THE KISS HAD CHANGED EVERYTHING.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur of laughter, stolen glances, and that dizzying tension that never seed to leave the space between them.
Mailah wasn’t sure when the joking had turned into sothing softer, or when her hand had brushed his on the way upstairs, but by the ti the mansion quieted for the night, she found herself standing in the threshold of his room.
He leaned against the doorfra, eyes glowing faintly, his smirk curved into sothing she couldn’t quite read. "You know," he drawled, "if you sleep in here, people might assu you’re already corrupting your employer. That would be... deeply unethical."
Mailah had laughed, half because it was absurd, half because she heard the edge of sincerity buried beneath the jest. He was warning her without saying it outright—that intimacy with him was not simple, not safe.
But when she teased back—"Then it’s a good thing no one’s keeping attendance sheets"—he’d let her pass, let her slip under his sheets.
They didn’t push it further.
Not that night.
The hunger in him had been eased after his feeding, but she could still sense it simring beneath his control.
He was holding himself back for her, and that knowledge made her decide not to rush him. If he needed ti, she would give it.
Still, when she drifted into sleep, she did so with his scent clinging to her and his presence heavy in the air.
For the first ti in years, her dreams weren’t haunted—they were warm.
But the next morning, he was gone.
The estate felt colder without him.
When she checked him in his bedroom, his bed was untouched, as though he hadn’t slept at all. On the nightstand, she found a folded slip of paper.
I had to leave earlier than expected. You’ll drive to the office on your own. —G.
Mailah stared at the note, her brows drawing together. No instructions beyond that, no gentle teasing to soften it. Just a curt dismissal, like a man too busy to care.
Typical Grayson. Or maybe not.
"Is he... trying to discourage ?" she murmured aloud, tracing the sharp letters of his handwriting.
It felt like a test—an obstacle ant to make her think twice about showing up.
But she wouldn’t be deterred.
Not when she rembered the promise she’d extracted from him: Tomorrow then. We’ll see how long you last.
As she showered, a different thought unsettled her. They hadn’t decided what identity she would wear.
Would she keep pretending to be Lailah, her dead twin?
The idea still tasted bitter, but it was the role she had chosen to slip into, the mask that had allowed her to stay close to him.
Still... she didn’t want to erase herself entirely.
Standing before the mirror, she made her choice.
She would keep Lailah’s na, but little by little, she would bleed pieces of her own truth into it.
If she dressed differently, spoke differently, perhaps people would start to see her rather than the shadow of a sister.
She straightened her hair, curling the ends the way Lailah used to, but added her own twist—a brighter lip color, a sharper line of eyeliner.
When she slipped into her tailored skirt and blouse, she chose colors that belonged more to Mailah than to Lailah. It was both and neither, a hybrid identity that let her breathe.
When she stepped back from the mirror, she felt like a version of herself she could own.
Breakfast was quick—coffee, toast, fruit. Her nerves made it hard to eat more, though she forced herself. She would need strength to face whatever Grayson had planned.
By the ti she slid behind the wheel of the sleek black car, the morning sun was already gilding the city in gold.
Driving through the familiar streets toward Ashford Corp was almost surreal.
She had been to the building dozens of tis before, back when her role was to repair Grayson’s public image, smoothing over a scandal. But this morning felt different.
Today she wasn’t here only as his pretend wife.
Today she was stepping into his world as sothing closer—closer to him, closer to danger.
As the skyscrapers rose around her, Mailah felt her chest tighten.
For days, her life had been saturated with the supernatural: feeding rituals, glowing eyes, dangerous energy that crackled in the air whenever Grayson drew near.
But now, driving through morning traffic, surrounded by honking cars and commuters balancing coffee cups, she felt almost... normal.
For a fleeting mont, the supernatural felt far away, like a fever dream she’d woken from.
The thought was disorienting, almost overwhelming.
But the closer she got to Ashford Corp, the sharper her anticipation grew.
The building lood into view—a glass and steel monolith, glittering against the sky. The Ashford na was emblazoned in silver letters, impossible to ignore.
Mailah parked, smoothing her skirt before stepping out. Her heels clicked against the marble floor of the lobby, the sound echoing as she crossed to the elevators.
She’d walked this way many tis, but her pulse still raced.
Maybe it was because she knew that once those doors opened, she wouldn’t just be walking into a corporation. She’d be walking into his domain.
The ride to the top floor was too fast and too slow all at once.
She found herself adjusting her blouse, checking her reflection in the mirrored doors, fighting the irrational urge to turn and flee.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chi, and Mailah stepped into the hushed expanse of the executive floor.
