I keep starting this and deleting it because it feels ridiculous to write any of it down. Like if I put the words on paper it becomes real instead of just something that happened in my chest for two weeks. But I can’t sleep and the blouse is hanging on the back of the chair and I can still feel the edge of his desk under my thighs, so here we are.
I started as an intern at Hale & Voss on the eighth and I think I am in the most dangerous kind of trouble. The first morning I stood in the elevator practising my smile like a child. The reflection looking back was the one I always get: too much hair, the kind of curls that refuse to be professional, eyes that people keep calling “sweet” like it’s a compliment and a warning at the same time.
White short-sleeved blouse, the top two buttons undone because the office runs warm and also because I am a girl who likes the way it makes my cleavage look. Pale pink mini skirt that hit high up my thighs and felt fine in my apartment and immediately felt dangerous the second the lift doors opened on floor forty-two.
He was the first person who spoke to me.
“You.. must be our new intern,” he said in a slow deep voice.
I turned too fast and almost tipped in the heels. Dominic Hale is taller in person. Dark hair, the kind of face that looks carved, charcoal suit that didn’t dare wrinkle. He looked at my badge, then at my face, and he didn’t look away when most people would have. It wasn’t rude. It was just… thorough. Like he was taking inventory.
“I'm.. um.. Tessa Sweets.. it’s really nice to meet you... Mr. Hale,” I managed, and my voice came out smaller than I wanted.
He said Dominic was fine when it was just us. Then he walked and I followed, hyper-aware of every click of my heels and the way the skirt moved when I walked. He never looked back. He didn’t need to. I could feel him knowing I was there the entire way to my desk.
He set a folder down and told me to read it and ask him directly if I had questions. I said “Yes.. sir” before I could stop myself.
His mouth did this tiny almost-smile.
“Sir... works too,” he grinned.
I sat down after he left and stared at the glass wall of his office and tried to remember how to be a normal person who had not just called her new boss sir on the first morning. The first week was coffee and files and the constant low hum of knowing he was twenty feet away. I learnt the filing system. I learnt the photocopier by the windows hates me. I learnt that when he walks the floor people get quieter, like the air itself is trying to behave. I liked the quieting more than I should admit.
On Thursday he found me in the kitchenette. I was reaching for the mug with the faded gold rim — the one everyone fights over — when I felt him in the doorway. I startled. The mug slipped. His hand closed over mine to keep it from hitting the worktop.
Three seconds. Maybe four. His fingers were warm and so much larger than mine that I forgot what I was supposed to do with my own hands. I kept my eyes on the worktop because looking up felt like stepping off a ledge.
He poured the coffee himself. Stood close enough that I could smell whatever expensive thing he wears and the wool of his jacket. He told me I was settling in. Then he said, almost offhand, “The blouse is a good colour on you. Keep wearing it.”
Then he left.
I stood there holding my own mug like it was the only solid object in the building. That night I lay in bed replaying the exact second his hand covered mine. I told myself people touch in offices. It was practical. It was nothing.
It did not feel like nothing.
I started noticing how often I looked for him without meaning to. How my spine straightened when I heard his voice down the corridor. How I took the long way past his office with folders I didn’t strictly need to deliver. I told myself I was being diligent. I was being a good intern. I was being obvious and I think he knew.
On Tuesday the office emptied early for a dinner I wasn’t invited to. I stayed to finish the Q3 folders he’d asked for which I was told would only take a minute. The minute became two hours. The sky outside went that deep high-rise blue. Most of the lights were off. Only his office was still lit.
I knocked with my knuckle because my arms were full of manila folders. He was in shirtsleeves, jacket gone, the city glittering behind him like it had been arranged for him. He told me to put them on the desk. I leant over to put the pile down and felt the skirt ride up the smallest bit. I knew he saw it. I felt him see it.
One folder slid. I made this embarrassing little sound and dropped to my knees to attempt to catch it before it hit the floor. Failing miserably. Which put me at the worst possible height, looking up at him with the messy folder clutched to my chest like a shield that wasn’t working.
“Oh God.. S..Sorry, I’m so sorry, I—”
“Tessa,” he said in his calm low voice.
Just my name. Quiet. I froze the way I always seem to freeze around him: eyes wide, waiting. He came round the desk and crouched so we were closer to the same level. It should have made him less overwhelming. It made everything worse. Now I could see the lines at the corners of his eyes and the way his throat moved.
He told me I was allowed to make a mess. That I was new. That new people drop things. I said I wanted it to be perfect. He took the folder from my hands. His fingers brushed my knuckles and stayed a second too long.
