Chapter 1 The Coffee Incident
Calista’s POV
The bass was wrong.
Not off-key. Just unsettling.
Something was missing. Behind the vocals, the bass had potential, but no confidence.
Calista Dorian rolled her chair towards the console, fingers moving across the panel as she isolated the track. One adjustment led to a dozen more.
Just there.
The sound began to snap into perfection.
She slouched back, satisfied, just as the studio door opened without a warning.
“Bring me coffee.”
Damian Westwood’s calm voice cut through the room like glass. The kind of voice that never asked twice because of its weight of authority.
Calista didn’t turn around immediately. She saved the file first. Then she spun slowly in her chair, with her brows lifting.
“Good morning to you, kind sir,” she said lightly. “And you’re welcome. That bass line you just approved? was off.”
An unsettling pause froze in the air.
Then footsteps. Measured. Slightly lazy.
“I noticed,” Damian said, stopping behind her. “You fixed it.”
“Exactly what I pay you for. It doesn’t warrant applause.”
“Did you expect to receive accolades from me?”
That made her brain spin.
Damian Westwood didn’t loom. He never needed to. He posed there completely unfazed with his hands shoved into his pockets, dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit, his expression was unpredictable. His eyes swept the screen, then rolled back to her.
No smile. No scowl. No smirk.
Just assessment.
She hated that her humility always reacted before her pride did.
“I always do,” she said softly. “Now, the coffee?”
“Whipped honey,” he replied. “At a hundred and eight degrees. No sugar.”
Calista stared at his back, jaw clenching, “Can you even hear yourself?” she muttered, loud enough for his ears to catch it.
He stood still at the door. Didn’t turn.
“Yes,” he said. “Any problem?”
And then he was gone.
She exhaled sharply.
Unbelievable.
Three whole years of working here. Three years of repeated late nights, perfect mixes, salvaging disasters into fine-tuned songs at impossible hours, and she was still being sent on coffee runs like some unpaid intern who couldn’t tell a compressor from a kettle.
She snatched her bag, forced her aching feet into her everyday kitten heels, and headed out.
The café next door was already filled like a long-awaited concert. Morning rush. Creatives leeched on caffeine and desperation. The line stayed the same.
Calista checked the time.
Eight minutes.
She tossed her weight, from one heel to the other, as her toes begged for mercy from the cage she rocked as a fashion statement. Somewhere in the building, Damian Westwood was probably glancing at his wristwatch with that unusual calm, as if time itself respected him.
Her phone buzzed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
She ignored it.
He wanted coffee that badly, and couldn’t get it himself? So much for a CEO.
Across the building, Damian Westwood stared at the empty space across his desk, then at the unattended files piled beside it.
“Where is Calista Dorian?” he asked over the phone.
“I, I have no idea, sir.”
“Find her.”
A pause.
“Actually,” he said, cutting himself off. “Never mind.”
He dropped the call before the receptionist could make sense out of what was going on.
Damian sprung from his chair, with instant irritation stiffening his jaw. He calculatedly walked to the glass wall of his office, staring at his blurred reflection without realizing it.
Late?
She’s never late.
Calista Dorian was a handful, sharp-tongued, stubborn, allergic to authority but unreliable wasn’t an option for her or her image. She delivered exceptionally. Always.
Which was why the absence unsettled him more than it should have.
He checked his watch again.
Eight minutes.
It’s a café next door, he thought. Not another continent.
His mind caught up, an unwelcome memory he hadn’t visited in two years. A woman with pale skin and short platinum-blonde hair, watching him dash her expectations repeatedly, for something he never quite gave.
He dismissed it.
Now wasn’t the time.
Back in the café, Calista finally reached the counter.
“Double espresso,” she said quickly. “No sugar, whipped honey instead.”
The barista nodded and started working on it.
Her phone beeped again.
She peeped at the screen.
No surprise. It was none other than her grumpy boss.
DAMIAN WESTWOOD (5 missed calls)
She twisted her face, using her fingers to press it back into her bag.
“Finally,” she muttered when the cup slid toward her afterwards seemed like ages.
She reached for it.
And another unknown hand locked around it first.
“No,” a woman’s voice snapped. “That’s mine.”
Calista blinked in disbelief. Looked up.
Tall. Red-head. Immaculate. The kind of woman who walked around with confidence like a crown.
“I believe that’s my order, and there’s a mix-up somewhere,” Calista said, as her grip tightened and she braced herself on whatever was to come.
“Not anymore.”
The woman tugged the cup in her direction.
The café grew quiet.
Phones lifted. Curiosity sharpened.
Calista felt something cold settle despite the chaos in her chest, not fear, but fatigue.
“Ma’am,” the barista objected carefully, “that drink belongs to her.”
The red-haired woman’s eyes darted to him, sharp and quite dismissive. Then she sneered, dropped the cup back on the counter top, and turned on her heel without a word.
Murmurs ushered her out.
Calista exhaled.
“This was so unnecessary,” she murmured, her shoulders relaxing into a short-lived smirk.
“Thanks a lot,” she said to the barista.
She quickly lifted up the cup, and the warmth moved through her fingers.
That was the moment she heard the café door fling open.
That sound cut through her like a memory.
She turned.
And the past mutated with the present.
Damian Westwood stood just by the doorway, his presence fiercely rearranging the room. Conversations faded. People straightened reflexively. Attention rested on him just like iron filings to a magnet.
They stared at each other.
For a split second, everything else slowly faded.
She remembered the first day she walked into his office. He looked unreal, like someone carved rather than born. She had mistaken his control for kindness.
That illusion disappeared the moment she knew his personality.
She looked away first.
Bad idea.
Her heel decided it was time to take a quick break.
The world turned.
The cup slipped from her hand.
Time stretched, cruel and slow.
The lid popped.
Coffee arced through the air.
Steam curled like smoke.
Damian didn’t move.
He didn’t flinch.
The liquid sprayed across his chest, darkening his white T-shirt in an uneven stain.
Once again, the café fell silent.
Calista froze.
Oh no.
No. No. No.
“I,” she started fidgeting.
Damian looked at his shirt and new design, then back at her.
Slowly.
His expression surprisingly remained constant.
Not anger. Not surprise.
Something quieter.
Something harder to read.
“You’re late,” he said evenly with coffee dripping from his head.
Her mouth opened, then closed again.
“I, there was a line, and then”
He stepped closer.
Not invading her space. Not taking away her oxygen either.
Just close enough for the smell of the coffee to overpower everything else. Close enough for her to feel the weight of his attention.
“The coffee didn’t matter to me that much,” he said softly. “Timing did.”
She swallowed every letter of his words.
“I’m very sorry, sir.”
In a split second, he carefully studied her like a puzzle while he internally debated on whether to solve or let go of.
Just then he did something she didn’t expect.
He seized the cup of coffee she hadn’t emptied on his body and set it aside.
“Your expertise is needed in the studio, where you can fully avoid spilling things,” he said. “The team is waiting.”
That was it.
No reprimand. No raised voice.
He turned and walked out.
Calista stood stiff, with her heart racing hard in her chest, staring right at the door.
Something about the encounter suddenly seemed unfinished.
Wrong.
Not because of the spill.
But because of the restraint.
Down the hallway, Damian removed his jacket, looking at the dark stain spreading across the damp fabric.
What disturbed her wasn’t the spill.
It was the way he let it go.
Damian Westwood was not a man known for restraint.
So why had he chosen it with her?
