Silk & Signatures

I didn’t read the onboarding documents. Nobody does. The job—legal intern at Wren Capital, Manhattan’s elite investment firm—was a golden ticket I couldn’t fumble with questions. I’d rehearsed every detail: the tailored blazer, the understated heels, the practiced poise. But nothing prepared me for stepping into Nathaniel Wren’s office, where the air felt like it could ignite.

He didn’t look up. His sleeves were rolled to his forearms, revealing corded muscle. His jaw was a blade, his focus a wall. When his eyes finally met mine, dark and unyielding, my pulse stuttered.

“You’re the intern,” he said. Not a question. A verdict.

“Ava James,” I replied, offering my hand.

He ignored it. “You report to me. Sign this.”

I hesitated. “I thought I was with the legal team?”

He slid a single-page contract across his glass desk. No warmth. No explanation. “Plans change.”

I signed without reading. My first mistake.

My second was the silk blouse I wore the next day, clinging just enough to catch his gaze. It was a flicker—down my neckline, then gone. But it burned. From then on, every glance was a spark, every silence a held breath. His emails were curt, his critiques razor-sharp, slicing me open only to make me crave his approval more. I dressed sharper, spoke less, and hungered to be seen.

Late one Friday, I knocked on his door, the office empty except for us. I’d stayed to polish a brief, my excuse to linger. “Come in,” he said, voice low, not looking up. I set the file on his desk, and our fingers brushed. It was nothing. It was everything.

He looked at me, and his voice softened, dangerous. “Do you know clause 19 in the contract you signed?”

I frowned. “No.”

He leaned back, eyes pinning me. “It’s a confidentiality clause. For any… personal entanglements between us.”

My breath caught. “Why would that be there?”

His lips curved, barely. “I added it. Before I knew your name. After I saw your photo.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. “You made me your direct report because—”

“I wanted to know if you were worth the risk.”

Silence crackled. His hand reached out, fingers grazing the hem of my blouse at my waist, deliberate, slow. “Are you, Ava?”

I could’ve stepped back. I didn’t. I leaned in, and our lips crashed—fire and ice, his control unraveling into hunger. His hands slid under my blouse, unclasping my bra with infuriating ease. I moaned as he pressed me against the wall, his mouth hot on my neck, his fingers finding every curve I’d hidden under silk. “No one can know,” he growled.

“They won’t,” I gasped, pulling him closer, nails digging into his shoulders.

We didn’t leave until dawn, the office our battlefield, our bodies the weapons.

Weeks blurred into stolen moments—red file folders by day, red lingerie by night. Locked boardrooms, conference tables, his desk after hours. His touch was a drug, precise yet reckless, and I was addicted. But it wasn’t just sex. He lingered late, talking about nothing and everything—his childhood dog, the scar on his collarbone, the way his eyes softened when I laughed. I started feeling things I wasn’t supposed to.

Because I wasn’t Ava James, legal intern. I was Ava, operative for Fairbridge Holdings, Wren Capital’s rival. The internship was a lie, my mission clear: infiltrate, steal secrets, vanish. But Nathaniel’s hands on me, his whispered confessions in the dark, made me question who was playing who.

One night, he pulled me into the elevator, doors hissing shut. I clutched a flash drive in my coat pocket—Fairbridge demanded client files, their threats growing sharper. His kiss was desperate, his hand slipping under my skirt, igniting me. I whimpered against his ear.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured, lips brushing my jaw.

“Just cold,” I lied, my heart fracturing under guilt and want.

That night, I drove to Fairbridge and handed over a blank drive. My boss’s eyes narrowed. “Getting attached, Ava?”

“No,” I lied again, my voice steady, my soul shaking.

The next day, white orchids sat on my desk. No note. But I knew. Nathaniel was falling. So was I.

The thrill of us consumed me—his fingers tracing my spine in his office, my name a growl in his throat. But Fairbridge’s threats tightened like a noose. Deliver the files, or they’d expose me. I was trapped, my loyalty split between the man I craved and the mission I’d sworn to complete.

I walked into his office, flash drive burning in my palm. “I need to tell you something.”

He looked up, and for the first time, I saw vulnerability flicker in his eyes. “I already know,” he said.

I froze. “What?”

“Fairbridge. The internship. Your background was too clean.” His voice was calm, but his gaze was a storm.

“Then why—” My voice broke, shame flooding me.

He stood, closing the distance, too close, his breath warm on my face. “Because I wanted to believe you’d choose me.”

Tears stung my eyes. “I do.”

He stared, searching my soul, then took my hand, closing my fingers around the drive. “Leave.”

“Nathaniel—”

“If you stay, I won’t be able to hate you.”

I didn’t leave. I dropped the drive, stepped into him, and kissed him—hard, desperate, real. He broke, his control shattering. Our clothes hit the floor like secrets spilled, silk and suits pooling around us. We made love on his office couch, raw and furious, each thrust a plea, each moan a confession. It was our first time and our last, a collision of need and betrayal.

After, tangled in silk sheets in his private suite, I whispered, “I’ll resign. I’ll disappear.”

He pulled me closer, his voice rough. “No. Stay. But stay mine.”

I did.

And every contract I signed after?

I read every damn clause.