“That’s what I like about you. You want to be good.”
I think I made a sound. I don’t remember deciding to. He told me to stand up. I did. He stood with me, closer than in the kitchen, close enough that the difference in our heights felt like a rule the room had been built around. My back was almost against the desk. I could have stepped sideways.... I didn’t.
He said he'd been observing me.. That I’d been there eight days. That I’d learnt the system faster than the last three interns. That I brought his coffee the way he actually likes it. That I look at him like I’m waiting for the next instruction and it makes me pink right here — and he tapped two fingers, very lightly, against the side of my neck where I could feel my own pulse trying to escape.
He asked if it scared me. I said... a little. He asked if it only scared me. I paused... and then shook my head. My curls bounced. I knew I looked exactly as doe eyed and overwhelmed as I felt and I couldn’t make myself care.
His hand left my neck and settled at my waist. Not gripping. Just resting there, thumb against the seam of my blouse, like he was keeping me from floating.
“Good. I don’t want you frightened. I want you paying attention.”
Then he let go. The absence of his hand was louder than the touch had been.
He told me to go home. That I’d done enough for tonight. I walked back to my desk on legs that belonged to someone else. In the lift I looked at myself: flushed, curls a little messy, another button popped open on my blouse from leaning over his desk. I looked like a girl who’d been given something she wasn’t supposed to keep.
I kept it.
I replayed Tuesday for twelve days. The crouch. The “you want to be good.” The fingers on my neck. I wore the same blouse more than I needed to. I took the long way again. I sat at my desk and practised looking normal when he walked past and failed every time.
On Friday the presentation went totally sideways and I spent the afternoon running between the printer and his office with revised slides, my tight skirt squeezing at my thighs, blouse clinging my curves. By half past six the floor was empty again. He called me in one last time.
“Close the door,” he said without looking up.
I did. The glass made the rest of the office disappear until it was just the two of us and the city and the sound of my own breathing, and slow rise and fall of my cleavage. He was by the window. When he turned, the look was different. Still controlled. Hungrier underneath.
“Come here.”
I walked the whole distance because he didn’t move. He let me feel every step. When I stopped in front of him he reached out and tucked a curl behind my ear with two fingers. The gesture was masterful and gentle all at once. It made my eyes widen for no reason I could name.
He asked if I had been thinking about Tuesday. I said yes. He told me to tell him what I thought. My voice came out tiny. I told him I liked how it felt when he told me what to do. That I wanted to be useful. That I kept replaying the part where he said he wanted me to be good.
He let out a slow breath. Then he said, “Sit on the desk.”
I blinked. He just waited. I turned, put my palms on the polished wood, and hoisted myself up. The pink skirt rode higher. I didn’t pull it down. He stepped between my knees — not touching, just filling the space — and put his hands on the desk on either side of my hips. Caging me without actually trapping me.
From that angle I had to tip my head back to keep looking at him. I felt exactly as small and exactly as seen as I had on the floor that Tuesday. He said this was the part where most people would tell me it was inappropriate. That he wasn’t most people. That I wasn’t most interns. That I walked in looking like a daydream and then worked like I was trying to earn something that hadn’t been offered yet.
That he noticed... That he kept noticing.
I admitted I didn’t know how to stop noticing him either. Something in his face went soft and... somehow sharp at the same time. He leant in. Not all the way. Just enough that I felt the heat of him, just enough that my breath caught. His mouth was close to my temple when he spoke.
He said he was going to send me home. That I was going to think about the desk and the skirt and the fact that he could have kissed me and didn’t. That on Monday I was going to walk in wearing the same blouse and look at him the way I was looking at him right then. And if I did that, he would know the answer.
He straightened and offered his hand to help me down. I took it. My fingers looked ridiculous inside his. I slid off the desk and my heels hit the floor again, suddenly very loud.
At the door I looked back. He was still standing where I’d left him, watching me with that terrible patience.
“Monday?”
“Monday...Tessa.”
The way he said my name made my thighs press together. I took the lift with my heart trying to climb out of my throat and biting my lip so hard it turned pale. In the foyer glass I saw myself again: curls, pink skirt, a little dazed, a little glowing. I looked like a girl who’d just been given the most dangerous homework of her life.
So... Here i am. I already know what I’m going to wear on Monday. I think I’ve known since the moment he said "sir works too."
I’m going to walk in with the same blouse and the same skirt and the same wide eyes and I’m going to look at him like I’m waiting.
And I’m terrified by how much I want him to notice.
