CHAPTER 209: BACK TO WORK?

The conference room hummed with the drone of numbers and projections. My pen hovered uselessly above the page. I was supposed to be jotting down the finer points of Q3’s projected growth, but my mind had slipped backward.

I wasn’t here. Not really.

I was in a bathroom wrapped in steam, lavender curling through the air, watching Adrien kneel like the act itself wasn’t absurd—that the cold, unreadable CEO would strip the world bare to ease a pain I hadn’t even voiced properly.

I remembered the quiet command in his voice when he’d said arms up. The way my face had burned when I realized he wasn’t going to leave me to undress myself. And the way he’d touched me—not with heat this time, but with the kind of reverence that made me feel like I wasn’t something to be tolerated but something to be kept safe.

And then—oh God—the counter. Stacked with pads, tampons, liners, cups. Every possible box in existence, lined up like some bizarre arsenal. He’d bought everything. And I’d laughed through tears, half-hysterical, when he admitted in that smooth, flat tone, "It seemed prudent."

Like my uterus was a hostile takeover and he was preparing for every possible contingency.

And then I remembered later, when I emerged from the bath, loose-limbed and dazed, only to find even more: the sheets stripped and vanished, my bloody clothes gone—handled by him because he hadn’t wanted anyone else to touch them. A plate of food set aside, fruit and broth that smelled like comfort. A heating pad resting on the nightstand, still warm, as if he’d tested it first before leaving it there.

And waiting on the bed, an enormous, ridiculous teddy bear. Human-sized. Soft enough that I’d actually let myself curl into it, ridiculous enough that I’d had to bite down on a laugh. How was I supposed to reconcile that—the plush embrace of something childishly tender—with the man who now sat at the head of this table, sleek and untouchable?

"Lower," I’d whispered, melting into the mattress and the ridiculous, plush embrace of the teddy bear.

He’d stayed there for hours, the rhythmic press of his thumb and forefinger against my aching muscles, a silent promise in the quiet of the room. He hadn’t pushed. Hadn’t asked. Had just been there.

The memory was so vivid that when someone cleared their throat pointedly beside me, I startled hard enough to drop my pen. It clattered against the table, echoing in the brief silence that followed.

Adrien Walton—sharp-eyed, impeccably suited, and utterly unreadable—paused mid-sentence. His gaze flickered to me. The room collectively stiffened, the kind of hush that fell before an execution. Everyone knew his reputation: precise, ruthless, and merciless with mistakes.

But his fingers merely flexed once around the edge of his tablet, and then, in that same smooth, unaffected tone that never betrayed anything, he said, "Miss Miller, summarize the key points from the marketing team’s presentation."

Someone in the room inhaled audibly. It was a test. A cruel one, given my obvious distraction, but not an unreasonable demand for a PA.

I swallowed, grasping for threads of coherence. The numbers and projections blurred, slipping from my mind like water through fingers. And then—because my brain apparently enjoyed self-sabotage—it supplied instead the memory of Adrien three days later, when he took me home and my father scolded him for bringing me back late.

Three days later, my dad had been pacing the porch when Adrien pulled the car into the driveway, his sleek, black machine looking absurdly out of place against the peeling white paint of my childhood home. Porch light glowing, arms crossed like a human barricade, Dad had fixed Adrien with the kind of glare that had made my teenage boyfriends crumble into stammering excuses.

Except Adrien didn’t stammer.

He’d stepped out of the car, straightened his already-perfect suit jacket, and opened my door like we hadn’t just driven two hours in silence punctuated only by my music—like it wasn’t two in the morning. Then, with that same impossibly still calm, he’d said, "Mr. Miller, apologies for the late return. The traffic was heavier than anticipated."

Traffic.

As though he hadn’t been meant to return me days earlier, not hours.

Dad hadn’t looked convinced. In fact, his eyes narrowed, cataloguing Adrien like a threat assessment. And for the first time in my life, I’d seen Adrien falter—not visibly, not enough for anyone else to notice, but I’d caught the tightness in his jaw, the small tension at his throat. It was subtle but it was there: the man who controlled boardrooms, who cut through negotiations like a scalpel through glass, standing on my father’s porch like a schoolboy about to be handed detention. It was hilarious, really

And my dad, good grief, my dad had said, "If you’re going to keep her out this late, son, you’d better marry her first."

The silence that followed was lethal. My lungs seized, my blood turned to ice. I wanted to laugh, scream, and dig myself a hole under the porch all at once.

Adrien had not broken eye contact. He hadn’t even blinked. He’d only inclined his head in something like a bow and said, with terrifying sincerity, "Understood."

I’d nearly fainted right there on the gravel.

And now—now—sitting in a conference room with forty of his senior executives staring at me as though I were a lamb about to be gutted, my brilliant brain decided to replay that exact moment, the word marry hammering through me in rhythm with my pulse.

"Miss Miller."

