“You will be the personal secretary of Mr. Ethan Steinfield, the CEO of this company.”
Shocked to hear it from the Human Resource manager, Michelle could only gasp, still looking at the HR manager who briefed her about her position.
“Ms. Finley?”
She came back to her senses and blinked a few times. “Y-Yes?”
“Were you listening?”
“I am, I apologize,” she answered, trying to compose her thoughts.
Just when she thought she could get away from the man she didn’t want to cross paths with, fate brought her into a nerve wracking situation, again.
But what choice did she have? She needed this job more than anything else. Her pride could not provide for her.
“His office is located on the 78th floor. You can go up now and wait for the CEO to give you orders.”
She went out of the manager’s office and walked her way out of the Human Resource floor. Michelle walked past the group of employees who were having a conversation in one office cubicle.
“There she is. I heard she blacked out during the interview.”
“She’s not that qualified to be Mr. Steinfield’s secretary. I wonder what she did to get the position!”
Michelle felt a pang inside her chest when she heard those comments from the employees. She wondered how she got accepted too, let alone became the CEO's personal secretary.
When she finally reached the elevator, she pushed the button and composed herself. Michelle knew that she had more important things on her mind other than her co-workers' impression of her.
One of them was the CEO.
The elevator door opened. She was about to enter when she became aware of the presence of someone, specifically the CEO, who was inside of it. Leaning his back against the cold metallic wall with his hand slid into his pocket, he looked at her sternly.
Michelle gasped and lowered her gaze to avoid his intense stare.
“Are you going to get in or what?” His domineering voice made her heart panic.
She got in the elevator and pushed the close button, wincing as she stood in the right corner in front of the buttons. Why were they the only ones in the elevator, anyway?
“Aren’t you going to greet your boss?”
Without looking at him, she spoke, “Good morning, Sir…”
The man chuckled a bit. “I thought I wouldn’t see you after that night. You disappeared into thin air as if nothing happened.”
Michelle’s heart raced so fast. She swallowed so hard and licked her lower lip.
“Sir, c-can we please be professional w-while at work?" she stuttered and shut her eyes firmly.
She knew she wasn’t in the right position to ask for them to work professionally, but she still pushed her chance while she still had a little courage in her.
“I’m quite impressed you’re asking me that, Mika.”
Mika! That was the nickname she used at the club.
She then froze in place as she felt him step forward near enough for her to feel his cool, minty breath brushing against her neck.
“After that night we shared, aren’t we supposed to skip formalities,” he remarked. His voice sent shivers down her spine.
Michelle caught her breath when she felt his hand rubbing her shoulder. Panic went through her, to the point that she rushed out of the elevator as soon as it opened on the wrong floor.
***
“I-I apologize for my actions, Mr. Steinfield,” she said, mustering her courage to utter those words when she went to his office.
“How about you say that again while looking at me, Ms. Finley?” His menacing, deep voice made her hold her breath again,
She inhaled heavily and raised her head to meet his pair of marble gray eyes. “I apologize for what happened, Mr. Steinfield. I didn’t mean to run away like that.”
There she said it.
“You ran away twice; in the hotel and in the elevator. Which one were you apologizing for?”
Michelle’s whole body tensed but then she answered, “The one in the elevator, Mr. Steinfield.”
“Hmm, that’s upsetting. I can’t forget what happened that night.” He breathed hard as he leaned forward, settling his arms on the desk. “How we had a very good time on the bed; how you moan because of my kisses.”
“I didn’t come here to go down the memory lane of...” she trailed off, fisting her hand. “...of what happened that night. I can hardly remember it for I was drunk.”
Ethan stood up, walking towards her that made Michelle stiffen in her stance. She could only suck in a deep breath when she felt his warm hands on her shoulders as he stood behind her.
“I can make you remember.”
“No.” She moved away from him and glared at him. “Again, I... I didn’t come here for that.”
“You have no idea how your angst gives me a boner.” He wryly smiled. “I can offer you more if you submit to me.”
Michelle was quite hurt. She didn’t expect to hear such a vulgar offer from the CEO himself. Did he really see her as a cheap woman?
“I apologize, Sir, but I want to work professionally. If it’s not too much to ask, let’s forget what happened that night.” She inhaled sharply. “It was a drunken mistake.”
The man’s expression turned grim, which made her legs wobble. However, seconds later, he spoke once again.
“Interesting.” He licked his lower lip. “Since you asked that we keep being professional, I’ll try to pretend that that night didn’t happen.”
“Really?” Her eyes widened.
Ethan’s eyes narrowed, and then he pointed his index finger to the right side of his desk, where there were piled-up documents. “Read all of those reports for me and create a summary report. I need it done before five o’clock.”
Michelle frowned. It’s a thick pile of documents!
