Chapter 30 Come to my office
Holland’s pencil snapped in her grip, the sharp crack echoing louder than it should have in her quiet office. She froze, staring down at the broken halves now lying in her palm, graphite dust smudging her fingertips. Her jaw tightened, her breath caught high in her chest. The pencil wasn’t the problem, it never was.
The problem was her damned assistant. Camille Lustrelle.
Six days. That was all it had taken for the girl to turn her world on its head. Six days since she’d walked through the office doors with that careless stride, green eyes too bright, voice too quick, questions tumbling out with no respect for rhythm or restraint.
Holland had spent years curating herself into something untouchable. Her routines were iron-clad, her schedule immovable, her reputation colder than stone. She had built walls so high, so carefully, that even she had started to believe no one could scale them. But then, Camille Lustrelle of all people came along.
The Lustrelle girl shoved at every line Holland drew. She asked questions no assistant had ever dared to. She looked at her, not with fear, not with reverence, but with something else. Challenge. Curiosity. Reckless defiance.
Holland let out a breath through her nose, sharp and unsteady. She leaned back in her chair, the leather creaking faintly beneath her. Her gaze slid to the neat stack of reports waiting on the corner of her desk. She should be reviewing them. She should be preparing for tomorrow’s board update. She should be doing anything except what she was doing, sitting here, thinking about Camille Lustrelle.
It was infuriating.
The first three days had been a breeze, or so she had thought. Camille’s presence had been a ripple, nothing she couldn’t smooth out with enough willpower. But now, she wasn’t sure anymore.
The girl didn’t know the meaning of boundaries. Or maybe she knew and simply didn’t give a damn. And Holland… Holland had caught herself caring in ways she shouldn’t. Watching. Listening. Waiting.
She pressed her thumb into the sharp edge of the broken pencil, hard enough to feel the bite against her skin, grounding herself. Her hand dropped the pieces into the bin, the faint clatter swallowed by the silence of the office.
Silence she’d once loved. Silence that now seemed too loud.
With a low sigh, Holland tipped her head back, eyes tracing the ceiling. Just like Saturday, nothing was getting done, and she knew exactly why. Camille Lustrelle. Always Camille.
For the third time that afternoon, Holland caught herself considering calling Janine. She could end this, cut it off cleanly. Camille wasn’t a good fit, not for her department, not for her work. She wasn’t disciplined enough, didn’t know when to stop, didn’t know when to keep quiet. But each time Holland reached for her phone, she froze. She couldn’t explain it. Maybe it was because she had given her word to Janine Lustrelle to make this work. It had to be that.
She let out a long sigh, tipping her head back against the leather chair. The ceiling above offered no answers, only the soft glow of recessed lighting that had begun to feel oppressive. Just like Saturday, nothing was getting done. The gala was coming soon, she had reports to go through but the words kept on slipping through her focus, and every task she set her eyes on dissolved into static.
All because of her.
Camille Lustrelle.
Holland pinched the bridge of her nose, massaging at the tension gathering there. The girl’s drunk voice still lingered in her ears, and her bold declaration. A week. Only a week, and already her grip on order was slipping.
The knock came soft against the glass door, barely registering at first. Holland’s lips parted with irritation. She didn’t want interruptions, not now. Not when she was already unsettled.
“Come in,” she called, the words sharper than she’d intended, more command than invitation.
The door eased open on a hush of hinges.
“I brought you some lunch. Hope you like it.”
That voice.
Holland pushed upright, her spine snapping straight as surprise flickered through her. Camille was standing just inside the doorway, shoulders drawn back as if forcing herself to appear confident, though the way her weight shifted from one foot to the other betrayed her nerves. That was new. Her green eyes darted everywhere, the polished desk, the city skyline beyond the window, the edge of the rug beneath their feet, anywhere but at Holland herself.
A container landed softly on the desk, followed by a chilled bottle of water that glistened with condensation.
The scent reached Holland before her mind could catch up, warm, rich, tantalizing, curling through the cold air of her office like an unwelcome seduction. Her stomach tightened immediately, a sharp pang of hunger she hadn’t even realized was there. She loathed the betrayal of her body, hated the way her mouth watered despite her determination to remain composed.
She forced her gaze from the food to Camille, narrowing her eyes, blue irises cutting sharp as glass. “I didn’t ask for this.”
Camille’s lips parted before she could stop herself, the sound slipping out sharp. Half scoff, half laugh. The instant it escaped, she realized her mistake.
