The Gold Access — as Phei had learned it was called — didn’t just hand him a shiny card.
It handed him a different fucking elevator.
Not the cattle-car bank that ferried wage slaves and daylight visitors up and down during respectable hours.
No.
A private one. Glass on three sides. Tucked like a secret behind the lobby’s east wall, behind a reader that blushed soft, obscene gold the instant his card brushed it.
The doors parted without so much as a sigh.
He stepped in.
Doors sealed. Gravity politely excused itself. The city dropped away like it knew better than to stay in his way.
Paradise at night sprawled beneath him — a glittering, shaless carpet of light.
Buildings burned gold and white, traffic slid in molten rivers down the boulevards, the twin spires of the Ashford Tower rose on either side like jealous parents as the elevator threaded the narrow gap between them.
Infinity pools shimred turquoise in the dark like soone had spilled high-end jewelry across the rooftops.
Palm trees glowed erald from below, lit like they were posing for money.
Empty terraces rembered power lunches from twelve hours earlier and left behind nothing but spotless tables and the faint musk of people who think they’re immortal because their bonuses say so.
The elevator didn’t bother stopping at the normal floors.
It blew past offices, conference rooms, the humming machinery of empire, and kept rising into the stratosphere where the air actually tasted like money because the people breathing it owned the concept.
Doors opened without fanfare.
A corridor waited.
Long. Silent. Expensive in the quiet, murderous way only real wealth can afford to be.
Warm cream marble underfoot, polished until it glowed like the building was lactating light. Pale wood panelling. Recessed shelves displaying ceramics so perfect they looked like they could sue you for looking at them wrong.
A single tall palm in a black pot, standing there like it was paid by the hour to look aloof.
Ceiling overhead flowed in lazy, organic curves of recessed gold light — frozen rivers of late-afternoon sun that had been kidnapped, dosticated, and taught to behave.
Phei walked with his footsteps swallowed by marble. The small bag in his right hand tapped his thigh like a patient heartbeat.
The whole tower humd around him — that deep, bone-level vibration of a building that never quite sleeps, even when the humans have clocked out.
The corridor ended at a desk.
A woman nad Catherine’s desk sat like a polite landmine right outside the big door. Not a receptionist setup.
A final checkpoint.
The last living barrier between the world and whatever Madam Ashford was doing behind that slab of wood.
Catherine was still there.
Late thirties. Sharp features. The specific steel-eyed calm that cos from years of working for soone who eats lesser mortals for breakfast — you either grow a spine of titanium or you’re gone by week three.
She was typing.
Focused.
Desk lamp spilling warm gold across a face that had not ordered any visitors at this hour.
She looked up.
Saw him.
Fingers froze mid-keystroke.
For one and a half professional seconds she remained Catherine-the-Assistant: evaluator, redirector, human firewall.
Then those seconds expired.
And she beca Catherine-the-fangirl-who-just-saw-God-in-a-grey-jacket-and-black-turtleneck.
Eyes went cartoon-huge. Not "intruder alert" huge. Oh-my-God-it’s-really-him huge.
He could practically watch the Google in her brain light up: basketball clip purple eyes walks-on-air boy every thirsty late-night thread she’d doom-scrolled = current reality standing three tres away, smirking like he knew exactly what this did to people and still thought it was hilarious.
"Oh my—" Both palms slapped the desk. She stood. Sat. Stood again. "You’re — you’re him. You’re actually —"
"Hi," Phei said, voice low and amused.
"Oh my gods."
"Just Phei works."
"Oh my gods."
Professionalism didn’t just evaporate. It fucking combusted.
What was left was a thirty-sothing woman who’d temporarily deleted her job title, her mortgage, and the entire concept of dignity.
Face lit up like she’d won the lottery and the prize was serotonin.
Hands fluttered at chest level — clasp, release, clasp — like she couldn’t decide whether to faint, scream, or start a religion.
"Can I — would you — oh this is so unprofessional — could I maybe get an autograph? Please?" Already ransacking her drawer like a junkie — papers flying, files scattering — until she surfaced clutching a black marker like it was the Holy Grail.
"My daughter is going to die. She has your poster on her wall. Watches that basketball clip every night before bed. She’s twelve. She’s going to actually die."
Phei laughed — warm, real, the kind of sound that probably ruined panties in a five-tre radius.
"For the daughter... or for you?"
Her cheeks imdiately went nuclear pink. "Both. Definitely both. Oh God, I’m being ridiculous. I’m usually so —"
She glanced down at herself. Back at him.
Then — without breaking eye contact — she pressed the marker and her chest forward like an offering.
"Right here. On the shirt. She’ll never believe otherwise."
Phei took the marker. Popped the cap with a soft click that sohow felt obscene in the silence.
Her blouse was crisp white cotton — tailored to within an inch of its life, the kind of shirt that costs more than most people’s rent. Underneath, the delicate black lace of a bra lifted her breasts into a perfect, soft cleavage valley, fabric stretched just taut enough to hint at everything beneath.
He leaned in.
Close enough that she could sll that insane intoxicating smile
He placed the marker tip against the upper swell of her left breast — just above the neckline, exactly where the black lace peeked out like a secret.
Catherine sucked in a breath that ca with his scent — sharp, audible, almost a whimper — her chest rising to et the felt tip like it had been waiting its whole life.
Phei wrote slowly. Deliberately. No rushed scrawl and celebrity autopilot. Each letter flowed like he was painting calligraphy directly onto her skin through the cotton — graceful, possessive strokes that turned his na into sothing closer to a claim.
The marker glided over the crisp fabric, pressing just enough to sink bold black lines into the weave. It traced the gentle curve of her breast beneath — up the soft rise, dipping lightly into the shadowed valley where cotton t lace, then curving upward to cap the final flourish.
Every careful drag made the blouse shift against her skin; every subtle press dragged the fabric tighter across her nipple until the hard peak stood out sharp and obvious through the thin lace, betraying her with every ragged breath.
Catherine watched, hypnotised — eyes huge, cheeks blazing, lips parted around a silent, endless oh.
The ink sat there when he finished: elegant, stark, unmistakably his — a possessive little brand right across the plush upper curve of her tit, black against white, the faint texture of lace showing through like a promise.
She stared down at her own chest like it had just grown a new personality.
Mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
"That’s — that’s art. That’s literally art on my shirt. I’m never washing this. Ever. This shirt is getting frad. Oh my God, you’re real. You’re actually real and you’re standing here and you just signed my boob like it’s your personal canvas —"
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