Chapter 3

Damian’s POV

She was supposed to crumble.

That was the point.

Hiring a personal assistant wasn’t difficult. Finding one who lasted longer than five days in my office without crying, resigning, or attempting to use me as their career steppingstone… now that was the challenge.

I tested them. Every one of them. I pushed until I found their fault line. Until I knew whether I could trust them with my schedule, my reputation, and the empire I’d built from nothing.

Kayna Scott had a spine. And a mouth she wasn’t afraid to use.

Dangerous. Intriguing.

She was underqualified, her résumé thread bare compared to the Ivy League profiles that usually landed on my desk. But during the interview, something about the way she’d met my stare, calm, steady, defiant had made me pause. She hadn’t begged. She hadn’t tried to flatter me. She simply told me why I’d be making a mistake if I didn’t hire her.

Conviction, not arrogance. Fire wrapped in control. I wasn’t used to that and I was certainly intrigued.

It had been a long time since I’d seen that.

Now, as the door clicked shut behind her, I leaned back in my chair, fingers steepled beneath my chin.

Kayna Scott.

The name gnawed at me.

I pulled her background file onto my screen again, scrolling past academic history and thin references. My gaze landed on her father’s name: Elijah Scott.

Prison record. Fraud charges. Government contracts?

My eyes narrowed. I keyed into a database most of my employees didn’t know existed. One pull, one override, and a sealed record opened.

Elijah Scott. Whistleblower. The Preston Holdings scandal—millions skimmed off government energy projects. A case buried by shareholders, sealed to the press, erased from public record.

And yet… here sat his daughter, three doors down from my office.

Coincidence? I didn’t believe in those anymore.

I tapped the intercom. “Julian.”

Seconds later, the door opened. My head of security and one of my best mates walked in dressed in a black shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal an old scar from back in the days. He dropped into the chair across from me without waiting for permission.

“You saw the new hire?” I asked.

“I did,” he said, a knowing look in his eyes. “You like her.”

I looked up sharply. “No.”

“You’re watching her.”

“I watch everyone.”

“Not like this.”

I slid the file across the desk. “Elijah Scott’s daughter.”

Julian’s smirk faded. His eyes scanned the data, and his jaw tightened. “You think she knows?”

“Unlikely. If she did, she wouldn’t be here or she’d be working harder to cover her tracks.”

He leaned back, thoughtful. “So what now?”

“Surveillance. Calls, emails, movements. If she sneezes, I want a report before she finds a tissue.”

“You think she’s a plant?”

“I think too many people have tried to get close lately” I said flatly. “I don’t care if it’s her or someone behind her. I want to know before it becomes a problem.”

Julian gave a short nod, though his gaze lingered on me a moment longer. “She’s sharp. Didn’t flinch in that audit meeting. You saw that?”

“That’s why she’s here.”

“No.” His grin returned, sly this time. “She’s here because she’s sharp and sexy. You’ve always had a weakness for women with fire.”

I met his gaze, my voice a warning. “Careful.”

He smirked, unbothered, before pushing to his feet. “As you wish, boss.”

…..

I buried myself in contracts for the next half hour, but my attention strayed more than once. Through the glass wall, I caught Kayna at her desk—sorting through files, typing with sharp efficiency, tucking stray hair behind her ear without breaking rhythm.

Then her phone lit up.

She glanced at the screen, frowned, and answered. Her posture shifted, she looked tensed, deliberate. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t catch the words.

Less than a minute later, the call ended. She set the phone down slowly, her stillness betraying something her calm expression didn’t. Then, almost too deliberately, she pushed the phone aside and went back to work.

Odd.

I told myself it was nothing, but the thought lingered like an unfinished equation.

By the time I stepped out of my office, she was fully absorbed in my schedule. Two monitors glowed in front of her, my calendar reorganized, redundancies flagged and highlighted.

“Ms. Scott,” I said.

Her head snapped up. For a flicker of a second, there it was again, something raw in her eyes before she smoothed it over.

“You’ve already started restructuring the overseas meeting rotation,” I noted, scanning the screen. She had cleaned up inefficiencies even I hadn’t gotten around to.

“I figured it would save time if I cleared the overlaps from Q2 while I was at it” she said evenly.

Initiative. Not performative busywork. Real strategy.

I nodded once. “Good. Don’t burn out on day one. I don’t benefit from your burnout.”

“I’m fine,” she replied quickly, then allowed a sliver of humor into her voice. “Although, if you approve an IV drip of caffeine, I wouldn’t complain.”

The corner of my mouth almost twitched upward. Almost.

Assistants usually fell into two categories: sycophants or ghosts. She was neither. She treaded that thin line between boldness and professionalism and she did it without hesitation.

“Have the prep file for tomorrow’s Cosmo meeting ready by five.” I handed her my tablet. “Everything you need is in here.”

She accepted it, her fingers brushing mine—cool, steady, professional. Yet the contact lingered longer than it should have.

I turned and walked away, unsettled by the simplicity of it.

Back in my office, I reopened her HR file. No red flags. Clean references. No gaps. Too clean.

And that expression she’d worn in the interview—walls already built long before she ever walked through my doors.

Business had taught me that people were rarely what they appeared to be. The ones who seemed the most polished often carried fractures deep beneath the surface.

Later that afternoon, I reviewed the Cosmo deal, but my gaze betrayed me, straying to her again. Kayna didn’t look up, didn’t fidget under my stare. But there was something unnerving about the way she worked like she knew I was watching, and wanted me to.

Useful Or dangerous.

I couldn’t decide which.

.......

That night, I couldn’t sleep.

Scotch in hand, I sat in my penthouse office, the city glittering below me. I couldn’t get her out of my head.

Kayna Scott.

The way she’d reorganized my schedule without being asked. The quiet conviction in her voice. That flicker of emotion after the phone call.

I didn’t know what it meant. But instinct told me it wasn’t nothing.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned…my instincts are rarely wrong.

Her last name she carried like a shadow I didn’t yet understand.

Coincidence? I didn’t believe in them.

If she was here by design, then someone wanted me distracted. Someone wanted me vulnerable.

And if she wasn’t?

Then she was a wildcard I couldn’t afford to ignore.

Either way—Kayna Scott was already a problem