Sanya had rehearsed her defense for three days straight. But she knew none of it mattered the second she walked into that conference room. She saw it in the committee's faces.

They'd already decided. They did not need to say anything. The tight, apologetic looks, the folder already prepared with her new salary typed next to her name. Smaller than the one she could survive on. Smaller than the one that covered her rent.

Her eyes prickled with tears as her mouth failed to open, to argue anyway. Just fucking fire me already, she wanted to scream.

That was the moment her boss walked in.

She hadn't asked him to come. She wanted to take her chances with the entire comittee rather than face her boss. But there he was, taking the seat at the head of the table like it belonged to him, because in this building, it did.

"Explain to me," he said, before anyone could greet him, "why you're proposing to cut the pay of the one person keeping this entire floor from falling apart."

Silence. Sanya's heart climbed into her throat.

What followed wasn't a debate. It was a dismantling. Complete destruction.

He took apart every argument at that table. With a calm, surgical precision that made grown men shift in their seats. He never raised his voice. He never needed to. His stillness was more dangerous than shouting. His eyes were even more dangerous. And they were focused entirely on the Sanya, who couldn't say a word since he walked in.

Nobody at that table dared finish a sentence he didn't like the sound of.

By the time it was over, her salary hadn't just stayed the same. It was better than before.

Sanya barely remembered walking out of that room. The entire meeting was a fever dream.

But she remembered the hallway clearly. The two of them alone in it, her heart still hammering from something that had nothing to do with fear anymore.

"Thank you," she said, smaller than she meant it to sound, almost breathless. "Thank you so much, sir. You saved me back there. I never would have survived that pay cut."

"Don't thank me." He said it the way he said everything. Low voice, controlled, giving nothing away. But he was looking at her the way he hadn't looked at her in that boardroom. His dark gaze held something more. "You work hard, day and night. You deserve this."

He should have walked away then. She should have let him.

Neither of them moved.

The hallway had gone very quiet, quiet enough that she could hear her own pulse. The space between them feeling smaller than it should be., though neither of them had taken a single step. His eyes dropped, just for a second, to her collar. He reached out a hand, straightening it, and his knuckles grazed lightly against her neck. When he looked back up into her eyes, something in his face had cracked. Just slightly, just long enough for her to see it before he put it away again.

"Why did you save me?," she asked, quieter now. "I thought you hated me."

"How could anyone ever hate such a sweet little babygirl huh?" He chuckled. His tone was joking as his eyes warned her to drop this topic.

But today Sanyanhad seen something in those eyes, and now she wanted to see it again. "Tell me. Why do you keep pushing me away? Why did you save me?"

"Because..." His voice dropped lower than she'd ever heard it in this building. "It sacres me, how much i need you."

Her breath caught in her throat. This is the man who had never once, in two years, did a single thing that wasn't strictly professional.

She should have run away. It was dangerous being needed by such dangerous men.

She should have said something safe. Thank you again sir. She should have pulled away from his fire before it burned her. Instead, she stood there, feeling something electric crackle in the space between them. She let herself wonder what would happen if he crossed it in a step a d grabbed her.

He cleared his throat first. Stepped back first. "Apologies Ms Kapoor for making you uncomfortable. Rest assuredn this will not be repeated," he said, already turning toward his office.

"I want it to sir... I want this to be repeated."

He looked back. Just once. Enough to see that his pupols were blown wide. "Then follow me in my cabin, Ms Kapoor."

She did, her heart thundering, wondering what she was getting herself into. He locked door after her.