Sweet Romance12 min read
That One Week Off
ButterPicks14 views
I did not mean to. I really didn't.
"Were we—" I choked on the question as the memory of a night of bad decisions fluttered like broken tissue in my brain.
Frost Blackwell looked at me with the same cool, unreadable face he'd worn for six years at the office. He was my boss. He was always frost. He was never anything else.
He answered, calm as a ledger: "What, Anastasia? Are you not going to take responsibility?"
I felt my throat close. "I—" I stopped. The words in my mouth sounded like some wild accusation.
"I can be fired," I said, thinking I would die of embarrassment. "I can pack my things right now."
He shrugged. "Who said I want to fire you?" He reached under the covers, grabbed a towel, wrapped himself, and left toward the bathroom. "Help me pick clothes. We have a meeting soon."
"You… are joking," I whispered.
"No," he said. "Get your coat."
*
For six years I had been Frost's secretary. People whispered that I climbed by shady means. I ignored the whispers. I told myself that I was able, meticulous, the reason I stayed by his side was work—nothing else. I also told myself I knew him.
I never thought into the night we shared.
I never thought I could sleep with my boss by mistake. The truth was simpler and worse: I drank too much because a client made everything unbearable. I closed the night like one long mistake and woke in a stranger's bed, which happened to be Frost's.
When I tumbled from under the bed to hide, he sat on the edge, linen shirt damp at the collar. His face was the same as always—sharp, calm. The wrongness of it all made me want to melt into the floor.
"Yesterday—" I began, then stopped. "I'm sorry. I drank. I was irresponsible."
He said nothing for a long time. Then, with that exact tilt of mouth he reserved for minor frustrations, he said, "You won't let me be involved?"
I thought that would sting him. I thought he would be angry and brusque. Instead, he said something I never expected.
"You need a break," he said. "Take a week off. Start now."
I stared. "You're giving me a week off because I slept with you?"
He zipped up, pulled on his shirt, and left as if he had not said anything at all.
"Don't make this sound easy," I muttered after he left. "I need to buy clothes. Your shirts are ripped."
"Take mine," Frost had said the night before, and I had left the suite with his shirt buttoned incorrectly and my pride missing.
At the hotel breakfast the next morning, he talked about the afternoon meeting as if nothing had happened. He put his steel pen down, and for a second our eyes met. He said, "Chen Yang goes with me to Qin Ji this evening."
"Understood," I replied, my voice shaking. Relief and jealousy and shame tangled in my stomach.
"Don't try to hide anything," he said, leaning forward as if to read a memo. "If you plan to not be responsible about that night, don't even pretend."
I opened my mouth to deny, and he made a small sound of amusement. "You wanted time off," he reminded me. "A week. Start now."
I left on a lie. I told him I had booked a ticket home. I packed in a flurry, called Christina, and pretended I was relieved.
"You're sure you don't want to come?" Christina asked later, voice sharp with the amusement she always offered when she thought I would fall into drama. "Because hot ex-boyfriends do come back and make a big show of themselves. You should come see."
"I'm not interested," I lied, but my hand trembled when I hung the phone up.
At the jazz bar Christina dragged me to, I walked into a cloud of old memories. Emmett Hunt—my college first love—standing center stage like a memory in flesh. I smiled, played the part of the cool older sister, and watched him preen.
"Anastasia!" someone called. Christina had the flair of a woman who knows how to pull strings. The room paused.
"You're not my sister," I muttered when Emmett came near. He tried the same old moves—soft laugh, a look like he was sorry, an apology ready.
"Come back in," he said, and I left as I always did—calm, in control.
My phone buzzed. Kayden Johansson, my assistant, said: "Frost is drunk at the other dinner. He asked for you."
"On my way," I said, because regardless of what we had done, that was my job.
When I walked into the private room, Frost sat slumped like some ruined statue. He blinked, a child. He stared straight at me with a softness I'd never seen.
"Anastasia?" He reached and found my face. "You're not Anastasia," he muttered. He was playing with my hair like a man who owned its direction.
