The door to his office should feel familiar by now.
Three years. Three thousand days of walking through this door, placing his coffee on his desk (one sugar, light cream, exactly thirty seconds in the microwave), and preparing for whatever crisis or conquest he's focused on this week.
But as I stand here in the sealed conference room, my entire world crumbling around me, I realize I can trace this obsession back to a single moment. A moment when everything changed. When he decided I was going to be his, and I was too naive to understand what that meant.
The memory hits me with the force of a physical blow.
THREE YEARS AGO: THE INTERVIEW
I was twenty-five years old and completely desperate.
I'd just graduated from university with a business degree and no connections in a city full of people who had family money and insider access. I'd applied to forty-three positions. I'd been rejected by forty-two.
Sterling Corp was my last chance. Their job posting was vague—"Personal Assistant to CEO"—but the salary was astronomical. Life-changing. It was the kind of money that would let me help my mother with her medical bills and finally move out of my shared apartment and maybe, just maybe, breathe for the first time since my father died.
I wore my best interview suit—navy blue, tailored to fit my body as professionally as possible—and I arrived fifteen minutes early.
The receptionist told me Dominic Ashford would see me in his personal office. Not a conference room. Not an HR department. His private space.
That should have been my first warning.
His office was massive. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, a desk that probably cost more than my yearly salary, and him. Dominic Ashford, at thirty-two years old, was already a legend. He'd taken over his father's company at twenty-eight and tripled its value in four years. He was ruthless, brilliant, completely untouchable.
He was also stunningly beautiful in a way that made me lose my train of thought the moment I walked into the room.
He didn't stand when I entered. He just looked up from his desk with dark eyes that seemed to catalog everything about me in a single glance. My clothes. My hair. The way my hands were shaking slightly because I was terrified and hopeful simultaneously.
"Bella Chen," he said, reading my application. "University of Toronto. Business degree. No relevant experience."
It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact, delivered with the precision of someone used to identifying weaknesses.
"That's correct," I said, sitting across from him because he didn't invite me to and I needed to establish some form of control in this situation. "But I'm a fast learner. And I'm not afraid of hard work."
Something flickered across his face. A small smile, barely perceptible, like I'd just done something that amused him.
"Tell me why I should hire you," he said, leaning back in his chair like he had all the time in the world to hear my pitch.
I should have given him the standard answer. Should have talked about my organizational skills, my attention to detail, my ability to anticipate needs. Those are the things you say in interviews to people with power.
But something about his confidence—his absolute certainty that he was untouchable—made me reckless.
"Because your company's profit margins are suffering because your strategy is too aggressive," I said. "You're expanding too fast into markets you don't understand. You're taking calculated risks that are starting to look less calculated and more desperate."
His expression didn't change, but his eyes went absolutely dark.
I kept going, too far gone to stop myself. "You need someone who will tell you when you're wrong. Someone who isn't afraid of you. Someone who will challenge you instead of just executing your vision blindly."
The silence stretched between us like a living thing.
And then he smiled.
It was a real smile—the kind that reaches the eyes. The kind that suggests he'd just found something precious he didn't know he was looking for.
"You're hired," he said simply. "You start Monday."
I blinked. "Don't you want to interview other candidates?"
"No." He stood, and I realized how tall he was. How his presence seemed to fill the entire office. "You're the one I want."
That was the first moment I should have understood: when a man like Dominic Ashford says you're the one he wants, it's not a compliment. It's a claim.
YEAR ONE: THE WATCHING
The first few months were normal.
Or as normal as working for a CEO can be. Long hours. Demanding projects. The kind of intensity that makes you question your sanity on a weekly basis. But I was good at it. I anticipated his needs before he articulated them. I learned his preferences, his patterns, his moods. I became indispensable.
Except somewhere around month four, I realized something was wrong.
He knew things about me that I'd never told him.
"You'll want to take your break at 3 PM," he said one afternoon, "before the afternoon light starts to give you a headache."
I froze. "How did you know about my headaches?"
"The eighth floor," he said casually, not looking up from his computer. "You rub your temples every time you work up there. And you always schedule your calls for lower floors. You thought no one noticed. I notice everything about you."
It should have felt creepy. It probably should have sent me running to HR with a harassment complaint.
Instead, it felt like being seen. Like someone finally understood the small things that made me me.
