FAKE DATING WITH BENEFITS MY BILLIONAIRE BOSS (Ophelia Corrigan) novel Chapter 87

CHAPTER 87

MIE

The conference room was already full when I walked in at eight-fifteen Monday morning.

Directors occupied both sides of the long mahogany table, laptops open, coffee mugs steaming. The usual pre-meeting buzz hummed through the room until the door at the back opened.

Simon Hart walked in like he owned the place.

Which he technically did.

His navy suit was impeccable, his white shirt perfectly pressed, his tie knotted just so. Not a single hair out of place. His jaw was set in that hard line I’d learned to recognize as his “CEO mode” expression.

“Good morning, everyone,” he said, in that voice that carried such natural authority it made the directors straighten in their chairs. “Let’s get started. We have a lot to cover.”

He took his seat at the head of the table, and for the next forty-five minutes, he was the embodiment of a brilliant executive. Numbers flowed from his lips like poetry. Strategic discussions that would take other CEOs hours were dispatched with sharp analysis and precise direction. He dismantled a marketing proposal with three questions so pointed the VP actually started sweating.

I watched him work, and something uncomfortable twisted in my chest.

Because this was the other Simon. The man who’d built a billion-dollar empire from nothing, the one who could make seasoned executives tremble with a single raised eyebrow.

This was the man I worked for.

And I needed to get over whatever we’d had.

The meeting continued. I presented my revised analysis-the one I’d spent half the night finishing because of his petty demand on Friday–and he barely looked at me.

“Collins.” He didn’t even use my title. Barely lifted his eyes from the papers in front of him. “This projection model. Did you compare it to the historical data from the Asian market expansion?”

My jaw tightened. “Yes. The comparison chart is on page twelve.”

“Page twelve.” He flipped through the document with deliberate slowness. “The growth percentages here- they don’t match Morrison’s team’s original projections.”

I felt my spine stiffen. “Because Morrison’s team’s projections were inflated by seventeen percent. I adjusted based on actual performance metrics.”

Finally, he looked up.

His eyes-that crystalline blue-met mine, and for one suspended moment, the room around us disappeared. It was just him and me and that electric charge that seemed to crackle between us no matter how hard I tried to deny it.

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It took one second for me to remember last night. His scent on the shirt. His voice I could still hear like he was right beside me.

Heat crept up my neck, and I looked away first. My fingers tightened around my mug as I stared at my notes without really seeing them.

The meeting continued. I forced myself to focus, to contribute, to be the professional I’d built my entire reputation on. But I felt his eyes on me. That weight. That awareness that he was watching, cataloging. filing away every micro-expression I made.

When I finally looked up again, I caught him mid-study.

He was looking at me exactly how I’d feared-like he’d found something in my flush that I hadn’t intended to reveal.

Then he cleared his throat and looked away.

The meeting ended thirty minutes later. I gathered my things along with everyone else, already planning my escape, when his voice cut through the chatter.

“Collins. One more thing.”

I stopped. Turned.

He was still seated at the head of the table, papers spread in front of him, perfectly composed.

“Your report. The revised version.” He tapped a finger on the stack of papers. “Good work.”

An actual compliment. I waited for the punchline.

“The formatting, however, was inconsistent. The headers were two points smaller on page twenty-seven than on page three.”

I blinked, “What?”

“The layout. It was inconsistent.”

He’d called me back. Over formatting.

“You have to be kidding me.”

“I don’t joke about presentation.” His voice was smooth. “If we’re sending this to another institution, it needs to be flawless. That includes the fonts.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. The sheer audacity of him, standing there like a stone statue, criticizing my fonts after everything that had happened.

I spun on my heel and walked out.

He caught up to me in the hallway.

“Jamie.”

“No.” I kept walking, my heels clicking against the marble floor. “Don’t you dare lecture me about

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formatting like I’m some junior associate straight out of law school that you can push around.”

wasn’t-”

“Yes, you were.” I stopped so abruptly he almost collided with me. I turned to face him, keeping my voice low so the assistants at the end of the hall wouldn’t hear. “You spent the entire morning looking for reasons to criticize me. Finding faults in details that wouldn’t matter to anyone else. And we both know why.”

His jaw tightened. “Enlighten me.”

“You’re being childish.” The words came out sharp and low. “The arrangement is over. I ended it. That was my choice. But I still have a job to do, and I do it well. So if you’re going to treat me like a professional. do that. And if you can’t-” I took a breath. “Then fire me if you think I’m that incompetent.”

The air between us seemed to vibrate with tension. He was too close, his eyes too focused on mine.

“Fine,” he said finally. “I’m going back to my office now.”

Before I could respond, he walked past me and kept going. I stood there, listening to his footsteps fade.

The rest of the day was a blur of paperwork and meetings and carefully avoiding the forty-seventh floor. I buried myself in contracts, reviewed processes, answered emails until my eyes burned and my back ached.

But every time I stopped-every time I allowed myself a one-second pause-my thoughts went back to

him.

The way he’d looked at me across the table. The way his fingers tightened around his pen when he caught me staring.

By the time the sun started setting over Manhattan, the office was empty. The cleaning crew had come and gone. The lights in the adjacent cubicles were dimmed to a soft glow.

I was still there.

Working. Because the alternative was going home to an empty apartment and catching myself sinning with his shirt again.

I opened another document, determined to keep going, when my phone buzzed on the desk.

The name on the screen made my heart stutter.

Simon.

I stared at the phone for six rings. Then I answered.

“What do you want, Hart?”

A pause.

“What are you doing in the office this late?”

I froze.

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