"Sir, it's me," I said, half laughing to cover the weirdness. "I know how you like your coffee and that you read the news before breakfast and hate cilantro and that you always keep the back closet key in drawer two."
He blinked, then squeezed my face with both hands. "You are persistent," he said. "Take me home."
On the stairs he said, "Only you. Only you could carry my sorry self home."
"Please don't—" I began, and then he was murmuring again, and I let him. People were there in the background: Kayden with a look that mixed exhaustion and something else; Betty Ma whispering gossip like confetti.
When we arrived at his floor—21 to my 20—he whispered, "I'll be fine. You go."
But I wasn't going to leave him. I stayed to change his sheets, brush his teeth, help him not to be ridiculous. He murmured "Anastasia" like a charm.
That day he gave me a week off. I packed a small bag and planned the escape.
Then Christina's text arrived: Emmett had thrown a small party. I went, because curiosity is cheaper than regret. I left early when Kayden called again.
"He's calling for you," Kayden said into the phone. "He keeps saying 'Anastasia.'"
I found Frost alone in the suite, eyes bright. He kissed the side of my head in a way that was neither business nor romance; it was closer to something like possession.
"Why did you stay?" he asked the next morning.
"Because you asked me to," I said, and meant it.
He cleared his throat. "Take a week. Go. Rest. Don't be late."
So I did something stupid. I went on vacation. But I wasn't alone.
At the airport he was there. I had booked a flight, thinking I would breathe alone on sand. He found me at the gate, lugging a small carry-on. He was quiet. He asked, "Going to the Maldives?"
"Yes," I said, because I didn't care for lies anymore that week. "I just want to disappear."
He raised his chin. "I'll come."
"Why?" My voice sounded small.
"Because you asked for time," he said. "I asked for time too. I want to see if you actually relax without checking your phone for my memos."
"You're not my boyfriend," I blurted.
"No," he answered. "But neither are you just my secretary this week."
On the plane, for the first time in years, he asked about my plans like a man who had all the time in the world for useless details. "Where will you surf?" he wanted to know. "Do you like spicy food or mild?"
"I don't usually tell my boss these things," I said. "They always think it's a secret agenda."
He laughed at that. Small, honest, and warm. "Then keep this to yourself," he said, close enough that I could smell the soap he used, the same one tucked in the linen closet at the office. "When you sleep, I want you to sleep. When you laugh, I want to hear it."
Three moments later, my heart skipped a beat—not dramatic, but firm and true. He smiled at me properly. The first heart-throb.
In the Maldives, he became oddly domestic. He bought me an ice cream when I said I liked mango. He sat beside me on the sand and taught me to focus on waves instead of memos.
"You're the only one who ever calls me out on my bad coffee choices," he said one night after we had shared a small umbrella ice cream. He watched me with an intensity so soft I thought I might melt.
The second heart-throb came when he, who had never been anything but reserved, slipped my damp hair behind my ear after a fall. "You looked scared," he said. "So I stayed."
"You're very nosy," I said.
"Possessive, maybe," he replied, and the words fell like a small, deliberate stone.
I wanted to be furious. I wanted to walk away and run home, to leave the man who had kissed me when I was unconscious. Instead I listened. I picked up my towel and sat with him without speaking. He put his hand on mine and held it as if he were reading a book with the corner dog-eared.
We traveled on to Thailand. The public shared-ice-cream thing at a restaurant where they insisted to mark us down as "couple" was mortifying and sweet at the same time. He ate from my mouth the last bite and kissed the cone. I flushed. The third heart-throb—an unexpected, ridiculous, tiny kiss that felt like a declaration from someone who rarely declared anything.
It should have been simple. It should have been only us with thin sunscreen between skin and sky.
But life is not kind to neat little plots.
Christina, in her best fun-loving way, had invited Emmett and a few others. Emmett tried his gentle apology and old charm and I had the courtesy to deflect. Stefano Alvarez, Christina's persistent admirer and a man who loved to pull strings, was something else. At a beach club in Phuket, he played a silly social game for the cameras. He bragged about his conquests. He teased people. He said things that rattled my calm like rocks in a pond.
