Kael's POV
I couldn't believe it. I was sitting there, fully clothed or mostly, depending on your definition and she had just walked out on me. Walked out!!. Left me alone on the bed, the sheets tangled, and my jaw still set in some primitive state of disbelief. She didn't even thank me for a job well done on bed. She threw two hundred dollars on me and left like it was the most normal thing in the world.
Normal. That word made me want to punch someone. I still have goosebumps every time I think of that night and morning. I should have done better.
It wasn't just that she had left me. I could survive that. Hell, I was supposed to survive that. I was Kael Wu. I was careful. I controlled situations. I controlled outcomes. But this… this girl had managed to insult me in a way I had never experienced. Ever. And she had done it with such casual efficiency that my brain refused to process it properly.
I had been calm during sex. Focused. Controlled. But then she left, and my mind snapped into a different kind of calculation. The kind of calculation that made me obsess. And the $200? I was ruthless most times with sex and even with that I wouldn't treat girls like that. Throwing money on them and walking out. I would give them up to $10000 or more depending on how they made me feel. So this girl basically said my performance only earned $200?
Who was she? Where did she come from? Why did she think she could throw money at me like I was some cheap, forgettable transaction?
And after a deep research, Her name… I remembered. Lina. Lina Chen.
I had dug. Oh, I dug. Every corner of the city, every social feed, every person who might have crossed paths with her. And I found it. Her. College graduate. Broke. Recently single. No family connections worth noting. And now, apparently, available to be tracked. No wonder she looked so familiar. She was my fucking junior back when I was in high school, and my favorite thing to tease and I despised her guts.
Lucky for me, she had applied to my company.
It was almost too convenient. The universe really did have a sense of humor.
I hired her myself. My eyes followed her every step through the interview, noting the little quirks she had; her posture, her nervous habit of fiddling with her hair, the tiny flare of her nostrils when she was irritated. She didn't recognize me. At least, she acted like she didn't.
That spark of anger lit a fire inside me I didn't even know I had. She thought she could play games? She thought she could ignore me, brush off the night, and pretend it never happened?
No.
Not a chance.
Every detail about her had become an obsession in the last few days. How she walked, how she spoke, how she had the audacity to leave me on the bed like I was disposable. Every time I pictured her, that little smirk she threw over her shoulder flashed in my mind, and I felt a pulse of irritation so sharp I wanted to crush something.
Now, she was walking through my office doors, about to start her first day under my supervision. I wanted her to squirm. I wanted her to feel the weight of what she had done to me. That look on her face when she realized she was under my command it would be priceless.
I had spent hours imagining it. I had imagined every possible reaction: shock, embarrassment, defiance. I didn't care which, as long as she remembered deep down that she had crossed me.
She sat down at the desk I had assigned her. I watched her from across the room, carefully pretending to review reports. But I wasn't reviewing reports. I was measuring her every reaction. Every subtle twitch, every blink, every moment she tried to act casual.
And she did it. The unthinkable. She acted like she didn't know me. Like the night, the bed, the sheets, the audacity of her leaving me there was nothing more than a hallucination she had conjured up.
My teeth clenched.
I could feel the heat in my chest, rising from irritation to full-blown fury. How dare she? How dare she act like it never happened? She had no idea what she had done, what she had unleashed.
I leaned back in my chair, keeping my expression calm, though the fire inside me was licking at every nerve. She had walked into my world, thrown money on me like I was a joke, and thought she could get away with it. And now, she was sitting there, completely oblivious or pretending to be.
I made a decision.
She wasn't going anywhere.
Every thought, every move from this point on, would revolve around her. Every assignment I gave her, every interaction, every correction, every compliment oh I had never complimented her but every reprimand it was all planned. She would remember me.