“O-Okay, Mr. Steinfield…” were the only thing she said before she walked near his desk and took all the documents and left his office.
It was a good thing that her desk was located outside his office. She huffed out loud and started reading those business proposals and reports, and it took her hours before she was able to come up with a summary she could submit.
It was nearly time to go home when she rose to her feet and submitted her initial task.
“Is this all what you can give me?”
“S-Sir?” Michelle looked confused.
“I am not satisfied with this. Revise it, Ms. Finley. I need it polished by tomorrow afternoon!” Ethan’s voice boomed inside the office. The man exhaled and offered him a displeased stare. “Take it home with you and do not disappoint me tomorrow!”
***
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The loud bang on the door had woken up Michelle. Fear struck her chest instantly as she heard the familiar unruly voice of an old man from the outside of their apartment. That woke up Megan too, and both of them looked at each other worriedly.
“That’s your dad,” Megan said, swallowing hard.
“I will get it.” Michelle gestured her to stay on the bed.
Michelle could feel her palms sweating as she walked to the door. When she tried to open it, she saw her father, who looked like a mess; too wasted and smelled of reek alcohol.
“Dad? You’re drunk. What are you doing—”
He immediately grabbed her arms. Michelle flinched as she felt the pain in his grip.
“Dad, let go of me!”
“Goddammit, I owed a fucking a hundred thousand dollars. Give me some money now! I’m going to pay him! Come on!” he yelled at her.
“What? But I don’t have that much of money, Dad!”
“I can tell you’re hiding money from me again!” He slapped her so hard that she fell to the floor. “Give me some money now!”
Her eyes went teary. It wasn’t that long ago when she paid off his debt from the loan shark, and here he was, drunk and asking her for some money again!
“Michelle!” Megan rushed towards her.
Some of the people in the apartment building went out. Michelle felt more embarrassed as her father made a fuss in her supposed safest haven in the middle of the night.
“Dad, please! Don’t make a scene here! I’m begging you!”
But his father only looked at her angrily and even tried to throw her a punch if not for Megan who covered her.
“I’m going to call the cops if you don’t leave, Sir!” Megan shouted.
But her father didn’t flinch a bit. “Didn’t you hear me, Mich? I said, I fucking owe someone money. You have to give me some! Do you want your father to get killed?”
To her surprise, he shoved Megan aside. He grabbed Michelle by the collar of her pyjama top.
“Dad, no! Please, don’t do this!” She gasped with pain, trying to remove his hands off her but he only gripped her tighter.
“Again! Give me some fucking money!” he screamed out loud.
Humiliated when the crowd started whispering about them, she had no choice but to nod in the end.
“I’ll help you, Dad! B-But give me two days. I’ll find a way to get the money you need.” She sobbed. “I promise.”
Her father grinned from ear to ear.
“Just two days, Mich! I’m warning you. You have to give me the money or else I’ll disown you!” he yelled and then shoved her to the wall. “What a fucking useless child!” He then walked away.
Michelle sucked in a breath, unable to stop her tears from falling.
“Mich!” Megan held her immediately, engulfing her in a hug.
Panic went through her, thinking that she agreed to give him a huge amount of money. “What should I do now, Meg? He needs a lot of money!”
“Is that a bruise?”Michelle came back to her senses, and looked at the man in front of her.Even though there was a fiasco that happened in the apartment last night, she still forced herself to go to work as she didn’t want her co-workers, including the CEO, to have a bad impression of her.She tried to cover the bruise on the corner of her lips by using a makeup, but it seemed like she failed to do it perfectly.Ethan looked at her in an intense manner. “Where did you get that?”She covered the bruise using the back of her palm. “This is nothing, Sir.” Then she put the summary report he needed on his desk. “Here’s the report that you asked me to submit. Please let me know if there are revisions I need to do.”“Did someone hurt you?”Michelle breathed in heavily. She didn’t want to recall what happened last night, yet her boss was making her remember the horrible event she wanted to forget.“No, Sir. Please, don’t mind me,” she told firmly. “Is there anything else you need me to do?”