The sound of my name lashed across the conference room table, sharp enough to sever the memory clean in half. Adrien’s voice. Flat, authoritative, giving nothing away.

Every head in the room turned toward me. My throat worked, dry as sandpaper.

"Yes, Mr. Walton," I managed, straightening my posture, willing my pen not to tremble in my fingers.

"Summarize," he said. One word. No indulgence. No softness.

The silence was brutal. The department heads shifted in their seats, curious, wary.

But when his gaze caught mine, it was too steady. Too controlled. And beneath the glassy surface, I saw it—the faintest flicker of that man in the bathroom, the one who washed bloodstains with his own hands and brought me a teddy bear the size of a person.

The contrast nearly broke me.

"The, uh—" My voice cracked. I straightened. Professional. You are a professional. "The projections hinge on increased engagement in the Ashia-Pacific sector, with a targeted ad spend adjustment of twelve percent to account for regional preferences. We’re anticipating a three-point-five percent market capture by Q4, assuming the competitor’s rollout stalls as expected."

The room stared.

Adrien didn’t blink. "Acceptable," he said, though the word felt loaded, like he was grading me on something else entirely. A collective exhale rippled through the room.

Then, just as the CFO opened her mouth to continue, he added, "We’ll recess for ten minutes."

No one argued.

Chairs scraped back as the room dissolved into motion. Adrien didn’t move, waiting until the last person had filed out before turning to me with a stillness that made my pulse stutter.

"You’re distracted, my love" he said, softly

I pressed my lips together, debating between honesty and self-preservation.

His thumb brushed the edge of my notepad, where I’d absentmindedly sketched—oh God—a tiny teddy bear in the corner. "Was it not helpful?"

I blinked. "The... bear?"

"The bear," he confirmed, so deadpan that I almost laughed.

"It was ridiculous," I whispered, but my traitorous fingers curled against my palm, as if still clinging to its softness.

Something shifted in his expression—something almost imperceptible. "You cried into it for twenty-seven minutes."

"I did not time it—"

"I did."

"Yen yen," I mimicked under my breath, mocking his clipped delivery. The second it left my mouth, my blood froze.

Adrien went still. The kind of still that made the air in the room contract, sharp and thin, like the moment before glass shatters.

I wanted to bite my tongue off. God, why couldn’t I ever stop at sarcasm one step earlier?

"Yen Yen?" he repeated, his voice still that smooth, low rumble, but now with a distinct, unsettling echo of my own mocking tone. He didn’t sound angry. He sounded... intrigued. Or perhaps, worse, amused. "Is that mockery?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. My brain, ever the traitor, offered no defense. Just heat crawling up my neck and the urge to crawl under the conference table.

"You timed my crying," I said instead, grasping for deflection. "That’s psychotic."

He leaned in slightly, elbows resting on the table, gaze steady. "It’s data."

"You’re not allowed to collect emotional analytics on me."

"You’re not allowed to sketch teddy bears during quarterly reviews."

The world tilted. One moment I was in my chair, the next I was in his lap, caged by the steel of his arm. My lungs seized—not just from the heat of him, but from the fact that any one of his executives could walk back in at any second. It was madness. Reckless. And somehow, impossibly, he knew it.

"And that," he murmured, his voice a dangerous calm against my ear, "is distracting."

My face burned. "You’re infuriating."

"And you, Miss Miller," he countered, a low thrum in his voice, "are still distracted. Perhaps an early lunch is in order. Specifically, the one I had arranged for your... specific needs today."

My anger, or rather, my self-consciousness, deflated. "My... specific needs?"

"You mentioned a craving for cheesy pasta a few days ago," he said, his voice flat, but the implication was clear. He remembered. Everything. He was always remembering. "During the... ’Yen Yen’ incident."

"You... shut it."

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "Yes, ma’am. Now, shall we ensure your focus is sufficiently restored for the afternoon session? Or would further... ’emotional analytics’ be required?"

I glared at him, but there was no real heat in it. Only a strange, fluttering mix of exasperation and something dangerously close to tenderness. "No further analytics needed, babe—" The word slipped out before I could choke it back, soft and dangerous.

A dark, intense spark ignited within his eyes, and for a split second, the Boss mask was gone, replaced by something far more potent, far more possessive. "Careful, Miss Miller," he murmured. "Some data, once collected, is very difficult to unlearn." His voice dropped to a seductive rasp that sent shivers down my spine. "And some nicknames, once given, are very difficult to take back."

His gaze dropped to my mouth, lingering there for a beat that stretched into an eternity, before he straightened, the CEO mask sliding back into place. He set me down gently, but the press of his hand lingered a fraction too long at my waist, leaving no doubt of the claim beneath the calm. "Ten minutes, Miss Miller. And then we resume." He didn’t wait for a response, simply turned and walked towards the conference room door, leaving me breathless and dizzy with the hum of numbers and projections utterly banished from my mind, replaced by the thrum of my own racing heart.