The kiss ends.
I pull away, stumbling backward until my spine hits the glass wall again. My lips are tingling. My heart is racing. My entire body is screaming at me to run while simultaneously begging me to stay.
"No." The word comes out breathless, unconvincing. "No, I can't do this."
Dominic's expression doesn't change. He stands there, perfectly still, watching me with those dark eyes that see everything I'm trying to hide.
"Can't?" His voice is quiet, dangerously calm. "Or won't?"
"Both. Neither. It doesn't matter." I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand like I can erase what just happened. Like I can undo the fact that I kissed him back. "This is insane, Dominic. You can't just force me to break my engagement and expect me to fall into your arms—"
"I'm not forcing you." He cuts me off with absolute certainty. "You broke your engagement because you wanted to. Because you've wanted to for months. I just gave you the excuse you needed."
"That's not—"
"True?" He tilts his head, studying me like I'm a puzzle he's solving in real time. "Tell me, Bella. When was the last time you slept with Marcus?"
The question hits like a physical blow.
"That's none of your business—"
"Three weeks." He says it with complete confidence. "Three weeks since you've let him touch you. Because every time he does, you think about me. Every time he kisses you, you compare it to what you imagine kissing me would be like. Every time he tries to make love to you, you close your eyes and wish it was me instead."
My silence is answer enough.
"So don't stand there and tell me I'm forcing you into anything." He takes a step toward me, and I press myself harder against the glass. "You're the one who's been lying to yourself. You're the one who's been playing this game for three years. All I'm doing is making you face reality."
"The reality is that you're my boss and this is harassment—"
"Is it?" He stops walking, but his presence still fills the space between us. "Have I ever touched you inappropriately? Have I ever made an explicit sexual advance? Have I ever done anything other than be present in your life and show you that I understand you better than anyone else ever could?"
"You locked down the entire building—"
"Because you were about to leave." His jaw tightens. "Because you were about to walk out of here and pretend nothing happened between us. Because I needed you to stop running from what we both know is inevitable."
He reaches up and begins unbuttoning his suit jacket with deliberate slowness. Each button is a calculated movement, measured and precise. He shrugs the jacket off his shoulders and tosses it onto the conference table like it's meaningless.
The gesture is simple. Professional, even. Men remove their suit jackets in offices every single day.
But the way he does it—with his eyes never leaving my face, with absolute confidence that I'm watching him—transforms it into something else entirely. A promise. A threat. A demonstration of control.
"What are you doing?" My voice comes out smaller than I intend.
"Getting comfortable." He rolls up his right sleeve with the same deliberate precision, revealing his forearm. "This conversation is going to take a while. And I want you to understand exactly what you're dealing with."
His forearms are muscular, corded with strength that suggests he doesn't just sit behind a desk all day. There's a vein running along the inside of his arm, prominent and pulsing with his heartbeat. His hands are strong, capable—the kind of hands that could protect or destroy with equal ease.
He rolls up his left sleeve, mirroring the motion. The fabric bunches just below his elbows, and I can see the definition in his arms, the power barely contained beneath his skin.
"You think this is about sex," he says, walking toward me with that predatory grace that makes every nerve in my body stand at attention. "You think I'm just another powerful man who wants to fuck his secretary and add her to a list of conquests."
"Aren't you?"
"No." He stops a breath away from me. "If I just wanted to fuck you, Bella, I could have done that years ago. I could have seduced you in a dozen different ways. I could have used my power and my money and my position to make you want me."
His hand rises to the wall beside my head, caging me in without actually touching me.
"But I didn't want you to want me because I manipulated you into it. I wanted you to realize, on your own, that what we have is rare. That you belong with me. That choosing Marcus was choosing mediocrity when you could have had intensity."
"This isn't intensity." My voice shakes. "This is obsession."
"Same thing." His smile is dark, dangerous. "Intensity is just obsession that society approves of."
His other hand finds the wall on the other side of my head, and now I'm completely caged. He's not touching me, but his presence is overwhelming. I can feel the heat radiating off his body. I can smell him—cologne and something uniquely masculine. I can see the way his chest rises and falls with each controlled breath.
