The frosted glass doors open before I'm ready.
No knock. No warning. Just the soft hiss of the door sliding and a voice—that voice I heard through the glass—now sharp and clear.
"You're late."
I turn. And for the first time, I see Damon Blackwood in person.
The photo in the folder didn't prepare me. It captured his features—dark hair, sharp jaw, the kind of face that belongs on magazine covers. But it didn't capture the coldness. The way his eyes move over me like I'm a piece of furniture being assessed for fit. The way his presence fills the doorway, not with warmth but with the kind of pressure that makes you want to step back.
I don't step back.
"I was told 8:30," I say. My voice holds. "It's 8:28."
His mouth doesn't quite smile. "You'll learn that my time starts when I arrive, not when the clock does."
He turns and walks back into his office, leaving the door open. I'm meant to follow. No invitation. No welcome. Just the expectation that I will move when he moves.
I step inside.
His office is all glass and steel, a corner suite with windows that overlook the city like he owns it. Which, I realize, he probably does—or at least, enough of it. The desk is massive, pristine, holding nothing but a laptop and a single pen. No photos. No personal objects. Nothing that suggests a life beyond these walls.
He settles into his chair without looking at me. His fingers find the pen, turning it once, twice. The silence stretches.
I stand in the center of the room, waiting.
Don't speak first, I tell myself. Let him set the terms. Just survive.
He finally looks up. That cold dismissal again—like he's already decided I won't last, like I'm a formality he has to endure before the next name appears on his list.
"I needed a new assistant so I can move forward with the next three months," he says. His voice is low, unhurried. "You were in for the taking."
In for the taking. As if I was an item on a shelf. As if George had wrapped me in bubble wrap and handed me over with a receipt.
He sets the pen down and leans back. "You'll do. Barely."
My face remains calm. My hands stay folded in front of me. I nod once, a small professional dip of the chin that says understood.
But inside—
"I'm so tired of feeling like I'm going crazy
I'm so tired of all the rumors, they invade me
I'm so tired of looking in the mirror, hate me."
The lyrics slide through my head, a reflex. NF's voice, the one that understands the rage that has to stay buried. I let it anchor me. Let it remind me that this is just three months. That I have survived worse than a man who looks at me like I'm nothing.
"I'm aware of the arrangement," I say, calm. "Three months. I'll handle whatever you need."
His eyes narrow. Not much—just a fraction. But it's enough to tell me he noticed. He expected something else. Maybe tears. Maybe fear. Maybe the kind of fawning desperation he's used to seeing.
I give him none of it.
He picks up a folder from his desk, flips it open, scans whatever is inside. "You came from Hadley. He speaks highly of your… endurance."
The pause before endurance is deliberate. He means it as a slight. Endurance is what you need for a job no one wants. Endurance is what you have when you're too desperate to leave.
"I do the job," I say. "That's what I'm paid for."
He looks at me again. This time, there's something different in his gaze. Not warmth—never warmth—but a flicker of something. Assessment. Curiosity, maybe. The briefest pause before he files it away.
"Your schedule is on the desk," he says, nodding toward a small side table where a tablet sits. "Travel arrangements, contacts, protocols. You'll learn them by the end of the week."
"Yes."
"We have a trip to Aspen on Friday. Three days. You'll handle all logistics. If anything goes wrong, don't bother me with it—fix it before I know it exists."
"Understood."
He waits. I wait.
The silence stretches again. I can feel him testing me, waiting for me to break it, to ask a question, to show weakness. I keep my breathing even. My eyes on a point just above his left shoulder.
"I don't know what it's like to feel normal
But I know what it's like to be lonely."
The words run beneath my thoughts, a quiet soundtrack to the ice in this room.
He picks up the pen again. "That's all."
I nod. Turn. Take two steps toward the door.
"I didn't catch your name."
I stop. Face him again. His expression hasn't changed—still cold, still dismissive. He's not asking because he cares. He's asking because he realized, belatedly, that he should know what to call the person he'll be speaking to for the next three months.
"Maya," I say. "Maya Santos."
He doesn't repeat it. Doesn't write it down. Just gives that same fractional nod, the one that says I've stored the information, now go.
I turn and walk out.
---
The door closes behind me. I'm in the waiting room again, the white walls, the single orchid. The tablet with my schedule sits on the glass table. I pick it up. My hands are steady.
I walk to the elevator and press the button. The doors open immediately, like the building knows I need to leave.
I step inside. The doors close. The elevator begins its descent.
And only then, alone, I let my breath out.
My chest is tight. My pulse is hammering somewhere behind my ribs, adrenaline I didn't know I was holding flooding out of me. I lean against the cool metal wall and close my eyes.
"I've been in this room before
I just can't get out
I've been in this room before
And I'm so tired now."
I force my eyes open. I watch the numbers drop. 37. 32. 28. 21.
"Three months," I whisper to the empty elevator. "You can do three months."
The doors open to the lobby. I step out, tablet clutched to my chest, and walk past the receptionist with the pitying eyes. I don't look back.
I don't let myself think about the way his gaze flickered for just a moment, like he saw something he didn't expect.
I don't let myself think about anything at all.
---
Outside, the morning sun is too bright. I stand on the sidewalk for a moment, letting the noise of the city wash over me—cars, voices, the rush of people who have somewhere to be. I have somewhere to be now. For the next three months, my time belongs to a man who didn't bother to learn my name until I was already leaving.
I pull up the schedule on the tablet. Aspen. Friday. A list of flights, hotels, meetings. My thumb scrolls through the details, memorizing, cataloging.
And somewhere beneath the professional calm, something else stirs. A heat. A flicker of defiance.
Barely, he said.
You'll do. Barely.
I close the tablet and tuck it into my bag. I start walking toward the subway, my heels clicking against the pavement, my spine straight.
"I'm looking for an exit
But I'm lost inside my head
I'm sitting here just staring at the wall again."
Not this time, I think.
This time, I'm the one who's going to make him remember my name.
---