering burn of humiliation. She could not breathe. She dropped the folder onto the nearest side table, the slap of paper against wood too loud in the charged silence, and without a word, she spun on her heel, nearly colliding with the doorframe as she fled.
Her heels clattered against the polished corridor, echoing her frantic heartbeat. She stabbed at the elevator button, her reflection in the steel doors pale and wild-eyed. When the doors finally opened, she slipped inside, pressing herself into the corner as if the glass walls could swallow her whole. Her chest rose and fell in sharp waves, her skin prickling as though branded by what she had seen.
The image would not leave her. His hand gripping Luna's waist, the way his shirt fell open across the sculpted lines of his chest, the husky sound of his voice. She hated that it lingered, hated the way her body responded with a heat she did not understand. She whispered to herself, desperate to anchor her thoughts: You saw nothing. You heard nothing. You'll never step near that office again.