Sienna POV
That bastard.
Before I could argue, he had pressed the intercom.
“Laura, come to my office. We have a new hire who doesn’t know the rules. Teach her.”
Laura appeared soon enough and gestured for me to go first.
Keeping my smile on, I said, “Of course. Thank you, Mr. Hawthorne,” and walked out.
My teeth were nearly ground to dust.
She was the HR manager.
I spent two hours in her department reading the handbook end to end and committing every tedious rule to memory before they sent me back up.
I stopped at Luca’s desk, deliberately keeping a meter between us.
“Mr. Hawthorne, I’ve finished studying. Is there something I can do for you?”
Luca raised his eyes, held them on my face a second, then looked at the coffee cup on his desk.
“Make me a coffee.”
I took the cup.
How he liked his coffee, of course I remembered.
A few minutes later I set it down in front of him.
“Try it.”
Luca lifted it and drank.
“Too bitter.”
”Yes.
I’ll make another.”
The second cup, half a spoon more sugar.
He tasted it.
“Too sweet.”
”You just said it was too bitter.”
He looked up at me.
“So? Bitter, add sugar. Too sweet, make another. Is there a problem?”
I drew a breath.
“No problem.”
The third cup, the ratio was wrong.
The fourth, the temperature was wrong.
By the eighth cup I was certain he wasn’t critiquing the coffee, only working me over on purpose.
I carried it back to his desk.
“Mr. Hawthorne, if you don’t want to use me, you can just say so. You don’t need to go in circles.”
Luca tapped two fingers on the desk.
“Miss Hart, you’re overthinking it. I simply don’t like you.” He looked at me.
“So you’ll have to swallow a bit of humiliation.”
I forced a decent smile.
“You don’t like me. I understand. After what happened five years ago, if I were you I wouldn’t forgive the other person so quickly either. Being unhappy is normal.”
”Unhappy?” The corner of his mouth moved.
“You think too highly of yourself. You aren’t worth an emotion from me.”
I knew that little speech hadn’t moved him.
I rearranged my expression, and when I looked up again my eyes carried the right measure of grievance.
“I know you hate me. But I’ve told you already, five years ago I didn’t have a choice. Every day after I left you I was trying to find you again, but I didn’t even know whether I would live to see the next–”
My voice dropped, and tears slid down my cheeks.
I didn’t sob, only stood there and waited for his reaction.
Luca didn’t interrupt me.
Seconds later he set down his pen.
“Finished?”
I froze.
“Then get out.” He opened his file again.
“Turn right at the door. HR will find you a desk.”
I didn’t move.
“You–”
Luca looked up.
“Something else?”
I bit my lip and said nothing.
He watched me two seconds, then spoke suddenly.
“What exactly do you expect me to feel after hearing your tragic little story?” His tone was calm.
“To pity you? Forgive you? Or to sleep with you again?”
The blood left my face.
“Miss Hart. Put away those cheap little schemes. Five years ago I was young and could be fooled by your looks. I can’t be now.”
I opened my mouth, but he had lowered his head back to his file.
“And that crying scene just now. You overdid it.”
My fingers clenched.
He didn’t look at me again.
“Shut the door.”
God damn it.
Over the following five days I formally became a Hawthorne Group employee and spent them watching the people here.
The org chart looked clean on the surface, but a fair share of the board and core management had ties to the power the Hawthorne family held in the underworld.
Further down it was different: staff in the ordinary departments were standard professional managers and employees, no different from any other large corporation.
The bad news: for a full week I never got another opening to reach Luca.
He was harder to read than five years ago.
Or was I losing my touch?
Honestly, I preferred simple jobs.
Underground fighting, stealing documents–at least the objective was clear, and once it was done it was done.
Even at the most dangerous moments I knew my next move.
Luca was different: a wall without a seam.
I probed, he didn’t move.
Even the flirtation I put on display he could take calmly and hand back untouched.
If I could just knock Luca out and take the seven million dollars off him, that would be simpler.
I considered that plan’s feasibility for two seconds.
Forget it.
Since hard wasn’t working, soft it was.
I shut down my computer and noticed the rain hammering the windows.
A crowd of employees who hadn’t left was gathered in the lobby, and my phone showed nearly every taxi nearby was queued, the shortest wait over forty minutes.
I was about to try my luck at the entrance when someone called me from behind.
“Miss Hart, still here?”
It was Ethan, the marketing director.
I’d run into him in the pantry a few times over the last few days, and every time he turned it into a little conversation.
“The rain’s too heavy. I can’t get a car.”
Ethan glanced out the window and smiled.
“My car isn’t parked far. If you don’t mind, I’ll take you home.”
I was about to answer when the elevator caught my eye.
The doors were just opening.
Luca and Theo came out, two bodyguards behind them, Theo reporting something in a low voice, Luca answering now and then.
They headed for the underground garage.
I watched his back and changed my mind.
“Then I’ll trouble you, Ethan.”
He blinked in surprise, then laughed.
“No trouble.”
He opened his umbrella, and we walked into the rain together.
I stopped when we were near the garage exit.
“Ethan, I think I left my phone in the office.”
”I’ll go back with you?”
”No need.” I shook my head, smiling.
“You go ahead. I’ll get it and head home myself.”
Ethan hesitated, then nodded.
I watched his car pull out, and the smile on my face faded.
I didn’t go back to the office; I walked behind a concrete pillar and waited.
Three minutes later, a black sedan rolled out of the underground garage.
My luck wasn’t bad tonight after all.
I stepped out from behind the pillar to the edge of the lane.
The rain soaked my hair and shoulders in seconds.
The car stopped in front of me, the rear window came down, and Luca turned his face to me.
His gaze moved from my soaked hair to my shoulders and settled on my face.
“Mr. Hawthorne.” I smiled at him through the rain.
“The rain’s too heavy, and I can’t get a car. Could you give me a ride?”