The air felt different up here—thicker sohow, heavy with tension she couldn’t quite na. Conversations she had expected—the clipped voices of secretaries, the rustle of papers, the brisk shuffle of footsteps—were conspicuously absent.
Instead, there was only silence, broken by the faint scratch of a pen sowhere down the hall.
She adjusted her bag on her shoulder, her heels clicking against the polished floor, the sound too loud in the stillness.
Then she spotted her.
Elena.
Tall, blonde, impossibly polished. She looked like she had been sculpted to match the glass-and-steel aesthetic of Ashford Corp itself—sharp, efficient, and devastatingly beautiful.
Her fitted blazer hugged her figure in a way Mailah couldn’t help but notice, and when she turned her head, those cool blue eyes lit up with recognition.
"Mrs. Ashford," Elena greeted smoothly, her voice like velvet poured into crystal. "You’re here."
Mailah forced a polite smile. The last ti they had t, it had been the morning after the first ti she and Grayson slept in the sa bed, back when she was still pretending to be her sister.
She rembered the way Elena had spoken of Grayson—casually, intimately, as though she knew every quirk of his personality, every hidden detail of his life. That familiarity had stung then, and it stung now, worse than before.
"Yes," Mailah said, trying to keep her tone even. "I’m supposed to et my husband this morning."
Elena’s perfect brow arched ever so slightly, but before she could respond, a sound cut through the hallway.
A voice.
Not just any voice. His.
Grayson’s tone rolled like thunder through the corridor, loud enough that the glass walls seed to hum with it.
He wasn’t just speaking; he was snarling. Each word cracked like a whip, sharp and rciless, the kind of sound that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
Mailah froze, her pulse skipping.
She had heard Grayson angry before—but not like this.
Not uncontrolled. Not dangerous.
"He’s with soone," Elena said calmly, as though this sort of storm was routine.
She tilted her head toward the frosted glass doors at the end of the hall. "One of the division heads. They’re... having a discussion."
Mailah didn’t need the explanation. She didn’t need to be told what kind of discussion it was—she could hear it.
And with every syllable that rumbled from Grayson’s chest, she knew: this was a bad idea.
Because if he had let himself slip—if the demon in him was closer to the surface than usual—then one wrong push could send him spiraling.
Mailah’s fists clenched at her sides. She wasn’t about to stand out here while he tore soone apart inside.
"I’m going in," she said.
Elena blinked, clearly startled. "I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Grayson—Mr. Ashford—would not appreciate—"
But Mailah was already moving, her heels carrying her toward the office doors with purposeful strides.
"Wait," Elena tried again, stepping after her. "He won’t like it. Trust ."
Mailah paused only long enough to glance at her, her jaw set. "Trust ," she countered. "He needs this."
And before Elena could stop her, she pushed the door open.
The sound hit her first.
Grayson’s voice, dark and vibrating with restrained fury, lashed through the air, silencing her thoughts.
She stepped into the office, and the sheer force of his presence nearly drove her back.
The scene before her was almost theatrical in its intensity.
Grayson stood behind his desk, tall and devastating, his suit jacket hanging open as though he’d shed formality in favor of raw authority.
His eyes burned—not literally, but close enough that Mailah’s breath hitched.
The man across from him, a middle-aged executive with sweat beading on his forehead, looked like he was facing down a predator who had already chosen which bone to snap first.
"—if you ever undermine in front of the board again," Grayson’s voice cut through the room, low and lethal, "you won’t just lose your job. You’ll lose the ground you walk on. Do you understand ?"
The man stamred, his face pale, his lips trembling.
And then Grayson noticed her.
His gaze slid to the door, landing on her like a blade.
For a heartbeat, the world stopped.
He looked at her not with the warmth of last night, not with the teasing humor she had coaxed from him—but with sothing colder, sothing that reminded her exactly what he was.
A demon.
The shift was subtle but terrifying. The air seed to darken around him, charged with an energy that wasn’t human.
His jaw tightened, his eyes narrowed, and for the first ti, Mailah felt like she was intruding on sothing primal.
Her lungs seized. She wanted to step back, to apologize, but her body refused to obey.
Because beneath the coldness, beneath the scorn of the interruption, she saw sothing else flicker across his face.
Sothing dangerous.
Sothing that whispered: this was not just Grayson Ashford, CEO.
This was Grayson, the demon, wearing human skin like a tailored suit.
And she wasn’t sure which version of him she had just interrupted.
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