Chapter 2 - The Sickness Beneath the Desk
Three weeks passed like a slow-motion car crash.
I threw myself into my work with manic intensity, burying my face in pivot tables, financial models, and market trend forecasts, desperately trying to prove to myself—and to the universe—that nothing had fundamentally shifted. Adrian and I hadn't spoken since that morning in room 1841. He traveled to London for an acquisition the following week, and upon his return, he kept his distance, his interactions with the analytical floor strictly professional, cold, and calculated.
Or at least, he tried to. Whenever his gaze brushed past my desk during quarterly reviews, the air between us seemed to thicken, charged with an unspoken static that only the two of us could feel.
Then came Tuesday morning at 9:12 a.m.
The room suddenly tilted on its axis. Dropping my pen, I bolted from my rolling chair, shoved open the door to the shared office storage closet, and vomited violently into the metal trash can. My stomach heaved, cold sweat breaking out across the back of my neck as my head swam with dizziness.
A sharp gasp echoed from the doorway.
"Paige?"
Lucy Bennett, my oldest friend and the senior communications strategist at Vale Hart Advisory, stood frozen in the doorway, her designer coffee cup slipping from her fingers and landing softly on the carpet. She stared at me, her eyes widening as realization dawned across her sharp, expressive features. She stepped inside, immediately kicking the door shut and locking it behind her.
"You're either pregnant or dying," Lucy whispered, crossing her arms as she leaned against the door.
I wiped my mouth with a paper towel, my hands trembling uncontrollably as I sank onto a folding step stool. "Could you be slightly less dramatic?"
"No, I cannot," Lucy shot back, her voice rising in pitch despite her best efforts to keep quiet. "You've been nauseous for four consecutive days. You cried on Friday because the cafeteria discontinued tomato soup, and you look like you haven't slept since the Atlanta convention."
"It was very good soup," I muttered weakly.
"You hate tomato soup! You've hated it since college!" Lucy stalked closer, squatting down so our eyes were level. She grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her. "Paige Mercer. Do not lie to me. When was your last cycle?"
My throat went completely dry. I swallowed hard, the math playing out in my head with the terrifying precision of one of my own financial models. The convention in Atlanta. Exactly three weeks ago. One night. One catastrophic, reckless miscalculation.
Lucy’s breath hitched. Her mouth dropped open. "No."
"Lucy, please—"
"No!" she hissed, her eyes blazing with a mixture of shock, fury, and absolute disbelief. "Tell me you didn't. Tell me you didn't sleep with a married client, or an executive, or—God forbid—somebody in the C-suite!"
"I didn't sleep with a client," I whispered, closing my eyes in defeat.
Lucy froze. The color drained entirely from her face. "Wait. Who was it? Is it Marcus from logistics? Is it Vice President Henderson?"
"No."
"Then who?" She grabbed my shoulders, giving me a gentle shake. "Paige, swear to God, if you don't tell me right now, I am going to march down to HR and pull every hotel access log from the Atlanta trip!"
I opened my eyes, looking straight into my best friend's terrified face. "It was Adrian Vale."
The silence in the small storage closet was so absolute I could hear the faint hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. Lucy’s jaw worked silently for five seconds like a fish out of water before she slumped backward against a stack of printer paper boxes, dragging both hands down her face.
"The CEO," she whispered hoarsely. "You slept with the literal billionaire CEO of the company that employs us."
"It was an accident," I pleaded, my voice cracking. "My key card opened the wrong room during the storm. I didn't even know it was his suite until the lights came on. It was a one-time thing. A stupid, isolated mistake."
Lucy stared at me, her expression shifting from panic to calculating dread. "Does he know?"
Before I could answer, a sharp, authoritative knock rattled the locked door of the storage closet, followed by a voice that made my blood run instantly cold.
"Paige Mercer? Are you in there?"
May you like
It was Adrian’s executive assistant, her tone clipped and urgent. "Mr. Vale is calling an emergency executive strategy meeting in twenty minutes, and he specifically requested your data models on the Southeast merger. Open up, please."
Lucy and I locked eyes. The walls were closing in.
