Rhea POV
Mr. Cortez arrives at eight on the dot. Not a minute late, not a greeting, not a hello—just the kind of entrance that makes the air in the room thinner. I offer a polite "Good morning," in my best professional-rowan voice and he doesn't acknowledge it. He walks straight to his desk, leans forward, and runs a fingertip across the surface and the bookshelf behind it like he's testing for dust.
"Why haven't you cleaned my office?" he asks without looking at me.
I look at him like he's sprouted a second head. First, I didn't even know he could see dust at that microscopic level. Second — since when did I become the cleaning staff? But of course I don't say that out loud. "Pardon, sir?" I manage.
He turns, that same cold, calibrated stare that has a way of making your bones feel cheap. "Mr. Rowan, you seriously don't want me to hire a cleaner who'll come in and steal the company files, do you?" His tone is equal parts rhetorical and condescending.
This place is spotless, like glass-clean. Hell, I could see my own reflection in the floor tiles. There's no dust to be found. So, naturally, I'm looking at him like he's sprouted a second head.
But what do I do? I don't say anything. I need this job. I need this paycheck
"No, sir," I say, because apparently honesty and dignity are optional when rent is due.
"Good. Now get the supplies and clean this place. It's filthy." He sits, pours tea, and sips it with the casual cruelty of a man who's used to people scurrying like ants. I glance at the desk. It's spotless. I can see my reflection on the floor tiles. But the boss has spoken, and my broke self has to obey. Money matters, I remind myself. Money over pride.
As I walk back, I briefly fantasize about poisoning his damn coffee, just slipping a little something in there to shut him up. But nope. My job's still on the line. And I'm far too pretty to end up in jail. So, I swallow my bitterness and keep moving.
I go fetch cleaning supplies and spend the next fifteen minutes making a showroom out of a showroom. I work fast, quiet—too quiet. He watches. Always watching. The rest of the morning plays out like a tutorial in micro-torment.
The rest of the day doesn't get any better. Every task he hands me is an insult wrapped in a demand. Every mistake — and there are many — is met with a cold, sharp reprimand.
"Not that! Use the cloth, not the paper."
"Can't you see the smudge? Mr. Rowan, do you have eyes?"
"Use your brain."
Listen: being picky is one thing. Being insatiable is another. It's as if he's paying me to practice patience until my nerves fray and I forget the plot of my own life. By midday, I'm two seconds away from committing murder. Seriously, if it weren't for the paycheck, I'd be halfway through strangling him with the nearest tie. But, no. Money. Money over sanity. Money over pride. That's what I tell myself, trying to ignore the pulsing vein of frustration in my temple; by lunchtime I'm fantasizing about quitting, which, of course, is a stupid idea because bills. If not for the paycheck, I'd have throttle-stomped out the door in the first hour.
Lunch is another exercise in humiliation. I don't eat — I can't afford to — but Mr. Cortez orders me to fetch food from an overpriced restaurant across the street. He's picky about his food, too. Turns out the chef doesn't cook it just right, and the steak ends up in the trash. I go, paying in exact change from the last of my thrift‑shop savings, and come back with a medium-rare steak on a silver tray. He takes two bites, glares, and then tosses it into the trash. "They overcooked it," he declares like a decree. I stand there, a bag of throwaway food in my hand, and try not to think about how my stomach aches.
And then he gives me the assignment that makes my insides flip with dread.
"Find the woman who drugged me," he says with an almost surgical calm. "The one who slept with me and then posted that video online. Find her."
My throat goes dry. He's referring to the scandal—the video that, until he used a hundred legal and PR skeleton keys, was simmering on the internet. He's been using every connection he has to scrub it from the web, to suppress uploads and to pressure sites into pulling anything related. He's been relentless — except he hasn't found the original uploader.
"The video's been scrubbed from the internet," he continues. "I used my connections to suppress anything from being uploaded. But the original poster is still out there. I'm betting it's the 'wicked woman' — and I want to find her before she comes to threaten me."
It's almost laughable, how little he knows. But of course, I don't say that. I don't want to reveal that I'm the "wicked woman" he's looking for. Hell, I barely want to think about the video. The embarrassment still stings.
He looks at me like he's issuing an order and not a personal crusade. "She's manipulative. She'll try to threaten or blackmail me. I want a list of potential suspects by tomorrow."
My stomach does a sick little tumble. He's talking about me. My mind races through a nasty montage: the launch party, the drinks, the blurred edges of the night, the stupid video I'd accidentally recorded and upload it by mistake. I didn't spike him. But right now that means nothing against the weight of his accusations.
"Understood, sir," I say. My voice is flat but steady. Inside, my head is a minefield. If he finds out I'm the one who uploaded the video — or worse, that I was the woman in his bed — I don't even want to predict how fast he'll turn the "find her" hunt into a personal vendetta.
He hands me a list of contacts, security logs, and the names of people who attended the launch. "Start here. I don't want rumors, I want facts."
Facts. My brain reels in the word. How do you find facts when your life is threaded with lies? When your own CV and your very identity are a carefully constructed fiction? For the first time since I walked into that office, I feel the shape of the trap closing: I'm paid to be close to him, to protect him from women, and to dig through the lives of women who might be guilty — while hiding that I could be the actual target of his wrath.
The rest of the afternoon dissolves into email scrounging, cold calls, and sifting through guest lists. Everyone else in the building lives in a world of sharp lines and tidy rules; mine feels like a smear. I sit at my corner desk — a sad table and a chair — inside the echo of that glass office and try not to vomit from stress.
By the end of the day, my eyes are sore, my mind is spinning, and I'm desperate to get out of this hellhole. Tomorrow, I'll be back in this same chair, under the same crushing weight of his expectations. Only now, I'm also carrying the burden of hiding my involvement — and hoping I don't make any mistakes that will expose me.
I leave the office exhausted, with nothing but a headache and the feeling that my entire life has just been thrown into a giant blender.
The worst part? I still don't know if I'm going to make it through tomorrow without losing my job—or my sanity.