Chapter 3: The Boardroom
The boardroom air was cold, sterile, but the heat coming off Zachary’s body behind her was a furnace. Fatima’s palms were flat and slick against the polished mahogany, her breath fogging the dark surface. She’d come here to apologize for the mess with Marcus, but the apology had died in her throat the moment his hands found her hips.
“You see that mirror, baby?” Zachary’s voice was a low rumble against her ear as he pushed her silk dress up over her waist. His zipper was already down. “She’s in there. Watching.”
Evelyn. The name was a poison in the air. Fatima tried to turn her head, but his hand, large and firm, cradled her jaw and kept her facing forward. “Don’t look. You feel.” He didn’t ask. He guided himself to her entrance, finding her wet and ready despite the twisted circumstance. He pushed inside with one deep, claiming stroke that punched a ragged gasp from her lungs. “Oh god.”
“Whose?” he growled, his hips setting a relentless, punishing rhythm that shook the heavy table.
“Yours,” she panted, the words breaking as he drove deeper.
“Say it.” He gripped her hair, not pulling, just holding, his other hand splayed across her stomach, anchoring her. “Whose fucking pussy is this?”
“Daddy’s!” she cried out, the admission torn from her, a surrender that was both shame and thrill. “It’s Daddy’s!” Each brutal thrust was a punctuation mark, a declaration for the woman behind the glass. She could feel the possessive fury in him, a raw energy that had been coiled tight since he’d found her with the broken bottle. This was his answer. This was his reclaiming. He leaned over her, his chest to her back, his mouth at her ear. “She thinks she can take what’s mine.” He bit her shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to brand. “Let her see how you come for me.” The command, the obscene theatre of it, tipped her over. Her climax ripped through her, a silent scream contorting her face as she clenched around him, and he followed with a guttural groan, filling her, his body shuddering against hers. In the mirror’s reflection, she saw only her own shattered expression. Behind it, she knew, Evelyn watched, and the war was just beginning.
The silence in the penthouse elevator was a physical thing, thick with the smell of sex and violence clinging to their clothes. Fatima watched their reflection in the polished bronze doors: a wild-eyed woman with tangled curls beside a granite-faced man, his knuckles crusted with another man’s blood. He hadn’t let go of her wrist since they’d stepped over Marcus’s broken door. The ascent felt endless.
When the doors sighed open to the penthouse foyer, the soft, familiar scent of jasmine was a jarring contrast. They stepped onto the cool marble. “Clean yourself up,” Zachary said, his voice hoarse, finally releasing her. “I need to make calls.” He was already pulling his phone from his pocket, turning toward his study, the crisis manager reasserting control.
That’s when the click of heels echoed from the living room.
Evelyn Taylor emerged from the shadowed archway, a vision of chilled perfection in a cream sheath dress, her platinum bob flawless. Her eyes, the same intense brown as her son’s, swept over them: Fatima’s disheveled clothes, Zachary’s battered hands, the electric chaos still crackling in the space between them. Her porcelain features didn’t flicker.
“Mother,” Zachary said, the word a flat stone dropped into the silence.
“I let myself in.” Evelyn’s voice was a sip of expensive champagne, crisp and cold. “When my nine a.m. board briefing outlines a coup attempt against my son by his closest friend, I tend to arrive early.” Her gaze settled on Fatima, a slow, dissecting inspection. “And I see the distraction is present and accounted for.”
The elevator to the penthouse was a silent tomb. Zachary’s knuckles, raw and bloody, rested at his sides. Fatima stared at the gleaming doors, seeing only Marcus’s terrified face, the shard of glass in her own hand. The scent of him, of their violent coupling, clung to her skin, a filthy patina. He opened the penthouse door and she walked past him, her spine rigid.
“Clean yourself up,” he said, his voice gravel. “We’re not done talking.”
She turned in the foyer, the city a sprawling jewel behind her. “Talking?” The word was a laugh, brittle and sharp. “You didn’t talk. You marked your territory. On me. In front of him.”
“He needed to understand.” Zachary approached, a force of nature contained in a tailored shirt. “You are mine.”
“I am not a fucking trophy!” The shout ripped from her, echoing in the vast space. She shoved him, her palms against his solid chest. It was like pushing a mountain. “You used me. You humiliated me to humiliate him.”
He caught her wrists, his grip absolute. “I saved you from your own reckless stunt. You think that bottle would have stopped him?”
“I wasn’t scared of him!” She struggled, her curls wild. “I was scared of you! The way you looked at me in there… like I was just a tool. A cunt to prove a point.”
He flinched. His grip loosened a fraction. She yanked her hands free. “You want to own this?” Her fingers went to the buttons of her jeans. “Then own it. But not like that. Never like that again.” She stripped, clothes falling to the marble floor, standing naked and defiant. “You want to fuck what’s yours? Then you come here. And you look at me. Not at him.” She walked backwards into the bedroom, onto the crimson silk. “You look at me, Zachary. Or you don’t touch me at all.”
For a long moment, he just watched her from the doorway, a storm in his eyes. Then he crossed the room, unbuckling his belt, his gaze locked on hers. He knelt on the bed, caging her, but she pressed a hand to his chest. “No.” Her voice didn’t waver. “Not like that.” She pushed until he rolled onto his back, surprise flickering across his face. She straddled him, taking him inside her with a slow, deliberate roll of her hips, a deep, claiming groan escaping his lips. “This is mine,” she breathed, riding him with a furious, controlling rhythm. “You are mine. And we do this my way.” She leaned down, her hair a curtain around their faces, and whispered against his mouth, “Now beg for me.”