Chapter 25 What just happened?
Got under her skin?
The nerve of this girl to assume she could just say such things to her. She was the boss here. She was in charge, not her.
“Ms. Lustrelle…”
“What?” Camille countered. “It is the truth, isn’t it?”
The office seemed to hold its breath, the hum of distant machines fading to near silence. The glow from the overhead lights cast faint shadows across the polished floor, catching on glass edges and metallic fixtures, outlining the room in a cold clarity that left nothing to hide behind. Every surface felt too clean, too controlled, arranged with purpose as if Holland demanded even the space itself maintain discipline. The faint scent of burnt coffee lingered from earlier, merging with the sterile coolness of the air-conditioning.
Holland’s chest tightened, a heat rising she hadn’t planned for, gathering beneath her ribs, coiling with a persistence she couldn’t ignore. Her breath shifted, subtle but telling, and she fought the instinct to take a step back. Camille’s presence carried a pull she couldn’t dismiss, an unwelcome tug that pressed too close to the lines she’d drawn and redrawn for years.
The air between them thickened, every second stretching long enough for Holland to feel the weight of Camille’s gaze settle on her. The emerald eyes watching, assessing, and refusing to bow. It chipped away at Holland’s composure in a way she felt but refused to acknowledge.
Her fingers twitched near her thigh, brushing the fabric of her tailored suit as if grounding herself. Holland kept her face composed as she pulled herself into that posture she relied on, the one she used to keep everything contained. “This isn’t about me,” she snapped, each word deliberate, precise, clipped with purpose. “It’s about professional boundaries. Something you clearly don’t respect.”
Camille laughed, a brittle sound, fragile yet pointed, a sound that didn’t match the dimness in her eyes. Something in the way her shoulders lifted and dropped showed effort—like she was holding too much in, pushing too much down. Her gaze flicked to Holland with a spark that didn’t dim, as if daring her to meet it, daring her to react. “Professional boundaries?” she said, voice soft but edged with challenge. “You mean the walls you hide behind? The lines no one’s allowed to cross because you might actually experience something?”
The words hit the room with a weight neither of them acknowledged, lingering in the air like an uninvited presence that refused to retreat. Holland’s jaw clenched, a faint movement but enough to break the illusion of complete composure she always upheld.
“Enough, Ms. Lustrelle!” Holland’s voice snapped through the quiet office, brittle, cracking through the heavy air around them, the carefully constructed composure at the edges of her expression faltering. The mask she wore slipped just slightly, enough for Camille to see the tension building in her throat, the faint tremor in her exhale, the effort behind the restraint.
Camille’s heart thudded in her chest, each beat hammering louder than the last, pushing against her ribs in a relentless rhythm that urged her forward even when her mind hadn’t prepared for it. Her legs moved, closing the distance between them slowly, drawn by something that had lingered for far too long. The air between them narrowed, thickening, charged with a pressure that made her breathing uneven. Heat pooled in her cheeks, spreading to her fingertips, tingling like anticipation and fear tangled together. Her hands curled at her sides, trembling slightly, the faint movement betraying everything she tried to hide, but she didn’t stop.
Her voice wavered, low but unwavering in intention, almost like the words carried themselves forward without her permission. “You act like you’re untouchable, but you’re not. You’re just…”
“Just what?” Holland’s voice dropped, low, precise, demanding. A command wrapped in breath. Her tone carried a weight that pinned Camille in place, stripped of escape. She held Camille’s gaze, unflinching, and waited—actually waited—for the words she clearly wanted to hear, for the truth Camille kept swallowing, the one that hovered in the space between them like a confession she hadn’t meant to reveal.
The words lodged in Camille’s throat, inescapable. She swallowed once, a movement that did nothing to clear the tightness constricting her. Her hands shook, the tremor more visible now, and before her mind could catch up, before she had time to question the impulse rising through her, her fingers moved. They reached out, closing over the lapel of Holland’s coat with sudden, urgent force, gripping the fabric as if grounding herself in something she shouldn’t touch.
Her mouth collided with Holland’s.
