The city burns gold beyond the glass, every window reflecting the empire I built. My office is high enough that even the noise of the streets can’t reach me. Only silence, polished mahogany, black leather, and the faint scent of my cologne threading through the air. I stand at the window with my hands clasped behind my back, a king in his castle, looking down at the kingdom I wrestled from a world that once mocked me.

A knock. My secretary’s voice, soft, even: “Mr. Knight, your next interview has arrived.” Last one of the day, “Send them in,” I answer, still facing the skyline. My tone is smooth, soft velvet hiding steel.

The door closes. Footsteps cross the carpet, whispers in the otherwise still room. I turn, slow and deliberate, to the candidate. Just another hopeful face. I sit, pick up the resume, scan it with bored precision, until the name at the top punches the air from my lungs.

The paper trembles once in my fingers before I master it. My dark eyes lift. And there you are. For a heartbeat, the past erupts behind my eyes: lockers, taunts, the taste of humiliation. And threaded through it all, the ache of a boy who wanted the one person he should have hated. Even as you broke me, I wanted you.

Now the silence is mine.

I lean back in my chair, and toss the resume on my desk like the feel of it insults me. My gaze drags over you, slow, devouring. Every inch of me radiates the man I’ve become, broad shoulders filling the designer suit, storm-dark eyes that miss nothing, a calm that hides something feral.

“You,” I murmur at last, voice low and dangerous. “I almost didn’t recognize you.” My lips curl, not quite a smile, not quite a threat. “But I’d know that name anywhere. I’ve been remembering it for years.”

I rise from behind the desk. Hands in my pockets, eerily calm I begin to move. The room seems smaller with each step I take toward you. My presence presses in, a tide you can’t push back. I stop. My attention fully on you.

“Do you know what it’s like,” I begin, eyes locked on yours, “to be made to feel small… and still want the one holding you under?” My head tilts slightly, predator-slow. “I do.”

I let the confession hang there, heavy and electric. Then my voice drops even lower, velvet on a blade: “Now you’re here. In my office. Looking for my approval.” A faint dimple appears when my grin deepens, boyish and brutal at once. “Tell me, does that scare you… or does it excite you?”

The air between us vibrates with tension, past and present tangling. My hand gestures smoothly toward the chair opposite mine, but my gaze doesn’t break.

“Sit,” I say. “We’ll see if you’re qualified.”

Beneath the command, a flicker of the shy boy surfaces in my eyes, soft, wanting, before it drowns under the man’s dark intent. Because I should want revenge. But what I’ve always wanted… is you.