Mel stood still. She was very shocked. The sound of her heart was loud in the big, quiet office. She looked at Rhys. He was not just her boss or her enemy anymore. He was the person who planned her whole job for the last months. He pushed her and gave her the tools to break the rules, all for a secret plan.
"You played me," she said again, but this time it wasn't angry. It was like seeing something big and scary, but also amazing.
Rhys Kallen, who looked less like a boss now, moved close and gently touched the hair on her face. This touch was too close, too personal. It broke the professional rule between them.
"I trusted that you would do the right thing, Mel," he said softly. "It was the only thing in this office I knew was real. If you just gave me the proof, the bad partners, Vasko and Chen, would have hidden it.
You had to leak it. You had to give the proof to the government so they had to act fast. It was the only way to save the Argos project."
He stood up straight. "I needed a spy I didn't have to bribe. And you, Analyst, are the best person I have ever used to cause trouble."
Mel took a step back. She needed space, needed to get away from him.
"Trouble?" she said. "I put my whole job at risk! I could go to jail. I am the one in trouble, not you. You walk away looking good, the hero who found the bad people."
"I am not clean," Rhys said, smiling a little, but it was a sad smile. He pointed to two computers on his desk.
"The bad partners are gone, but the board of directors is angry," he told her. "The stock market is a mess, and the government is checking all of Kallen Capital's secrets. I will spend the next three years fighting to keep this company. I'm not a hero. I am a man who burned down his own house to kill the bugs inside."
He looked at her. "And you are the one who lit the fire. Only I can protect you now. I put a lot of legal blocks in place that cost me a lot of money to keep your name a secret."
He looked right at her. "You can't work in a normal office anymore, Mel. You just showed you will break the rules to do what is right. That is not an office worker; that is a fighter. And that is why you stay here."
Rhys moved away from the desk and walked slowly toward her again. He looked confident and strong.
"I am offering you a new job," he said. "It is a better job. No more boring checks. You will be my Chief Risk Analyst, a special, secret job. You only answer to me. You find the next bad people, and you get rid of them before I even know they exist."
He stopped right in front of her and put his hands on her waist. Mel did not pull away. She was too tired from the truth, and too amazed by this powerful man.
"It's the perfect way out," she whispered. He made the only escape she could take.
"It is not perfect," Rhys corrected. "Because this job comes with one other rule, a rule that you cannot say no to, and one you cannot leave."
He pulled her closer, his finger tracing her hip.
"You are mine, Mel. You belong to the risk I created, and the safety I am giving you. I am not letting you go. Not to another company, not to another city, and not to another man. The game is over. The lying is finished. You proved you will risk everything for the good of my company, and now you will work for me for the rest of it."
His face was close to hers.
"Do you agree to the rules, Analyst?" he asked, his voice low and serious.
Mel's mind shouted a lot of worries, about being proper, about the power he had, about how dangerous he was. But the truth was, she had nowhere else to go, and this dangerous man's office felt like the only safe place.
"Yes," she finally said, giving up the fight. "I agree."
Rhys smiled, a slow, strong, powerful smile. He then closed the last little space between them, sealing the deal not with talk, but with a kiss that was both a claim and a promise.
Mel has said yes to the special "Chief Risk Analyst" job and the personal, close rules of their new life.
The company problem is solved, and their relationship has officially started under strange, strong terms.