Temptation: Breaking Victoria Sharp

"So you do like my lips."

The words hit Victoria like a physical blow, stealing the breath from her lungs and leaving her speechless for the first time in recent memory. All her desperate explanations, her frantic justifications, her attempts to minimize what had happened between them, he had distilled them down to their essential truth with surgical precision.

She did like his lips. Had liked them enough to borrow them, as she'd so eloquently put it. Had liked them enough to think about them for weeks afterward, to remember their texture and warmth and the way they'd felt against hers in that moment of temporary insanity.

Victoria stood frozen in the center of her office, her finger still pointed accusingly at James, her mouth opening and closing without sound as she struggled to formulate a response that wouldn't damn her further. Her carefully constructed arguments lay in ruins around her feet, demolished by six simple words that cut straight to the heart of everything she'd been trying to deny.

She blinked rapidly, her hands clenching into fists at her sides as she fought to regain some semblance of composure. But the damage was done, her emotional walls breached by her own desperate need to explain away feelings she wasn't ready to acknowledge.

"I..." she began, then stopped, her voice failing her completely.

James waited, patient as always, giving her time to gather herself without pressure or judgment. But Victoria could see the satisfaction in his dark eyes, the quiet triumph of a man who'd just won a battle she hadn't even realized they were fighting.

"Tell Amara to get me a salad," she said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. "The usual. From the place on Fifth."

It was a retreat, pure and simple. An abandonment of the field disguised as a mundane request, a way to end the conversation before she humiliated herself further. Victoria knew it, James knew it, and the knowledge sat between them like an acknowledged defeat.

James studied her for a long moment, and Victoria could see him weighing his options, whether to press his advantage or allow her this small dignity. When he spoke, his voice was professionally neutral, giving no indication of the emotional carnage that had just occurred.

"Of course," he said simply. "I'll speak with Amara immediately."

He moved toward the door with quiet efficiency, but Victoria caught the slight smile that played at the corners of his mouth as he turned away. He was pleased with himself, satisfied with whatever ground he'd gained in their ongoing battle of wills.

The door closed behind him with a soft click, leaving Victoria alone with the wreckage of her composure and the uncomfortable realization that she'd just revealed far more than she'd intended. She stood motionless for several heartbeats, staring at the space James had occupied, before her legs finally gave out and she collapsed into her chair with boneless exhaustion.

The leather seat that usually cradled her with familiar comfort now felt foreign, unable to provide the support she needed as reality crashed over her in waves. Victoria Sharp, master of her universe, commander of her own destiny, woman who'd never met a challenge she couldn't conquer through sheer force of will had just been undone by six words from her strategic officer.

So you do like my lips.

Victoria leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, feeling more drained than she had since the early days of building her company when eighteen-hour workdays were standard and failure was a constant threat. But this exhaustion was different not the productive fatigue of hard work and strategic thinking, but the soul-deep weariness of fighting a battle against herself.

Because that's what this was, wasn't it? Not a battle against James or his peacocking or his quiet campaign to unsettle her equilibrium. It was a battle against her own feelings, her own attraction, her own growing awareness that James Mitchell had become something more significant than an employee in her carefully ordered world.

She was losing that battle. Had perhaps already lost it, if her breakdown was any indication. The walls she'd spent years constructing were crumbling under the patient pressure of James's campaign, leaving her exposed and vulnerable in ways that terrified her more than any corporate merger or regulatory challenge ever had.

Vulnerability? Victoria Sharp did not do vulnerable. She did not let emotion cloud her judgment, did not spend entire mornings obsessing over men's fashion choices or the memory of almost-kisses. Yet here she was, exactly that person she had sworn never to become, distracted, unfocused, emotionally compromised by a man who looked at her like he could see straight through all her carefully constructed defenses.

The worst part was that she was beginning to suspect she wanted him to see through her defenses. Wanted to stop fighting the attraction that grew stronger with each perfectly coordinated outfit, each moment of quiet confidence, each reminder that James Mitchell was no longer the deferential assistant she'd hired but a man who knew his own worth and wasn't afraid to claim space in her world.

The realization should have terrified her. Instead, as Victoria sat alone in her office with her composure in ruins and her usual confidence nowhere to be found, she felt something that might have been relief. The pretense was exhausting, the denial unsustainable, the battle against her own feelings a war she was destined to lose.

Perhaps it was time to consider surrender. Not to James, but to herself, to the part of her that wanted to stop analyzing and start feeling, to abandon control in favor of whatever was present between them.

The thought was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying, a leap into unknown territory that violated every principle Victoria had used to build her success. However, as she sat drained and conflicted in her executive chair, Victoria began to wonder if some risks might be worth taking, if some battles might be worth losing.

The question now was whether she had the courage to find out.