THE BULLY WHO WANTS MY HEART AND MY RUIN

(Sloane POV)

He studied me for a long moment, and I saw him physically pull himself together:straightening his shoulders, adjusting his expression into something more neutral. When he spoke again, his tone was carefully professional. "Let's start over. As colleagues. I'd like to review your current projects and discuss how Communications can support my transition into this role."

It was a lifeline back to safer territory. I should have grabbed it, should have been grateful for the exit from this emotional minefield.

Instead, I heard myself ask: "Is that really why you wanted this meeting? To discuss projects?"

His carefully constructed professionalism cracked. "No."

"Then what did you want?"

"To see if you were real," he said simply. "For months, I've been preparing to come back here, knowing I might see you. Hoping I might see you. But I didn't know if you'd stayed in New York, if you'd moved on, if you'd gotten married or-" He cut himself off. "And then there you were, sitting in that conference room looking like every fantasy I've tried to bury for seven years, and I needed to know if I was remembering you wrong. If I'd built you up into something impossible."

"And?" I barely breathed the question.

"You're more," he said, his voice rough. "You're so much more than I remembered, and I don't know what the fuck to do with that."

The vulnerability in his admission did something dangerous to my carefully maintained anger. Because underneath the successful professional I'd become, there was still a girl who'd wanted desperately to be seen by him-really seen, not as a target but as someone worthy of genuine attention.

That girl was a liability.

"You don't do anything with it," I said firmly. "You leave it alone. We're colleagues, nothing more. We have no personal history,that's the fiction we're both going to maintain. You're going to treat me exactly like you treat every other department head: professionally, appropriately, with clear boundaries. And I'm going to do my job exceptionally well, which I was already doing before you showed up. Agreed?"

Something rebellious flickered in his eyes. "And if I don't agree?"

"Then I'll file a formal complaint with HR, detail our prior relationship and your current inappropriate behavior, and watch your triumphant return to daddy's company explode spectacularly." I crossed my arms. "I'm not sixteen anymore, Dante. I don't cry in bathroom stalls. I fight back."

He smiled then, sharp and genuine. "Good. I'd be disappointed if you didn't."

"I'm not performing for your entertainment."

"No," he agreed, "you're surviving. Just like you said. And you've done it beautifully." His gaze traveled over me with something like pride, which was infuriating and confusing in equal measure. "But Sloane? This fiction you want to maintain,that we're strangers who just met? It's not going to hold."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not capable of looking at you like you're just another employee." He said it like a confession, like a threat, like a promise. "I'm going to try. For both our sakes, I'll try. But I need you to know that's what I'll be doing every time we're in the same room,trying not to act on seven years of wanting you."

Heat flooded through me, unwanted and undeniable. "That's sexual harassment."

"It's the truth." He moved toward the door, and I felt the loss of his proximity like a physical thing. "But you're right. This needs to be professional. So let's make this official: I'd like a full briefing on all active Communications projects by end of day Friday. Include timelines, budgets, and stakeholder lists. We'll schedule a follow-up meeting next week to discuss strategy alignment."

Just like that, we were back in safe territory. Boss and subordinate, nothing more complicated than corporate hierarchy.

"Of course," I said. "I'll have my assistant send you the files."

"Good." His hand was on the doorknob when he paused. "Sloane? One more thing."

"Yes?"

He turned back, and the look in his eyes made my stomach drop. "Don't ever accuse me of hating you again. Whatever I felt, whatever I did,it was never hate. Hate would have been simpler. Hate wouldn't have followed me across an ocean and haunted me every goddamn day for seven years."

Then he was gone, leaving me alone in my office with the scent of cedar and the wreckage of every assumption I'd made about how this day would go.

I sank into my desk chair, my legs suddenly unreliable.

Dante Moretti was back. And whatever game he was playing, I had a terrible feeling I was already losing.

I lasted until 6 PM before calling the only person who knew the full story.

"Tell me you're free for an emergency wine situation," I said when Jessa picked up.

"That bad?" My best friend's voice carried concern and curiosity in equal measure. "I'm wrapping up a deposition but I can meet you at Vesper in thirty. The usual corner?"

"Perfect. I'll be the one drinking heavily."

"Sloane, what happened?"

I looked out my office window at Manhattan turning gold in the setting sun, at the life I'd built from ruins and determination. "A ghost showed up. And he's not leaving."

Vesper was the kind of bar where corporate warriors went to bleed in private and the blessed assurance that whatever you said wouldn't leave the velvet-upholstered confines of your booth. Jessa was already there when I arrived, her lawyer armor still intact: charcoal suit, severe bun, the expression that made opposing counsel reconsider their life choices.

But when she saw my face, the armor cracked. "Jesus, Sloane. What happened?"

I slid into the booth across from her. "Dante Moretti is the new VP of Operations."

To her credit, Jessa didn't ask who. She'd been my roommate at NYU, had held me through enough nightmares and therapy sessions to know exactly who Dante was and what he'd done.

"Fuck," she said succinctly. Then: "Can you transfer?"

"To where? His authority extends across all domestic operations. There's no department in the company he won't have access to."

"Then quit."

"And go where?" I laughed bitterly. "This position is the best opportunity I've had. The pay, the projects, the visibility-everything I've worked for is tied up in Moretti Holdings. If I leave now, it looks like I can't handle pressure. Like I'm running."

