My Brother's Worst Enemy Craves Me

Skye's POV

At exactly 9 a.m, I stood outside his office door, frozen there for a full three minutes before I could finally make myself knock.

I lifted my hand, hesitated for just a second, then knocked twice before I could change my mind.

“Come in.”

I turned the handle and stepped inside, and the first thing that hit me was how massive his office was. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. A dark mahogany desk that probably cost more than my mother's entire house. Bookshelves lined with leather-bound volumes that looked like they had never been touched. Everything was clean, expensive, and cold, just like the man sitting behind the desk.

Thorne didn't look up when I walked in. He was reading something on his laptop, one hand resting on the desk, the other holding a silver pen that he tapped slowly against the surface. He wore a black suit today, no tie, the top two buttons of his shirt undone just enough to show the edge of his collarbone. His jaw was freshly shaved, his dark hair pushed back, and he looked like he had slept perfectly well, which made me hate him even more because I hadn't slept at all.

I stood in front of his desk and waited. Five seconds. Ten seconds. Fifteen.

He still didn't look up.

"Good morning," I finally said, because the silence was starting to suffocate me.

"Sit down," he said without glancing at me.

I sat in the leather chair across from him and folded my hands in my lap to keep them from shaking. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it from where he sat.

He clicked something on his laptop, then finally closed it. When he looked up at me, his expression was completely blank. No warmth. No trace of the man who had groaned against my neck yesterday and called me sweet.

He reached into the top drawer of his desk, pulled out a thin stack of papers held together with a black clip, and slid them across the desk toward me.

"Sign this."

I blinked. "What?"

"Sign it," he repeated, like I was wasting his time.

I picked up the document carefully, like it might bite me, and started reading the first page. At the top, it said *Personal Assistant Employment Contract* in bold letters, followed by my full name, his full name, and the company's legal information. It looked normal enough. Standard. Professional.

Then I got to the second clause.

My hands started shaking.

By the third clause, my mouth had gone dry. By the fourth, my pulse was racing so fast I felt lightheaded. By the fifth, I stopped reading entirely and looked up at him with wide eyes.

"What is this?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Your employment contract," he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands across his stomach like this was the most boring meeting of his entire day.

"This isn't an employment contract," I said, and my voice cracked on the last word. I held up the papers and shook them slightly, the pages trembling in my grip. "This is insane. You can't be serious."

"I am completely serious."

"Clause three says I agree to be exclusively available to you for a period of six months," I read out loud, my eyes scanning the words again because I needed to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. "Clause four says I will fulfill all duties assigned to me by Mr. Anderson, both professional and personal, at his discretion. Clause five says I cannot engage in romantic or intimate relationships with any other person for the duration of this agreement." I looked up at him. "What does any of this have to do with being your personal assistant?"

He stared at me without blinking. "Everything."

"This isn't a job contract, Thorne. This is a... this is..." I couldn't even finish the sentence because I didn't know what word to use. My brain was short-circuiting, bouncing between shock and anger and something else that I refused to name. "You're asking me to be yours. Exclusively. Intimately. For six months. Under the disguise of a PA position."

"I'm not disguising anything," he said calmly. "The terms are written clearly in front of you."

"Why?" The word burst out of me louder than I intended, and I saw something flicker behind his eyes before it disappeared. "Why are you doing this? Why me? You could have anyone, literally anyone, so why are you sitting there asking me to sign my life over to you for six months?"

He was quiet for a moment. Just one moment. And in that silence, something shifted in his expression, something raw and honest and almost vulnerable that vanished so quickly I wasn't sure I had actually seen it.

Then he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, and looked at me with those ice-blue eyes that had haunted me since I was fourteen years old.

"Because I want you, Skye," he said, and his voice was low and steady but there was something underneath it, something that sounded almost like desperation being held on a very tight leash. "All of you. Every single inch. And I'm willing to pay for the privilege."

My breath caught in my throat. The way he said it, so direct, so unapologetic, like wanting someone was the same as deciding to acquire a company or buy a building, it made my skin prickle with heat and my stomach tighten with something that felt dangerously close to desire.

"Turn to the last page," he said.

I didn't want to. Every instinct told me not to. But my hands moved anyway, flipping to the final page of the contract where the compensation details were outlined in bold print.

Monthly salary: $30,000.

I stared at that number for so long that the digits started to blur.

Thirty thousand dollars. Per month. For six months. That was one hundred and eighty thousand dollars total, more money than I had ever imagined earning in my entire life, let alone in half a year.

But that wasn't what made my chest tighten until I couldn't breathe.

Thirty thousand dollars a month was exactly what my brother earned. Exactly. Down to the last zero. Ethan had worked for over a decade to reach that salary. He had gone through four years of medical school, three years of residency, two years of fellowship, and countless sleepless nights in operating rooms to climb to that number. It had taken him his entire adult life to get there.

And Thorne was offering it to me like it was pocket change.

Something cold settled in my stomach as I realized that this couldn't be a coincidence. Thorne knew. He knew exactly what my brother earned, and he had chosen that number on purpose. Whether it was to prove a point, to taunt Ethan through me, or to dangle the one figure that would hit me hardest emotionally, he had done it deliberately.

Everything this man did was deliberate.

I put the contract down on the desk and pressed my palms flat against my thighs to keep them from trembling.

"I need to think about this," I said.

"Take your time," he said, but the way his eyes stayed locked on mine told me he didn't mean it. He wanted an answer now. He wanted me to pick up that pen and sign my name and hand myself over to him for six months without a fight.

But I couldn't. Not yet. Not without thinking it through.

This was Thorne Damian Anderson. The man my brother had warned me against for ten years. The man whose name was forbidden in my home. The man who had fired me, humiliated me, touched me in ways that still made my body ache when I thought about them.

And now he was sitting across from me, offering me thirty thousand dollars a month to be his. Exclusively. Intimately. Completely.

I stood up, picked up the contract, and held it against my chest.

"I'll give you my answer tomorrow," I said, and I was proud of how steady my voice came out even though my insides were falling apart.

He watched me walk to the door. I could feel his gaze on my back like a physical touch, heavy and warm and impossible to ignore.

"Skye," he said, just as my hand reached the door handle.

I stopped but didn't turn around.

"Don't take too long," he said quietly. "I'm not a patient man."

I opened the door and walked out without looking back, my heart slamming against my ribs and the contract burning like a live wire against my chest.

Thirty thousand dollars a month.

Six months of belonging to Thorne.

And a voice in the back of my head that sounded terrifyingly like my own whispering, *You already know what you're going to say.*