Chapter 5 My Boss is a Stranger
I arrived nine minutes early.
Not eagerness. Strategy.
Walking into the office of the man I’d secretly married yesterday with even thirty seconds less preparation than I needed felt like exactly the kind of disadvantage I couldn’t afford. I needed to be settled before he arrived. Familiar with the space.
Already in position when he walked through the door so that the first thing he saw wasn’t a new employee finding her footing but a woman who already belonged there.
Morrow Enterprises occupied the top four floors of a glass building in the heart of the financial district. The kind of address that didn’t need to announce itself.
I stood outside for exactly long enough to confirm I wasn’t going to hesitate at the door and then I walked in.
The lobby was all clean lines and quiet efficiency.
Marble floors. Low purposeful conversation.
The particular energy of a workplace where people moved with intention because standing still here had a visible cost.
I took the elevator to the thirty-second floor.
The doors opened to something different from the lobby. Quieter. More deliberate. A space designed to communicate something specific to every person who stepped into it. Control, mostly. The kind that came from someone who thought carefully about details because details were how you held an advantage without ever having to announce it.
A woman at the front desk stood when she saw me.
“Miss Callum?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Ms. Hana. I’ll get you set up.” She had a folder already prepared — building access card, internal directory, a printed schedule for the day. She walked me through everything briskly and pointed me toward a desk positioned just outside a set of frosted glass doors.
“Mr. Morrow has a call until nine-thirty,” she said. “He’ll brief you after. He prefers things handled without being asked twice. He won’t repeat himself so take notes when he speaks.”
“Understood.”
“His coffee is black. No sugar. He doesn’t want it brought unless he asks.”
“Noted.”
She studied me for a moment with the quiet assessment of a woman who had watched many people sit at that desk and leave within the week.
Whatever she found in my expression seemed to satisfy her because she gave a short nod and returned to her own work.
I opened the folder and started reading.
Nine-thirty came and went.
At nine forty-seven the frosted glass doors opened.
I kept my eyes on my screen and let him cross the floor first. I heard that same measured unhurried pace from the ceremony yesterday… footsteps that didn’t rush or apologize. I gave him time to reach his desk before I looked up.
When I did he was already looking at me.
Those same sharp steady eyes. Direct and completely unreadable. The same face I had stood beside yesterday while an officiant read legal language over both our heads.
Nothing in his expression shifted.
Nothing in mine did either.
He pulled out his chair and sat. “Callum.”
“Mr. Morrow.”
“My schedule.”
Not a question. Not a please. Four words that contained an entire expectation within them.
I picked up the printed schedule Ms. Hana had prepared and walked it to his desk. Set it down.
Stepped back.
He read through it in silence. His expression didn’t move. He turned the page. Read the second sheet. Set it down.
“The Henderson meeting has been moved to Thursday. Update it.” He didn’t look up. “The eleven o’clock with legal needs a different conference room — the one currently booked is taken by finance. Fix it.
And the Morrison file on my desk needs to be cross-referenced with the March quarterly report before that meeting.”
“I’ll handle it.”
He glanced up at that. Brief — a fraction of a second.
Like he’d calibrated for pushback and wasn’t sure what to do with the absence of it.
I was already walking back to my desk.
By midday I had rescheduled two meetings, secured a new conference room, cross-referenced the Morrison file, fielded four external calls, coordinated a lunch delivery for a board meeting on the floor below and drafted three emails for his review.
I set the drafts on his desk without interrupting his call.
He picked them up mid-sentence, kept talking and reached for his pen. By the time the call ended all three had been marked with small precise corrections — tightened phrasing in the first, a restructured opening in the second, a sharper closing line in the third.
I looked at the corrections when he handed them back.
They were good. I’d give him that privately.
“Is there a style guide?” I asked.
He looked up from his screen. “For what?”
“Your correspondence. You have a specific voice. It would be more efficient if I understood the parameters from the beginning rather than learning through correction each time.”
A pause. Short but visible — the kind that happened when something landed differently than expected.
“Direct language,” he said. “Nothing decorative. Say the thing and stop.”
“Clear enough.”
I took the drafts back and revised them without another word.
Across the floor I caught the edge of his attention return to me once… a quick reassessment, the kind someone made when an initial calculation needed adjusting. I didn’t look up.
I just kept working.
The afternoon moved with surprising speed.
His rhythms were easy to read once I paid attention.
Focused uninterrupted stretches of work. No tolerance for small talk. No unnecessary movement. When he spoke to me it was direct and efficient and when I matched that energy exactly something in his posture settled slightly — not warmth exactly but the particular ease of a person who had stopped bracing for incompetence.
I was not here to be liked.
I was here to stay close enough to understand what Gerald had actually put me in this building to find.
Because Gerald didn’t do anything without a reason. Placing me here as Zael’s PA wasn’t about keeping me occupied. It never was. There was something he wanted from this arrangement and until I understood what it was I needed to keep my eyes open and my position secure.
At half past three I stepped away from my desk to take a call I’d been avoiding since morning. I moved to the far end of the corridor where the floor was quiet and pressed my phone to my ear.
“You haven’t called.” Odette’s voice was immediate.
“I’ve been working.” I kept my voice low. “Everything is fine.”
“How is it?”
Through the frosted glass doors I could make out Zael’s outline at his desk. Still. Focused. Giving nothing to the room around him that he hadn’t chosen to give.
“Exactly what you described,” I said. “Difficult. Guarded.”
“And?”
“And nothing. It’s professional. That’s what it needs to be right now.”
A brief silence. Then her tone shifted lower, more careful. “Seraphine. I need you to listen to me.”
My back straightened. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. But you must not tell anyone about the arrangement. Not a colleague. Not a friend. Not your mother.” A deliberate pause. “Especially not Zael.
He cannot know yet.”
“Odette…”
“There are things in motion that require careful timing. If Zael finds out before I’ve had the chance to explain it to him properly he will not react well. And everything we are trying to protect will be at risk. Do you understand me?”
My free hand pressed flat against the wall.
“How long?” I asked quietly.
“Not long. Just not yet. Promise me.”
A breath. “Fine. I promise.”
“Good. And Seraphine… Gerald did not place you in that building without a reason. Whatever he wants from this arrangement it isn’t what he told you. Keep your eyes open.”
“I know.”
“Be careful.”
The line went quiet.
I lowered my phone and stood still for a moment.
Organizing everything back behind my expression.
Clearing my face the way you cleared a surface before setting something new on it.
Then I turned around.
Zael was standing directly behind me.
Close enough that I nearly walked into him. He was holding a folder and his expression was exactly what it always was. But his eyes moved from my face to the phone in my hand and held there for just a fraction of a second longer than was casual.
The corridor was silent.
My pulse didn’t show. I made sure of it.
“Your three-thirty is here,” he said evenly.
“Thank you.” My voice came out steady. “I’ll be right there.”
He looked at me for one more second — that unhurried assessing gaze that gave nothing away and took everything in — then turned and walked back toward the main floor without another word.
I stood completely still.
How long had he been standing there?
How much of that call had he heard?