He pulled Christina into the middle of a dare. He asked, loud and leering, "Who has the worst secret? Who slept with the boss recently?" The crowd laughed. Stefano winked and went on, needing oxygen from attention.
I left the table. Frost followed. That night at the club, I found Stefano leaning over a waiter, telling the story of "some girl who slept with a man higher up." He gestured. "Power play," he smirked. "We all know how those end."
I heard my name like a bell on a foggy morning. I decided then I would not be the subject of somebody else's gossip.
Two days later, there was a gala for a charity where several friends and business partners would mingle. Stefano planned to show up with his usual band of applause-needing people. He came in loud shoes and a loud mouth, and not alone—Christina was by his side, reluctant but smiling.
The room was full: clients, photographers, other secretaries, and a sea of familiar faces from the earlier trips. I went because I wanted to stand my ground. I've never been one for quiet apologies when my dignity is at stake.
Stefano started. "Did you see her on the beach? The one who kissed the boss? She looked like she owned the place. It's amusing, isn't it?" He raised his champagne. People laughed. Someone snapped photos. His voice echoed.
I walked to the center and told him plainly, "You are using my life as entertainment."
He smirked, "Relax. It's gossip. Entertainment."
I took a deep breath. I decided then to make his entertainment public in a way he could not control. I stepped up to the small stage where they were announcing the evening auction.
"Since we like confessions," I said, loudly, "Let me tell you what I know."
Faces turned as the room's laughter faded. Stefano's grin took a beat to rearrange. Frost watched from the side with an expression I could not read.
I continued, "Stefano likes to boast. He tells stories of making women the subject of his jokes. He also likes to record conversations when people are drunk and upload them for attention. He used to pressure Christina to do things she didn't want to do and then laughed when she complied."
My voice was steady. The room stilled.
He waved his hand. "You can't say that," he laughed. "You're overreacting."
"Is that what you call it when you circulate private videos?" I asked, and the humor in my voice died. "Is that what you call it when you encourage humiliation for your followers?"
People shifted. A few phones went up. "What proof?" someone demanded.
Kayden came to my side, nodding. He had pulled up messages from Stefano's account on a small tablet. The messages were raw, vulgar, unkind. They were dated. They named times and places and even quoted words Stefano had used to coerce someone into a joke that had humiliated Christina at a beach party.
"You're going to ruin me," Stefano said, voice cracking.
"No," I said. "You ruined yourself."
I read aloud the messages, the plans to set people up, the audio transcripts where he said, "Get her to drink, then make sure she's the one for the cameras." He brought up an image of a video clip where Stefano had mocked a woman and captioned it for viewers. He had laughed about an ex and made a bet that he could get a reaction. He treated people as props.
When I finished, the room was a museum of shocked faces. Someone whispered, "He did that? Here?"
Stefano's reaction hit the arc they teach in scripts: surprise, then anger, then denial, then cracking. He stammered, "No, those—those were jokes. People take them too seriously. It was just for fun."
"It wasn't fun for the person in the video," Christina said, stepping forward. Her voice quivered but was steady. "You made me look like someone who would do anything on a dare. You told everyone that if I didn't take the bait, I'd be no fun."
A woman from PR—Betty Ma—began to record. Others whispered. The photographers who had been present started taking shots of Stefano's face. He was not the center of attention anymore by design; he was being watched.
Frost remained silent until then. He left the side like a shadow and stood behind Stefano. He did not speak for a moment, only looked into Stefano's face with long, cool patience. Stefano flinched.
"You think this is a joke?" Frost said quietly.
Stefano tried to turn it into a joke again: "Heh, you two are serious about defending your people, aren't you?"
Frost's hand went to Stefano's shoulder in a move that was more command than touch. "You need to leave," he said. "Now."
Stefano laughed. "And if I don't? What are you going to do, boss-man?"
