Time distorts in sealed rooms.
I don't know how long I've been standing here with my back against the glass wall and Dominic's presence consuming all the oxygen in the conference room. Minutes? Hours? It feels like both and neither simultaneously.
The building is locked down. The world outside is irrelevant. There's only him and me and the truth that neither of us can deny anymore.
He walks back to the head of the conference table and sits like we're about to discuss quarterly earnings instead of the destruction of my entire life. Like this is just another board meeting where he gets to make unilateral decisions and everyone else complies.
His fingers drum against the polished mahogany surface—a slow, deliberate rhythm that suggests he's deciding something. Planning something. Reorganizing his entire strategy based on new information.
"You want to know how long?" His voice cuts through the silence like a blade. "How long I've been like this? How long I've been watching you?"
"I don't—"
"Three years." He says it like it's a confession and a threat simultaneously. "From the moment you walked into my office for that interview."
I remember that day. I was terrified and desperate and absolutely certain I wasn't going to get the job. I wore my best suit and I tried to act confident even though I was drowning in imposter syndrome.
"You challenged me," he continues, his dark eyes never leaving my face. "You told me my profit margin strategy was inefficient. You told me I needed someone who would push back instead of just executing my vision. Do you understand what that moment was for me?"
"Dominic—"
"It was the moment I recognized myself in you." He stands and walks toward me again, that slow predatory movement that makes every nerve in my body stand at attention. "Not your intelligence. Not your ambition. Your defiance. Your refusal to accept that I'm untouchable."
He stops a breath away from me, and I can smell him—cologne and something uniquely him, something that's become as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.
"I've been making myself indispensable to you for three years, Bella." His hand reaches out, and his fingers trace the line of my jaw. "Every coffee I anticipated. Every headache I prevented. Every moment I was present when you needed presence. Every time I knew something about you before you told me. All of it was intentional."
"That's not—" My voice comes out shaky. "That's not love, Dominic. That's manipulation."
He smiles.
It's the smile of someone who's just won a chess match he's been playing for years.
"You're right." He cups my face in his hands, forcing me to maintain eye contact. "It's not love. It's possession. And I'm very good at keeping what's mine."
His words hang in the air between us like a promise and a threat wrapped into one.
"You've known this whole time," I whisper. "You knew I was engaged before I said anything."
"Of course I knew." His thumbs brush across my cheekbones. "I always know what you're doing, Bella. I know where you go. I know who you see. I know the conversations you have with Marcus because I have someone monitoring your location data."
The casual way he says it—like tracking my movements is just another form of care—should terrify me.
It does and it doesn't.
"You've been... spying on me?"
"Observing," he corrects. "There's a difference. Spying suggests I'm looking for information I don't have a right to. I have every right to know everything about you. Because you're mine."
"I'm not yours—"
A vibration cuts through the room.
My phone. On the conference table where he threw it.
Then another. And another. A cascade of vibrations that suggests frantic texting. Desperate messaging. Someone trying very hard to reach me.
Dominic walks to the table and picks up my phone. He doesn't unlock it—he doesn't need to. The lock screen is showing enough.
Marcus: "Hey beautiful, I'm waiting at the restaurant. Where are you?"
Marcus: "Bella? Are you okay? You're never late."
Marcus: "I'm getting worried. Call me."
Marcus: "Seriously, Bella. This isn't like you. Is everything okay at work?"
Dominic's jaw tightens as he reads the messages. His entire body goes rigid with possessive fury.
"He's texting you 'beautiful.'" His voice is ice. "Like he has the right to claim you that way. Like he knows you."
"He does know me—"
"He knows a version of you." Dominic sets the phone on the table and turns back to me. "He knows the version of you that smiles and nods and plays the role of dutiful fiancée. He doesn't know the real Bella. The one who challenges me. The one who makes my entire world tilt. The one who belongs to me."
Another vibration.
Marcus: "I love you. Please call me."
Dominic picks up the phone again. His knuckles whiten as he grips it.
"This is over." His voice is absolutely certain. "Your engagement ends today."
