Chapter 1

I suspected my big boss spent his entire day in his office scrolling through thirst traps on TikTok.

Because every single time I walked by,

the background music drifting from his phone was always those trending, sultry transition tracks used for thirst traps.

And then, I stumbled upon his little secret.

My rigid, ultra-serious boss was secretly posting shirtless thirst traps online to tease his female followers.

From that day on, my dream life began: getting chewed out by my boss during the day, and talking trash to him online at night.

Monday morning. I stood in the corporate elevator, watching the floor numbers jump from 1 to 28.

The moment the doors slid open.

"Good morning, Elena."

"Morning," I mumbled, quickly walking to my cubicle with my head down.

I cast a glance toward the glass office at the end of the hallway.

Sitting inside was Asher Vance—our founder, CEO, and the man we all secretly called "The Tyrant."

I’d only been at the company for three months, but I had already summarized Asher’s Three Golden Rules:

First, he was always in the office before anyone else. Word on the street was he hit the gym at six, had breakfast at seven, and was at his desk by eight sharp.

Second, he never smiled. Last week, Dave from marketing told a joke in the elevator. Everyone was laughing their heads off except Asher. He just stared cold-eyed at the floor numbers. Dave’s laughter literally choked in his throat.

Third, he had a psychopathic obsession with details. I personally saw him slam a pitch deck onto the table just because the page margins were off by 0.2 inches.

"If you can't even handle a layout, what can you handle?" he had said. His voice wasn’t loud, but the entire floor went dead silent.

Asher was thirty-two, six-foot-two, broad-shouldered, and long-legged. He looked like a runway model in literally anything he wore.

He always wore dark, tailored suits. His dress shirts were always buttoned to the very top, and he wore a classic Patek Philippe watch that was probably worth a down payment on a house.

But his most terrifying trait wasn’t his looks—it was his aura.

The "you’re all useless peasants" kind of aura.

My cubicle wasn't far from his office. Whenever he walked to the breakroom, people in the hallway would automatically step aside. It wasn’t conscious; it was a primal instinct, like prey avoiding an apex predator.

"Elena, Mr. Vance wants you in his office," my colleague Leo whispered, poking his head over my partition.

I froze for a second.

Pushing open the heavy glass door, I saw Asher standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at the city skyline.

"Elena." He turned around, holding a folder. "Redo this proposal."

I took the file. It was covered in red ink.

On the very last page, he had written two words in bold: "Too childish."

"Mr. Vance, could you be more specific about which part—"

"All of it," he cut me off. "The logic is messy, the data is weak, and the concept is boring. I’m giving you two days. I want a new one."

I gripped the folder, my nails digging into my palms. "Understood."

As I turned to leave, he spoke again. "Elena."

"Yes?"

"Next time you enter my office, remember to knock."

I stood there, stunned.

I did knock!

I knocked so hard my knuckles hurt!

But he had already looked back down at his computer, completely ignoring me.

Walking out of his office, I threw the folder onto my desk.

Sarah, who sat next to me, slid a cup of coffee over. "Chewed out again?"

"He said my work is childish."

"Standard Asher behavior. He's like that to everyone." Sarah lowered her voice. "I heard he used to be a Wall Street hotshot handling multi-billion-dollar mergers. To him, we’re probably just a bunch of toddlers playing in a sandbox."

I opened my laptop and stared blankly at the screen.

Asher Vance.

Asher. Vance.

I cursed his name in my head, wondering if he ever took off that elite, robotic mask late at night and showed a single human emotion.

But I quickly dismissed the thought.

That man probably slept with a frown on his face.

By 6:00 PM, the office was clearing out. I stayed behind to rewrite the proposal. By 8:00 PM, my stomach was growling loudly.

On my way to the breakroom to make some instant mac and cheese, I passed Asher's office. The lights were still on.

Driven by some weird impulse, I slowed my pace.

The door wasn't fully closed. A faint sound drifted out.

Music.

It was a soft, electronic beat with a slow, heavy, sensual rhythm.

I peeked through the crack of the door. Asher was leaning back in his leather chair, holding his phone. The blue light of the screen illuminated his face.

He was smiling.

It wasn’t a polite, corporate smile. He was genuinely, softly smiling.

I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

The next second, the music cut off.

Asher’s expression instantly snapped back to ice-cold mode, as if that smile had never existed.

Terrified of being caught, I snatched my food and practically ran back to my desk.

My heart was pounding.

And that music... why did it sound so much like... a TikTok thirst-trap transition?

I shook my head, convinced that overtime was making me lose my mind.

There was no way Asher Vance scrolled through TikTok. His phone probably only had Outlook, Google Calendar, and stock market apps.

But that image was burned into my brain.

The moment the ice melted, he was breathtakingly handsome.

I opened my document to edit the proposal.

But my fingers hovered over the keyboard, unable to type a single word.

What if... just what if Asher actually had a secret side?

What if that stiff, arrogant tyrant was actually... a normal human being?

The thought excited me.

But I had no idea that three days later, I would discover a secret so explosive it would completely shatter everything I thought I knew about him.