Kayden, who had been beside me, had a quiet steel in his voice. "We will show what you've done to clients and partners. We will show what you've written. People will see. You will not be invited to companies you think you own with your laugh."
Stefano's smile wavered. He had counted on light attention and a wink. This was not why he had come. Now the crowd hummed with something dangerous: pity turning to scorn. Frost's hand tightened; his presence alone made Stefano smaller.
Stefano's demeanor altered as if a wind had shifted. His bravado gave way to a thinner voice. "You are lying. I didn't—"
"You're the one who wrote it," Kayden said. "You sent the screenshots to your friends. You used your profile to post humiliating captions. You told colleagues you wanted to see who would do anything for likes."
He looked around. People stepped back. An older client, who had been smiling, folded his mouth tight and said, "We don't do this here. Show this to me and my board tomorrow."
Phones were pointed. The photographers who loved a scandal now had a different kind of headline.
Stefano's face paled. The party's center was suddenly the man who had cultivated small cruelties. His breathing increased. He tried to laugh, but it was hollow.
"People will see this," Frost said quietly. "People will not take your calls. You will apologize to Christina publicly. And if you ever use someone's private moment for your entertainment again, I will personally ensure your name is in every conversation about integrity in my industry."
There was silence—a clean, cold silence like the sound before rain.
Stefano's knees buckled a little. His arrogance drained as if someone had unplugged the spotlight. He clutched at his jacket, eyes glossy.
"Please," he tried. "I—I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
There were witnesses. There were whispers. Some applauded softly. Some took videos. It was public, and it was complete. It wasn't a criminal trial, and it didn't need to be. The circle had turned on him—the camera, the clients, the colleagues. He had no platform left in that room.
He left, shoulders hunched, his little band of supporters dissolving. People who once laughed at his stories now looked at him like a man with a paper lion coat soaked through.
After he left, Frost turned to me and said, "You did the right thing."
"Was that… harsh?" I asked.
"It was necessary," he said. "Some things need to be shown in the light."
I nodded, heart beating wild. There was relief and more: a new trust formed in the public space. It was small but real.
The weeks after were quieter. Stefano's name drifted into gossip and then thinned. Christina and I were closer. Emmett sent a message asking if we could talk, and I told him no. Kayden stood near me at my desk and did my job when I chose to lean back. We returned to the office, not the same and not as naive.
Frost and I had awkward mornings and softer nights. He still asked me to help with his ties, but now he also shared mango ice cream and the small warmth of a hand on cold days. He was not the same unapproachable man. He confided in me in clipped sentences that sounded enormous moving out of his mouth.
One evening, after a long day, he handed me a small, well-wrapped box.
"For you," he said.
I opened it. A silver shell necklace lay inside, a souvenir from a duty-free stall in Malaysia that I'd admired. It was beautiful and intimate and exactly the kind of thing a man who'd watched me like a compass might pick.
"Anastasia, will you—" he stopped. He never asked directly. His wrists were nervous.
"Will I what?" I asked.
He searched for words like someone mapping a foreign city. "Help me. Stay. Not as your boss. Stay—stay with me, in whatever that means."
I thought of a week off that had become a month, a life that had become messy and sweet. I thought of public rooms where men like Stefano got their due and of hands that steadied mine without asking for profit.
The ring of the silver shell against my collarbone was quiet and sea-scented. I reached up and touched it. "I don't know," I said honestly. "But I do know this: you surprised me."
He smiled then, small and real, the same smile that had been a shock in the Maldives. "I like surprises," he said. "Especially when they are worth keeping."
I laughed, a short, true laugh. "Then keep it."
That night, when the city hummed and the apartment was a thickness of hush, I let my head fall against his shoulder. It was not a perfect ending. It was a particular one—full of the small things that make anything worth the while.
When Stefano's story became court paper gossip, it did not hurt me. It made me stronger. I kept my job. I kept my dignity. I kept my pride.
And I kept a necklace that smelled faintly of beaches and a man who chose to stay.
The End
— Thank you for reading —