For a heartbeat, Holland froze, her entire body going rigid, her breath stilling in her chest, eyes wide with shock. The moment hung suspended, stretched thin, as if the entire room paused just to absorb the collision. The walls, the lights, the silence—everything stood still.
Then her lips parted, and the kiss ignited.
It surged between them, rough, reckless, unrestrained, fueled by the weeks of tension that had built beneath glances that lasted too long and breaths that caught in places neither of them admitted. Every ounce of heat and pressure burst into that single consuming moment. Teeth collided. Breaths tangled. Camille’s fingers tightened in the fabric of Holland’s coat, dragging her closer, as if proximity alone could translate everything she hadn’t spoken.
The world outside the office vanished, dissolving into nothing but the pulse between their mouths. Camille pressed harder, pulled with an intensity that felt like a confession made through contact rather than words, pouring every unsaid thought, every restrained moment, every spark she’d tried to ignore into the kiss. Holland’s hand twitched upward, frozen at first, caught between resistance and surrender. Her fingers hovered near Camille’s waist, uncertain, trembling with a hesitation that radiated through the small space between them. That hesitation made the air feel hotter, thick with the strain of something that had lived beneath the surface far too long.
And then it broke.
Camille jerked back as if something inside her snapped, her breath ripping from her lungs, her hand falling from the coat like it had burned her. Her lips tingled, her chest rose and fell too fast, her pulse drummed in her ears so loudly it drowned out the faint hum of the lights. She stared at Holland, eyes wide, pupils blown, as if she’d just crossed a line she could never uncross, as if she’d set the world aflame and only now realized she held the match.
“What the hell…” Camille whispered, voice cracking, trembling, barely forming the words. Her breath caught again, uneven and loud in the quiet room, her entire body rattled by adrenaline she couldn’t contain. The silence thickened, buzzing with the ghost of the kiss, the air still echoing with contact, every corner of the office alive with the lingering charge neither of them moved to extinguish.
Her face twisted, a swirl of shock, fear, and something raw she refused to name. Her legs moved without conscious choice, carrying her to the door. Her fingers hovered over the handle before gripping it too tightly. Words spilled from her, tangled and fragile. “I… I can’t…”
And then she was gone, footsteps echoing across the empty floor, each one uneven, carrying her farther from the moment she had created.
Holland stumbled backward, as if the space had shifted beneath her feet. Her heels scraped against the floor, and she hit the edge of her desk with more force than she intended. She sank onto the surface, breath rushing from her lungs, unable to stay standing under the weight of what had just happened. Her fingers reached behind her, gripping the desk for support, her palms clammy against the cool surface. Every nerve in her body felt alive, humming, too aware of itself. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, drowning out thought, leaving only sensation.
Her gaze stayed locked on Camille even as she moved toward the far end of the office, body tense, purposeful, driven by panic and something Holland couldn’t decipher. Camille’s figure blurred as the distance grew, but Holland couldn’t tear her eyes away. Part of her wanted to call out, to stop her, to pull her back into the moment that had just blown apart between them. Another part froze, paralyzed by the uncertainty of what reaching out would mean. Her breath hitched once, shallow and uneven.
Her fingers lifted to her lips, brushing lightly, lingering. The contact sent another jolt through her, a reminder of heat she hadn’t expected, hadn’t planned for, hadn’t imagined would feel like that. The papers scattered on her desk blurred, their neat lines dissolving into meaningless shapes as her sight unfocused. The thrum of her pulse drowned everything out, leaving only the awareness of her own breath and the faint warmth still lingering on her mouth.
Her lips still burned, the memory pressed against her skin as if the kiss hadn’t ended at all.
Something else stirred inside her, not quite shock, not quite anger, not quite want—something tangled, unfamiliar, twisting through her chest in a sensation she couldn’t categorize. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t think past the echo of what Camille had done.
The office seemed to shrink, closing in around her, thick with the aftermath. The air smelled different, charged, warmer somehow, as if the room itself had absorbed what happened and held it suspended.
And one relentless thought spun in her mind, louder than everything else, br
eaking past the fog.
What?
What just happened?