Page 1 of His to Command

one

. . .

Robin

I slipinto the office at precisely 8:27 every morning. Not early enough to seem eager, not late enough to draw attention. Perfect invisibility. That's the goal. For two years at Roth Enterprises, I've perfected the art of blending into beige walls and glass partitions, of making my soft, curvy body as unremarkable as the office furniture. Until today, when everything shatters.

The marketing department buzzes with the usual Monday energy—keyboards clicking, coffee machines gurgling, hushed conversations about weekend exploits. I tuck my bag beneath my desk and smooth down my navy pencil skirt, the one I bought a size too large so it wouldn't hug my hips. My white blouse buttons to the neck, a fabric fortress.

"Morning, Robin," calls Melissa from accounting. I offer a practiced smile in return—warm enough to be polite, brief enough to discourage conversation.

That's how I survive here. Polite but forgettable Robin Hastings, the marketing assistant who takes excellent notes andremembers everyone's coffee order but whose name most people struggle to recall. "The chubby girl with the good grades" from high school evolved into "the competent one who fades into the background" at Roth Enterprises.

It's safer this way. Curves like mine draw the wrong kind of attention, the kind that reduces you to parts rather than person. So I've learned to disappear. Hair pulled back in a tight bun, makeup minimal, clothes that conceal rather than reveal. The invisibility cloak of the corporate world.

My monitor flickers to life as I log in, the calendar notification making my stomach drop.

Marketing Department Meeting - Boardroom A - 9:00 AM - MANDATORY. CEO attending.

The CEO. Hudson Roth himself. The man whose name graces the building but who rarely graces us with his presence. Marketing meetings typically involve our department head, sometimes a VP. Never the CEO.

"Did you see the email?" whispers Janet, leaning over the partition that separates our desks. Her eyes are wide, bright with the gleeful terror of someone about to witness a bloodbath from a safe distance. "Roth is coming down. Apparently, the Johnson campaign numbers were shit."

My mouth goes dry. I worked on those projections, those careful columns of numbers that suggested cautious optimism. Nothing revolutionary, nothing that would draw attention. That's how I like my work—solid, unobtrusive, competent.

"Maybe he's just doing rounds," I suggest, though nobody in the history of corporate America has ever believed that a CEO showing up unannounced was "just doing rounds."

Janet snorts. "Yeah, and maybe I'm getting a promotion today." She taps her coral nails against my desk. "Wear your thickest skin, Robin. They say he can smell fear."

I spend the next twenty minutes preparing—gathering my portfolio of work, reviewing the Johnson numbers, trying to find where I might have made an error. My hands tremble slightly, leaving faint pencil smudges on my notepad. It's not rational, this fear. I'm a tiny cog in this machine. If the Johnson campaign failed, the blame will fall on people far above my pay grade.

Still, I find myself in the bathroom five minutes before the meeting, staring at my reflection. Hazel eyes with gold flecks that my mother once called special look ordinary to me, especially behind my practical glasses. I dab at a strand of dark hair that's escaped my bun, tucking it firmly back in place. My lips are pale from gnawing at them, so I apply a touch of tinted balm. Not to look pretty—to look professional, put-together, unmemorable.

Walking into Boardroom A feels like entering a gladiatorial arena. Already, the glass table is surrounded by people clutching notebooks and tablets like shields. I slide into a seat near the back, arranging my materials with mechanical precision—notepad perfectly aligned with the edge of the table, two pens placed just so.

"He's coming," someone whispers, and the room falls into charged silence.

The double doors swing open, and Hudson Roth walks in.

I've seen him before, of course. His face is on the company website, on business magazines, occasionally in tabloids with some willowy model or actress on his arm. But none of those prepared me for the reality of him.

He's tall—taller than I expected—his broad shoulders stretching the fabric of a suit that probably costs more than my monthly rent. His jawline could cut glass, and his jet-black hair is styled with just enough product to look deliberate but not fussy. But it's his eyes that freeze me in place. Steel gray, coldas winter morning, scanning the room like a predator assessing which prey to take down first.

Everyone's back straightens. The air thins. He doesn't sit immediately but walks the perimeter of the table, a gesture so dominantly territorial it makes something primal in me want to shrink further into my chair.

"The Johnson campaign," he says, his voice deep and crisp, requiring no amplification to fill the room. "Someone explain to me why we're twenty percent below projections."

The marketing VP launches into a defense that sounds rehearsed, all technical terms and market fluctuations. I keep my eyes on my notepad, scribbling relevant points, drawing my usual neat boxes around action items. Safe in my invisibility.

Until I feel it. A weight on my skin, like a physical touch.

I glance up.

Hudson Roth is staring directly at me.

Not a passing look. Not a general sweep of the room. His steel eyes are fixed on mine with an intensity that makes my lungs forget how to draw air. I feel a heat rising from my collar, up my neck, blooming across my cheeks in what I know is a mortifying flush.

Look away, I command myself. But I can't. His gaze holds mine prisoner, and in that eternal moment, something shifts in the room—in the world. His expression changes almost imperceptibly. The corner of his mouth lifts, not quite a smile but something more dangerous.

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