Holland’s gaze snapped to hers, icy and precise, cutting through the air like the crack of a whip. Camille froze, breath catching, the tiny hairline fracture of defiance suddenly exposed under that stare.
“Sorry,” she muttered, too quick, too small. She should have left it there, let silence swallow the moment and walked out. But her mouth betrayed her, words spilling past every warning bell ringing in her head.
“But I’ll always bring you something,” she pressed on, her voice low but steady, a pulse of conviction threading through it. Her eyes flicked briefly to the untouched paperwork scattered across Holland’s desk, then back up. “You work harder than everyone else here. You deserve a proper meal.”
The words hung in the space between them, heavier than they should have been. Camille shifted her weight, fighting the urge to fidget under the scrutiny of Holland’s narrowed eyes.
Holland’s jaw flexed, slow, and deliberate movement. There it was again. That streak. That refusal to stay in her place. Her tongue pressed against her teeth, then slid along the inside of her cheek, a measured gesture that looked casual but wasn’t. She was studying the Lustrelle girl again, dissecting her with the same sharpness she applied to contracts and quarterly reports.
And yet, something flickered in those blue eyes. A glint, faint but unmistakable, that gave Camille’s chest a strange, reckless twist.
“Well.” Camille exhaled softly, forcing her shoulders back, letting the breath slip from her like a shield. Her voice was quieter now, stripped of its earlier edge, though it still carried the faintest bite. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Camille lingered for half a second too long, eyes searching Holland’s face, looking for something, permission, acknowledgment, anything. Then, with a small tilt of her head, she turned toward the door. Camille pulled her hand to her chest, the effort aimed to calm her thumping heart, but it was of no use. Holding herself together in Holland’s presence was unraveling her sanity.
The woman was too much, too poised, too cold, and too impossibly beautiful. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t thaw that ice. Camille pulled the door open, stepping out into the buzz of the office, already dreading the talk the chief had promised would come.
The faint buzz against the desk rattled through the quiet, snapping Camille out of the haze that still clung to her after leaving Holland’s office. She glanced at her phone, screen lighting up with a notification from the group chat. Luca, of course. A pin dropped to some club’s location, captioned with his usual flair.
Her stomach knotted. No. Not tonight. Not when her pulse was already running wild from just standing in Holland Larson’s orbit. The last time she’d gone out with them on a weeknight, she’d ended up drinking too much, and somehow that reckless streak had followed her into this mess. She couldn’t afford another firestorm. Not on a Monday. Not when the rest of the week already loomed like a battlefield.
With a quiet sigh, she tapped the side button, silencing the phone. The buzzing stopped, but her nerves didn’t. She slipped the device aside, far enough she wouldn’t be tempted to reach for it again, and drew in a long, steady breath. Maybe she’d just skip her apartment altogether. Head home. Be with her family. Their presence, their affection, it had been the only thing keeping her from unraveling over the weekend.
Her gaze slid to the corner of her desk where the small sticky note clung to the edge of her monitor. The list of tasks glared back at her in her own scrawled handwriting, mocking in its simplicity: follow-ups, draft revisions, emails flagged red. Work that should have been easy, routine, mechanical. But now each line looked like a mountain.
Camille straightened in her chair and tapped her computer awake. The screen flickered to life, bathing her in the pale glow of the login page. She typed in her password, fingers moving quicker than her thoughts, and the desktop bloomed before her, icons neatly arranged, folders lined up, her inbox already swelling with unread messages.
She pressed her lips together and forced her attention onto the sticky note again. One item at a time. She could do that. She had to. Her hands moved to the keyboard, the soft rhythm of keys filling the silence, a steady counterpoint to the storm still thrumming in her chest.
By the time the office settled into its evening hush, the glow from the overhead lights dimmed to a muted amber, and the chatter of colleagues dwindled to nothing but the faint hum of computers left running overnight. Camille’s gaze drifted to the corner of her monitor. Almost seven. The numbers glared back at her, harsh and unforgiving. Her stomach twisted sharply, as if time itself had cornered her.
When would Holland call her in? Or worse, what if she didn’t? What if Camille was left to stew in this dread until tomorrow?
The sudden shrill ring of her desk phone sliced through the silence, making her jolt so violently her water bottle wobbled. Her hand shot out, fingers clumsy, almost knocking it over before she snatched the receiver and pressed it to her ear.
“Come to my office.”