"You'd be protecting yourself."

"I'd be letting him win again." I accepted the wine glass Jessa pushed toward me, drinking deeply. "He doesn't get to run me out of my own life twice."

Jessa studied me with the intensity that made her excellent at cross-examination. "What did he say to you?"

"That he was obsessed with me. That tormenting me was some twisted teenage response to feelings he didn't know how to handle. That he's spent seven years becoming someone worthy of making things right."

"And you believe him?"

Did I? I wanted to dismiss it as manipulation, but the rawness in Dante's voice had sounded genuine. The pain when I'd described what his actions had done to me,that had seemed real too.

"I don't know what I believe," I admitted. "Part of me thinks it's an elaborate setup for something worse. Part of me wonders if he's telling the truth. And the really fucked up part?" I met Jessa's eyes. "Part of me doesn't care either way because just being in the same room with him made me feel more alive than I have in months."

"That's trauma bonding, not attraction."

"Is there a difference when you're sixteen and wired wrong?"

Jessa reached across the table, gripping my hand. "You're not wired wrong. You were a kid with a crush who got brutalized by someone who should have known better. And now he's back, in a position of power over you, making it impossible to have a clean professional relationship. This is textbook predatory behavior, Sloane. Even if his feelings were real back then, his actions now are calculated."

She was right. I knew she was right. But knowing didn't stop the treacherous part of my brain that had replayed our conversation a dozen times, analyzing every word, every look, every moment when his control had slipped and I'd glimpsed something vulnerable underneath.

"What do I do?" I asked.

"Document everything," Jessa said immediately, her lawyer brain engaging. "Every interaction, every meeting, anything that could be construed as inappropriate. Keep a paper trail. And seriously consider talking to HR about the history, getting it on record so if he does try something, you're protected."

"And if he doesn't? If he actually maintains professional boundaries?"

"Then you do your job brilliantly and pretend he doesn't exist beyond what's absolutely necessary." Jessa squeezed my hand. "But Sloane? Don't believe his redemption story until he's proven it with actions, not words. People don't change that dramatically. Not really."

I wanted to believe her. The logical, self-protective part of me knew she was absolutely right.

But I couldn't stop remembering the look in Dante's eyes when he'd said hate would have been simpler.

We finished our wine, ordered another round, and Jessa regaled me with stories from her current case:a contentious divorce involving a hedge fund manager and his soon-to-be-ex-wife's extensive art collection. Normally I'd have been fascinated by the legal maneuvering, but my mind kept drifting back to my office, to cedar and sharp suits and a voice that had gotten deeper, richer, and more dangerous.

"You're not listening to me," Jessa observed.

"I'm sorry. I'm in terrible company tonight."

"You're traumatized, which is different." She signaled for the check. "Go home. Take a bath. Watch something mindless. And tomorrow, go into that office and be the badass professional who earned that position. Don't give him the satisfaction of seeing you rattled."

"Too late," I muttered. "I literally dropped my coffee mug when I saw him."

"Then tomorrow you're steady as a surgeon. Show him you're not that girl anymore."

Except I wasn't sure that was true. Because when Dante had looked at me with hunger and regret and raw honesty, I'd felt sixteen again,wanting desperately to believe he saw something in me worth wanting, even as every survival instinct screamed that believing him would destroy me.

I made it home by 8:30. My apartment was a one-bedroom in a converted warehouse in Chelsea:exposed brick, high ceilings, the kind of industrial-chic that cost a fortune but felt worth it when you'd grown up in cramped quarters where privacy was a luxury. I'd decorated it carefully: mid-century modern furniture, plants I managed not to kill, art from street fairs and emerging artists I could actually afford.

Evidence that I'd made something of myself.

I was halfway through changing into pajamas when my phone buzzed.

Unknown number, but the message made my blood freeze:

You left your portfolio in my office. I'll have it sent up in the morning. -DM

I looked around my bedroom, confused. I hadn't brought a portfolio to his-

Oh. Oh fuck.

I'd never actually met with him in his office. We'd met in mine. Which meant he'd somehow gotten my personal number. Which meant he'd looked me up in company systems, found information he had no business accessing for a routine professional interaction.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I should ignore it. Should absolutely not respond to after-hours texts from my boss who also happened to be my childhood tormentor who'd confessed to obsession.

But anger won out over caution:

We met in MY office. I didn't leave anything. And how did you get this number?

The reply came within seconds:

Company directory. And you're right-my mistake. I was distracted during our meeting. It won't happen again.

Something about the phrasing made my stomach flutter. Distracted by what? By me? By the tension crackling between us? By the weight of seven years and unfinished business?

I typed and deleted three responses before settling on:

See that it doesn't. Professional boundaries, remember?

I remember. Sleep well, Sloane.

I stared at my name on the screen, at the casual intimacy of it. Not Ms. Rivera. Not Rivera. Just Sloane, like he had the right to my first name outside of work hours, like we were something other than boss and subordinate with a history that should have stayed buried.

I should have told him not to text me again. Should have established firm boundaries immediately.

Instead, I turned off my phone and lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, remembering what it felt like to be sixteen and watching Dante's window, wondering what it would be like to be noticed by him. Really noticed, not as a target but as someone worthy of genuine attention.

Careful what you wish for, the old saying went.

I'd wanted Dante Moretti to see me.

Now he had, and I had no idea if I was ready for what that meant.