He started doing things that seemed thoughtful but were actually possessive. He'd have my coffee made exactly the way I liked it before I arrived. He'd adjust the conference room temperature because he'd observed that I got cold easily. He'd clear his schedule when I was working late, just to be there. Just to be near me.
"Why do you stay so late when I'm here?" I finally asked one night, around 9 PM, when I was the only two people left on the floor.
"Because you work harder when I'm here," he said simply. "And I like watching you work."
The words should have alarmed me.
They didn't.
THE RED DRESS DAY
It was a Tuesday in month seven when everything shifted into something darker.
I wore a red dress to work. Not provocatively—it was professional, tasteful, just a little bolder than my usual color palette. I'd bought it on sale and I felt good in it. That was the only reason.
The moment Dominic saw me in the conference room during the morning meeting, something changed in his expression. His jaw tightened. His eyes darkened. He went absolutely still.
"Cancel the rest of today's meetings," he said to his assistant without breaking eye contact with me. "Everyone out."
The board members exchanged confused glances, but they stood and filed out. No one questions Dominic Ashford.
When we were alone, he walked toward me slowly, deliberately.
"Don't wear that color again," he said, his voice rough in a way I'd never heard before.
"Excuse me?"
"The dress." His eyes moved down my body and back up to my face. "It's distracting. And I don't share my attention, Bella. You have it completely, or not at all."
"It's just a dress—"
"It's not." He reached out and traced the line of my collarbone with his finger, never quite touching but close enough that I felt the heat of his skin. "It makes you visible in a way that draws attention. And I'm the only one who should be looking at you like this."
"Like what?" My voice came out as a whisper.
"Like you're mine."
He left his hand hovering there, close but not touching, for what felt like forever. Then he stepped back and returned to his desk like nothing had happened.
"Get back to work, Bella."
But everything had happened. Everything had changed. In that moment, I understood that what was developing between us wasn't just obsession from his side. It was beginning to become obsession on mine too.
THE NIGHT HE WATCHED ME SLEEP
Month nine.
I'd been working on a crisis acquisition—a company that was bleeding money and needed to be absorbed or shut down completely. Dominic wanted it absorbed. The due diligence was nightmare-inducing. Thousands of pages of financial documents. Numbers that didn't add up. Red flags everywhere.
I was determined to find a way to make it work.
I fell asleep at my desk around 3 AM, my head resting on a stack of documents, my body finally giving up the fight to stay conscious.
I woke to find him watching me.
Dominic was sitting in the chair across from my desk, illuminated by the city lights streaming through the windows, just... watching me sleep.
I should have been terrified. I should have called security.
Instead, I registered that he'd removed my heels—my feet were bare on the cool floor. And his suit jacket was draped over my shoulders like a blanket.
"How long have you been sitting there?" My voice was rough with sleep.
"A while." He didn't look away from my face. "You looked cold. I didn't want you to be uncomfortable."
But his eyes said something completely different. His eyes said he'd been watching me the way a predator watches prey. With hunger. With possession. With absolute certainty that I belonged to him.
"Dominic, this is—"
"Inappropriate?" He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Probably. But I stopped caring about appropriate a few months ago, Bella. The moment I realized I was obsessed with you."
He said it so casually. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like obsession wasn't a warning sign but a declaration of love.
"You're my boss—"
"I'm aware." He stood and extended his hand. "Come on. I'm taking you to my apartment. You need real sleep. And I need you where I can see you."
I should have refused. I should have called a car and gone home to my tiny apartment and started looking for another job because this was clearly crossing every professional line that existed.
I took his hand.
THE REALIZATION
Three years.
I've spent three years letting him slowly consume my life. Three years of believing that his obsession with me was love. Three years of convincing myself that the way he watches me, monitors me, controls my environment is somehow romantic.
And now, standing in the sealed conference room with an ultimatum before me, I finally understand:
There is no difference between obsession and possession when you're the object of that obsession.
He doesn't love me. He owns me.
And the most terrifying part? I'm not sure I know how to exist without being owned by him anymore.
The memory of him watching me sleep flashes through my mind. His suit jacket around my shoulders. His eyes burning with possession. His hand reaching out to touch my face.
And I realize: I've been his prisoner since day one.
I just didn't recognize the bars because they were built from intimacy and attention and the seductive certainty that he knew me better than anyone ever could.
I still don't know how to leave.