Chapter 5: The Teambuilding Weekend
The retreat was a monument to curated serenity. The main lodge was all exposed beams, glass walls swallowing the misty valley whole, and floors of polished concrete that whispered underfoot. A curated hum of ambient jazz mixed with the clink of ice in crystal glasses. Vivienne stood near the fireplace, a glass of mineral water perspiring in her hand, feeling like a specimen under glass.
Her team mingled, loosened by distance and an open bar. She watched Sasha move through the room. She wore dark, tailored trousers and a simple black silk tank, her curls falling freely. She was a stroke of ink on the pale landscape.
“Boss, you look like you’re scouting for hostile takeovers.” The voice belonged to Marc from PR, grinning. “Relax. It’s mandated fun.”
Vivienne forced a smile. “I am relaxed, Marc. This is my relaxed face.”
He laughed too loudly and drifted away. Her gaze snapped back to Sasha, who was now leaning against the mahogany bar, talking to Ben from logistics. Ben was pleasant, mid-thirties, with a decent smile and an uncomplicated aura. Safe.
Sasha threw her head back, laughing at something he said. The line of her throat was elegant, predatory. Then, as if sensing the weight of Vivienne’s attention, she turned her head. Their eyes met across the warm, smoky room.
Sasha didn’t smile. She simply looked, her expression unreadable. Then, deliberately, she turned back to Ben. She shifted her posture, opening her body toward him, one hand coming to rest lightly on his forearm as she spoke. A gesture of casual, intimate focus.
The glass in Vivienne’s hand felt suddenly brittle. She set it down with a sharp click. The fantasy from her bed, the one with Thierry, crashed over her with nauseating clarity. Here was the preamble. The selection.
She watched, mesmerized and sick, as Sasha worked. It was a masterclass in subtle invitation. The leaning in. The flick of eye contact held a beat too long. The way she touched the stem of her wine glass, her fingers trailing slowly. Ben was leaning in now, his posture eager, captivated. He was being reeled in with invisible, silken thread.
Vivienne felt a hot surge of something ugly and possessive. It coiled in her chest, tight as a fist. She wanted to march over, to interrupt, to reassert the hierarchy of the office. I am the CEO. You are my assistant. Stop this.
But her feet were rooted. Because a darker, more honest part wanted to watch it happen. Needed to see proof of Sasha’s power, exercised so effortlessly on someone else.
“Another, Madame Devereux?” A waiter materialized.
“Whiskey,” she heard herself say. “Neat.”
She drank it fast, the burn a welcome distraction. When she looked again, Sasha and Ben were gone from the bar.
The party’s energy shifted, splintering into smaller groups. Vivienne made obligatory rounds, her laughter hollow, her eyes constantly scanning. She finally slipped away, claiming a need for air, and stepped out onto the long, cantilevered deck that overlooked the shrouded valley.
The night was cool and damp, the mist clinging to the trees below. Ambient light from the lodge bled onto the deck in soft pools. And there, in the shadowed recess near a giant ornamental urn, she saw them.
Sasha had Ben pressed against the glass wall. His hands were on her hips, hesitant. Her back was to Vivienne, a sleek, dark silhouette. Sasha’s head was tilted, her mouth close to his ear. Vivienne couldn’t hear the words, but she saw the effect: Ben’s eyes fluttered shut, his head thunking softly against the glass.
Then Sasha’s hand moved. It slid from his shoulder, down his chest, over the front of his trousers. Not groping, not frantic. A slow, deliberate, assessing press. Ben jerked as if shocked, his eyes flying open, wide with stunned arousal.
Vivienne stopped breathing. She was frozen, hidden by a veil of shadow and a large potted fern. She should leave. This was a private, vulgar moment. An invasion.
She did not move.
Sasha’s hand moved again, a subtle, rubbing motion. Ben groaned, the sound swallowed by the mist. His own hands came up to cradle Sasha’s face, but she caught his wrists, not unkindly, and guided them back down to his sides. A gentle, unmistakable correction. You don’t touch. Not unless I allow it.
The control was absolute. Vivienne’s own body responded with a humiliating, immediate heat. Her breath fogged in the cold air. This was real. It wasn’t her feverish imagination. This was Sasha, here and now, dismantling a man with casual expertise. The same expertise she had turned on Vivienne with a look, a note, a smile.
Sasha leaned in, whispered something else. Ben nodded, frantic. Then, with a final, almost patting touch, she removed her hand. She stepped back, smoothing her tank top. She said something light, audible this time: “Better get back inside before you catch a chill.”
Ben stood there, dazed, visibly adjusting himself as Sasha turned away. She didn’t walk directly back to the lights. She took two steps along the deck, towards the darker end, towards where Vivienne stood concealed.
She stopped, just at the edge of the light pool. She didn’t turn her head. She simply stood, looking out at the valley, a faint, private smile touching her lips. She knew. Of course she knew. The entire performance had been for an audience of one.
After a moment that stretched into eternity, Sasha turned and walked back into the lodge, leaving Vivienne alone in the cold dark, her body humming with shame and a craving so deep it felt like a fault line cracking open beneath her feet.