“What did you say?” she asked, her voice low and confused. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Mika,” Ethan replied dryly. She blinked several times, trying to observe the emotions behind his marble gray-colored pair of eyes, but all she could see was dominance, arrogance, and a sheer amount of amusement as he stared down at her. “Please, don’t call me by that name,” she uttered. “And I want to understand those things you just said a while ago.” Ethan’s brow arched up as he crossed his arms against his chest. “I said your father and I came up with a deal.” He stared at her darkly. “I will pay his debt, and as part of the deal, you will have to marry me.” “Are you insane?!” Michelle was so shocked, and angry. Ethan smirked before he clicked his tongue. The fact that the man still had the time to look so arrogant and gorgeous made her blood boil to a high level. “I swear you wouldn’t like to see me get insane.” He chuckled and continued, “You need help, and I need a wife. It should b
“I repeat. Who are you?!” An old brunette woman approached her; forehead creased and expression in grim.“M-My name is Michelle,” she said, still unable to move on from what she saw inside that red room on the second floor.The woman’s expression changed, and raised an eyebrow as she looked at Michelle from head to toe, and then gazed back at her. “So you must be Ethan’s wife.”“I-I am,” Michelle stuttered. “I—I apologize. I didn’t mean to startle you.”“Yes, I was indeed surprise to see you coming down from the second floor,” said the woman in distate. “I am Priscilla, the housekeeper. Did you happen to enter some rooms?”“N-No!” she lied.Priscilla narrowed her eyes as she crossed her arms. “Well, please be cautious the next time. Ethan doesn’t like it when people enter some restricted rooms, especially on the second floor.”Fuck, is she referring to that room? She thought.Michelle couldn’t help but swallow hard. Sure, she felt that Priscilla was the type of housekeeper that she sh
“We can go to the office together,” Ethan said coldly during breakfast.Michelle shot him a glance, but he didn’t meet her gaze. He acted so distant; face grim and silent. He was like a kid ready to throw a pit at one touch or a rabid animal ready to snarl if someone tried to joke around.Michelle shook her head. Just because she questioned him about the secret room last night, he became aloof from her, as if bringing up that room was taboo.“I will take a cab,” she replied dryly and sipped on her coffee.She waited to see Ethan’s reaction to her response, but all she got was a nod.“We shouldn’t go to office together since I want this relationship to be a secret in the office,” she added.He glanced over at her for a second and then sipped on his coffee.“I’m not forgetting that.”“Cool.” Michelle couldn’t hide her smirk. It was only twen
Just when Michelle thought that her day would be getting better, hell opened up to deliver the devil that had ruined her sanity.Ashley clearly knew a lot of things about Ethan, and the way she talked gave Michelle a hunch that the woman also knew about his unusual hobby. What’s worse was that she told her that Ethan married her so he could use her as his subject, his slave.Her stomach twitched at the thought that Ethan would use her sexually. She kept biting her lips until she tasted the metallic blood on them.She was inside the bedroom when the door swung open. Ethan entered inside and their gazes immediately locked.He stared down at her blankly, and it frustrated Michelle that she couldn’t see any emotion in his marble gray eyes. It was as if he mastered the art of coldness so well that no one was allowed to see a single weakness, even in his eyes.“I need to talk to you,” she uttered firmly while sitting down on the b
“You’re so fucking perfect...”Michelle gasped as Ethan nibbled her ear, making her breathless. She shut her eyes as she felt a tingling sensation going through her. It was like a ball of fire that awakened something down her groin, making her feel the pleasure that her body craved.He took her face and kissed her. It was hot, rough, and felt so great that Michelle kissed him back, holding his nape while she tiptoed to deepen the kiss. The mixed smell of Ethan’s cool mint breath and the whiskey he drank was intoxicating, and she couldn’t stop kissing him the more she smelled them.Ethan’s hand traveled down her bottom. He gently squeezed one of its cheeks, and it doubled the sensation that was trying to kill her. She let out a soft moan; her voice sounded undeniably submissive.His arousal began to surge through his body. His crotch hardened more in his pants, and he slowly poked her lower belly. The more he rubbed it a
TRUTH BE TOLD, Michelle was curious about what Andrew knew about Ethan. Looking at her husband's best friend, she had a great feeling that he had the answer to all her questions that Ethan himself could not entertain."Will you be kind enough to tell me everything you know?" she asked carefully.Andrew leaned his back against the backrest of the couch and offered her a playful smile."I don’t see anything wrong with telling you everything. You are his wife, after all. Have a seat, Mrs. Steinfield." His voice was teasing him upon addressing her as missus.She fought the urge to roll her eyes. It was the first time someone addressed her that way, and it crept her a bit. Still, she was so into the topic that she just ignored the way he teased her as she settled onto the other couch."So I want to ask how much information do you know about Ethan?" Andrew asked.
EVEN THOUGH she married a famous billionaire who had the power, money, and all the connections, Michelle persevered at her work and didn't use her husband as an excuse to slack off. She'd been trying so hard to prove her worth, wanting to earn the acknowledgement of her colleagues and change their impression of her.However, she knew it wasn't easy when her reputation had been tainted since the day she got hired as the CEO’s secretary.One busy day... Michelle stormed out of the cab and ran into the familiar building of Steinfield Company. Holding a pile of documents in her arms, she tried not to bump into anyone as she ran towards the elevator. She was late due to the traffic jam, and weeks of being married to the CEO had made her learn that tardiness was part of his hate list."Excuse me! Please, excuse me," she said to anyone who walked the same way as she did.She saw the elevator open and