“I… I work here,” Sarah said, lifting her chin.
“Work here?” Coburn laughed, grabbing her arm. “Come on, honey. Let’s get you out before security comes. This isn’t a place for the help.”
“Let go of her,” a deep voice boomed.
Ethan appeared out of the crowd. He looked like a predator.
“Oh, Ethan,” Coburn said, releasing Sarah. “Just doing you a favor. Found a stray waitress crashing your party.”
“She didn’t crash the party,” Ethan said, stepping next to Sarah and placing a possessive arm around her waist. “She is my guest and my advisor. And if you ever touch her again, Coburn, I will buy your building and evict you from your own penthouse.”
Coburn paled. “I… I didn’t know.”
“Now you know,” Ethan said. “Get out of my sight.”
Coburn scurried away. The crowd murmured. Ethan Sterling, the Ice King, had just publicly defended a waitress.
Veronica walked over, her face a mask of fury. “You just humiliated one of our biggest investors for her.”
“He humiliated himself,” Ethan said. He looked down at Sarah. “Are you all right?”
Sarah looked up at him. Her heart was racing, but not from fear anymore. From something else. Something dangerous.
“I’m fine,” she said. “But I have information.”
“Tell me.”
“Veronica,” Sarah said, looking the blonde woman dead in the eye. “She’s planning a vote next month. She wants to take the chairmanship from you.”
Veronica’s glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the floor. “You lying little gutter rat,” Veronica hissed.
“Is it true?” Ethan asked, his voice dropping to a terrifying octave. He turned to his fiancée. “Is it true, Veronica?”
Veronica glared at Sarah with pure hatred. “You think you can bring a stray dog into our house and have it bite me? Ethan, you have no idea what you’ve started.”
She stormed off. Ethan turned to Sarah. He looked at her with new eyes—and perhaps… aroused. The intensity in his eyes was overwhelming.
“You really do hear everything,” he murmured.
“I told you,” Sarah said, her voice trembling slightly. “I know who is hungry. And Veronica? She’s starving.”
“She wants your empire, Ethan. And she’s going to use your brother-in-law, Marcus, to get it.”
Ethan looked out over the crowd. “Then we have a war to fight, Sarah.” He took her hand. Not as a boss, but as a partner. “Are you ready?”
Sarah thought of Leo safe in the private hospital. She thought of the zero dollar tip. She thought of the life she left behind. She squeezed his hand back.
“I’m ready.”
For three weeks, Sarah lived in a dream. Leo’s surgery was a complete success, and for the first time in his life, his cheeks had a rosy color. Sarah was thriving at Sterling Industries. She wasn’t just an assistant. She was becoming Ethan’s right hand. She sat in on negotiations, spotting bluffing CEOs by their nervous ticks. She reorganized the filing systems, finding inefficiencies that saved the company thousands daily.
And though neither of them said it aloud, she and Ethan were growing closer. Late nights at the office turned into shared takeout dinners, where they talked about books, philosophy, and Leo. Sarah saw the man behind the billionaire—lonely, guarded, but desperate for a real connection.
But in the shadows, Veronica Vance was waiting.
It was a Tuesday morning, the day of the board vote on the merger with Omnicorp, a deal that would cement Ethan’s legacy. If the merger failed, the stock would tank, and the board would have grounds to remove him as CEO, paving the way for a new chair.
Sarah walked into Ethan’s office, carrying his coffee—black, two sugars, no cream. She had learned he had a sweet tooth. Two security guards were standing by her desk. Veronica was there too, holding a tablet, a look of mock sympathy on her face. Ethan was standing by the window, his back to the room. The air was so cold, it hurt to breathe.
“Mr. Sterling?” Sarah asked, her stomach twisting. “Is everything okay?”
Ethan turned around. His eyes were no longer the warm steel they had become. They were ice again. Dark, unforgiving ice.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” he asked quietly.
“Find out what?” Sarah put the coffee down, her hands trembling.
“Don’t play innocent, Sarah,” Veronica purred, stepping forward. “We know about the transfer. The files you sent to Omnicorp last night. The merger details, the bid price, everything.”
Sarah’s mouth fell open. “What? I didn’t send anything! I don’t even have access to the Omnicorp server.”
“You used my login,” Ethan said, his voice cracking with suppressed rage. “Logged in from your IP address in the guest wing, sent to a secure dropbox at 3:00 AM.”
He threw a stack of photos onto the desk. They were grainy pictures of Sarah meeting a man in a park. “Who is this?” Ethan demanded. “The Omnicorp rep?”
Sarah looked at the photo. “That’s my cousin Mike. He was returning a car seat I lent him.”
“A likely story,” Veronica sneered. “Just like the sick child story you used to wiggle your way into this house. You’re a grifter, Sarah. We checked your bank account. $50,000 was wired to you this morning from an offshore shell company.”
“No,” Sarah screamed, tears welling up. “I didn’t do this. You have to believe me. Ethan, Veronica is setting me up. She wants the chairmanship!”
“Enough.” Ethan slammed his hand on the desk. The sound echoed like a gunshot. He looked at Sarah, and the pain in his eyes was devastating…