"You don't get to make that decision—"
"No. You do." He walks back to me and holds out the phone. "You're going to call him. You're going to tell him that you're ending the engagement. You're going to tell him that you've made a terrible mistake and you can't marry him."
"Absolutely not—"
"Yes, you will." His hand grips my chin, tilting my face up toward his. "Because if you don't, I'm going to handle it for you. And trust me, Bella, you don't want me handling it."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's a promise." He releases my chin but keeps his hand on my face, possessive and claiming. "I will destroy that man's career so thoroughly that he'll never work again. I will make sure every company in this city knows not to hire him. I will tank his reputation so completely that he becomes unemployable."
His fingers trail down my neck to rest against my throat, not choking but making a point.
"I will do it all with a smile and a handshake, and no one will ever know it was me. They'll just think he's incompetent and unstable. And he'll spend the rest of his life wondering what happened. But most importantly, he won't have you. Because you're going to call him right now and end this."
He holds out the phone.
I should refuse. I should slap it out of his hand. I should scream for security. I should do literally anything except what I'm about to do.
But my hands are shaking as I take the phone.
"Dial," Dominic commands, moving to sit in his chair, completely relaxed now that he's won. "Put it on speaker so I can hear."
"This is insane—"
"Dial."
My fingers move almost automatically, muscle memory engaging where my conscious mind has checked out. I type in Marcus's number. The phone rings once, twice—
"Bella!" Marcus's voice is frantic with relief. "Oh my God, where are you? I've been worried sick! Are you okay?"
I look at Dominic. He's sitting at the head of the table watching me with an expression of absolute satisfaction. Like he's watching a game he's already won play out to its conclusion.
"Marcus..." My voice comes out small, broken. "I need to tell you something."
"What? What is it? Are you hurt? Where are you?"
"I'm at the office. And I..." I can't do this. I can't say the words that will destroy him. "I can't marry you."
There's a long silence on the other end.
"What?" His voice is confused, hurt, not yet understanding. "What are you talking about? Did something happen?"
"I made a mistake," I say, the words feeling like poison on my tongue. "Accepting the engagement was a mistake. I'm sorry, Marcus. I'm so sorry, but I can't go through with it."
"But why? Did I do something wrong? We can fix this, whatever it is—"
"There's nothing to fix." Dominic leans forward in his chair, watching me like he's conducting a symphony and I'm his instrument. "There's just... someone else."
The words hang in the air like a death sentence.
"Someone else?" Marcus's voice breaks. "Bella, what are you talking about? Who?"
I don't answer. I can't answer. If I say his name, if I acknowledge what Dominic has been insinuating, then it becomes real. It becomes unavoidable. It becomes the thing I've been running from for three years.
"It doesn't matter," I whisper instead. "What matters is that I can't marry you, and I'm so sorry for hurting you."
"Is it someone at your office? Is it that boss of yours? Bella, I've been sensing something weird about him—"
Dominic reaches across the table and ends the call.
The silence that follows is deafening.
"There." He leans back in his chair, completely satisfied. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"
I'm shaking. My entire body is trembling with the realization of what I just did. I just destroyed someone who loved me. Someone who was kind and stable and good. I just confirmed his worst suspicions and broke his heart, all because I was too terrified to refuse Dominic Ashford.
"How does it feel?" Dominic stands and walks around the conference table toward me. "Being free of that engagement? Being able to admit what you've known for months?"
"I feel sick," I whisper.
"That will pass." He pulls me into his arms, and I hate that my body melts into his embrace. I hate that the warmth of him feels like safety instead of danger. I hate that I'm relieved instead of devastated by what I just did. "By tomorrow, you'll realize you made the right choice."
"I just broke an engagement—"
"You just chose me." He tilts my chin up toward his, his dark eyes burning with possession and victory. "Which means we can finally stop pretending this is professional. Which means I can finally have you the way I've wanted to have you for three years."
He kisses me.
It's not gentle. It's claiming. It's possessive. It tastes like victory and obsession and the darkest version of love that exists.
And I kiss him back because I don't know how to do anything else anymore.