𝘾𝙀𝙊. - 𝘾𝙀𝙊 𝙓 𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙀𝙍

7.

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He's brought me into his world.

His space, his scent, his perception.

Within the quiet yet overwhelming solitude of his office. 

The thick, pungent scent of burning tobacco fills my nostrils, which only yearns for the reminders of his presence, figure, and existence. 

I've never enjoyed the scent of cigarettes as much as I do now, and the culprit for my emotional hole in which has been dug and I've been carelessly shoved into sitting before me—thousand dollar leather chair, tailored black suit, ashtray sitting over his expensive wood office desk. 

He doesn't even need to touch me to spore goosebumps across the hairs of my skin. 

I've never had a man look at me in the way he's solely staring, and I have no idea on how to truly process such a complex array of arising emotions, which only he has ever risen. 

────

"P...Promoted?" 

I question, my clammy, sweat-coated palms rubbing against each other as my hands fiddle with pulsing enticed anxiety, the sight of his finger flicking the ash from the end of the burning cigarette onto the ashtray fills my sight. 

"yes, precisely."

My eyes flicker to meet his husky blue pair, low, narrow. He's watching me, quite carefully.

"I-I... I don't understand, what do you mean?" I ask, taking in every visual I can possibly collect within the short time I'm gifted the experience of the privacy of his office. As I watch his lips wrap over the cigarette, I watch as the end burn's forward against the long drag he takes and holds, before slowly exhaling. 

Every movement he makes trances me into a deep, warm rush which I'm not used to. 

"Well, you had plans to leave my company, yes?"

"...Yes, I-I suppose..."

"So I've taken matters into my own hands... here."

His long, slender fingers gently slide a piece of paper across the expensive table towards my direction, before he then slides a black, sleek pen with the silver words 'Slava Corp.' lavishly laced across the pen's side. 

I reach over and take the paper from the table, my eyes quite carefully lining across each word with acknowledgement, the information printed across the sheet trail with packed information for the promotion he has offered towards me. 

Private secretary. 

My eyes widen and lift from the sheet, darting to meet his unchanged, stoic gaze.

"S-Sir, if I may say... I don't think I can do this," I admit with a drop of embarrassment laced through my words, a wave of a thick tobacco cloud slamming against me with his exhale. His dark eyebrow cocks and his fingers flatten his completed cigarette against his ashtray, the silence being horribly deafening. 

"And why do you think that?"

His words stab against my body, wounding and deepening with his intense stare. Lashes batting away with tense unease, a nervous chuckle seeps from my throat. 

"I-I can't take call's, sir, and the promotion's added responsibilities have a-a lot of... communication, and I t-think having me being the one to d-do these jobs would... t-t... t-tarnish your reputation, if I am being c-completely honest," 

I force my words from my throat, my broken sentence finally exiting and it breaks and mumbles. He listens with his careful, focused demeanour, patient, and firm. He then sighs, quite lowly, drawn-out.