"So here's what's going to happen." His voice drops into a register that makes my entire body respond despite my mind's protests. "You're going to cancel your engagement with Marcus. Not because I'm forcing you, but because you're finally being honest with yourself."
"And if I refuse?"
His expression doesn't change, but something shifts in his eyes. Something cold and calculating and absolutely certain.
"Then I will make your life, and his life, very difficult."
"That's a threat—"
"It's a statement of fact." He leans closer, his lips near my ear. "Marcus works for Thompson Financial. They're one of our competitors. It would be very easy for me to leak information that makes him look incompetent. Maybe some emails that suggest he's been embezzling. Maybe evidence of insider trading that can't quite be proven but creates enough doubt to destroy his career."
"You wouldn't—"
"I absolutely would." He pulls back just enough to look into my eyes. "And you. You think you'll just find another job after this? I have connections in every major corporation in this city. One phone call from me, and you become unhireable. Not because you're incompetent, but because no one wants to cross Dominic Ashford."
My breath is coming faster now, shallow and panicked.
"You're threatening to destroy both of our lives if I don't do what you want?"
"I'm explaining your options." His hand finally touches me—just his fingers brushing along my jawline, gentle despite the darkness in his words. "Option one: you continue this farce of an engagement. You marry Marcus. You spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been with me. And I make sure both of your careers are destroyed so thoroughly that you spend your marriage resenting each other and struggling to survive."
His fingers trail down to my throat, resting against my pulse point.
"Option two: you admit what you already know. That you belong with me. That what we have is worth more than some comfortable lie of a normal life. That you'd rather be with someone who terrifies and thrills you than someone who makes you feel nothing."
"I don't feel nothing for Marcus—"
"Yes, you do." His thumb traces the line of my jaw. "You feel gratitude. You feel obligation. You feel the pressure of societal expectations. But you don't feel passion. You don't feel consumed. You don't feel like you might die if he's not near you."
He's right. God help me, he's right. And he can see it in my face because his smile turns victorious.
"So what's it going to be, Bella?" He releases my face but keeps his body close, his arms still caging me against the wall. "Are you going to choose the comfortable lie? Or are you going to choose the terrifying truth?"
"This isn't a choice—"
"Everything is a choice." His voice is absolute. "You can walk out of this conference room right now. You can go back to Marcus. You can pretend this conversation never happened. And tomorrow morning, when you try to show up for work, security will tell you that your position has been eliminated. When you go home, Marcus will have received an anonymous tip about your inappropriate relationship with your boss. When you try to apply for new jobs, every company will mysteriously pass on your application."
He leans in closer, his lips almost touching mine.
"Or you can admit that you've been mine since the moment you walked into that interview. That you've wanted this for three years. That breaking your engagement isn't a sacrifice—it's a relief. That choosing me isn't giving up your agency—it's finally being honest about what you actually want."
I'm shaking. My entire body is trembling with fear and desire and the absolute certainty that my life is about to change irreversibly.
"You're a monster," I whisper.
"Maybe." His smile is dark, accepting. "But I'm your monster. And you wouldn't have it any other way."
His hand slides to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair. Not pulling, just possessing. Claiming.
"Tell me you belong with me, Bella. Say the words. Admit what we both know is true."
I want to fight. I want to push him away. I want to scream for security and file a harassment complaint and destroy him the way he's threatening to destroy me.
But I can't.
Because standing here, caged by his arms and his presence and his absolute certainty, I finally understand the truth:
I don't want to be free of him.
I want to be his.
The realization should horrify me.
Instead, it feels like coming home.
"I..." The words stick in my throat.
"Say it." His voice is a command and a plea wrapped into one.
"I belong with you."
The words come out as barely a whisper, but they land between us like a detonation.
His eyes go absolutely dark with possession and victory and something that might be love if love could be this consuming and terrifying.
"Again," he demands.
"I belong with you." Louder this time. More certain.
"Again."
"I belong with you!" The words are almost a shout now, filled with three years of denial and wanting and running from what I knew was inevitable.
He kisses me.