Iris’s POV
The next week was a slow, exhausting kind of torture.
During the day, the Department treated me like I was invisible.
Nobody asked for my input on projects, and nobody invited me to the main meetings.
Instead, Marcus made sure my desk stayed piled high with mind-numbing errands.
I spent hours sorting old tax receipts, carrying boxes of printer paper up the stairs, and hunting down coffee orders for people who wouldn’t even look me in the eye.
But that heavy, suffocating weight of the office dissolved the second I climbed into Ryder’s car closing hours.
He’d slowly become my escape.
We found quiet, hidden restaurants downtown where nobody from high society could spot us, and took long walks through the park.
One night, we even hid in the back row of a dark movie theater, sharing a massive tub of popcorn while his arm rested casually behind my shoulders.
With Ryder, I could finally breathe.
It was that Friday night the ticking clock in my head grew too loud I couldn’t ignore.
I only had three weeks left to close a major contract, or Marcus would throw me out of the building.
We were sitting in a quiet, dimly lit booth at a late-night diner.
Ryder was nursing a cup of tea, his eyes fixed on me as I mindlessly stirred my straw around my glass.
“You’re quiet tonight,” he murmured, his deep voice cutting through the soft background music.
“What’s on your mind?”
I let out a long sigh, dropping my hands to the table.
I was tired of acting like everything was fine.
I needed help, and Ryder was the smartest businessman I knew.
“I’m stuck, Ryder,” I admitted, looking up to meet his gaze.
“My leader Marcus gave me an ultimatum on my first day. If I don’t bring in a major contract within a month, he’s going to fire me for incompetence. And right now, the entire department is freezing me out. I can’t even get my computer to load a spreadsheet, let alone pitch to a client.”
Ryder didn’t look surprised.
He just leaned back against the leather seat.
“He gave you an impossible target so he can get rid of you legally. If you want to survive in that building, you only have two real options.”
I leaned forward, my heart beating a little faster.
“Which are?”
”First option: find some leverage,” Ryder said, holding up a finger.
“Find something he’s hiding, a financial fraud, a bad contract, anything, and use it to back him into a corner so he can’t touch you.”
”And if I can’t find anything in time?”
”Then you go for the second option,” he murmured, his dark eyes locking onto mine with total confidence.
“You get a promotion. You bring in a deal so massive that it forces the board to move you up over his head. Once you widen the gap between your titles, his little thirty-day threat won’t mean a damn thing. A director can’t fire a manager who outranks him.”
I sank back against the booth, his words echoing in my mind.
He had hit the nail right on the head.
It made perfect sense.
If I wanted to protect my father’s legacy, I couldn’t just sit around playing defense and running errands.
I needed actual, undeniable results.
But as the waiter dropped off the check, a cold wave of helplessness washed right over me.
It was easy for Ryder Lancaster to talk about bringing in a massive corporate deal.
He owned the city.
But me?
I was just starting out.
I didn’t have a network.
I didn’t know a single high-level developer, and I didn’t have any connections in the engineering world.
I stared out the window at the passing headlights, my chest tightening with anxiety.
Where the hell was a regular girl like me supposed to just find a multi-million-dollar deal in three weeks?
A cold sensation prickled down my spine.
Through the haze of sleep, I felt a heavy, suffusing shadow looming over the bed.
Before my brain could even process what was happening, a strong presence leaned over me. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
A wave of intense, violent disgust hit me like a physical blow.
The memory of the photos on my phone, the images of him tangled up with his man, flashed in my mind, making my stomach turn inside out.
He had just come back from his lover’s bed, and now he was leaning down, his hot breath fanning across my face as his lips moved toward mine.
My body reacted before I could even think.
My hands shot out, my nails dug deep and dragged hard across his cheekbone.
The sudden, violent strike caught him so off guard that his feet slipped.
He lost his balance completely, tumbling backward off the edge of the mattress and landing with a loud, pathetic thud on the hardwood floor.
“Ahhh! Oh my god! I’m blind!” Damian screamed.
“What the hell?!” He roared from the dark floor, clutching his face as he scrambled to his feet.
He slammed his hand against the wall switch, flooding the guest room with bright overhead light.
Three angry, red scratch marks were already swelling and bleeding across his cheek.
He glared at me, his eyes watering from the pain.
“Are you out of your mind?
Are you crazy?!
It’s just me, Iris!”
I sat up quickly, pulling the duvet tightly up to my chin, “Oh my god, Damian!” I gasped, making my voice fill with concern.
“I’m so, so sorry! I woke up and just felt this shadow over me. I thought someone had broken into the house and was trying to attack me! I didn’t know it was you!”
Damian stood there, his jaw dropping in absolute disbelief as he rubbed his bleeding cheek.
“An attacker?
You think I look like an intruder?!”
”The light was off, and you just lunged at me!” I cried, burying my face in my hands to pretend I was trembling.
“Unbelievable,” he hissed, turning on his heel and storming out of the room to find a bandage, slamming the door shut behind him.
The moment the latch clicked, I dropped my hands, looked down at my fingernails and smiled to myself.