Rouge et Acier

The first thing I noticed about Colin Harrison was that he didn't blink.

Not when I told him his predecessor had lasted exactly six weeks. Not when I explained that I required coffee at 7:15 AM, not 7:20, not 7:10, but 7:15 exactly. Not when I gestured at the desk I'd wedged into the corner of my office, a cramped little coffin of a workspace where the radiators hissed like angry geese and the window offered a view of nothing but the brick wall of the building next door.

He just stood there. Six foot three of tailored navy suit, broad shoulders that strained the seams just slightly, and those eyes. Blue steel, I'd called them in the interview. I'd laughed at myself for the cliché, but now I understood. They were the color of a winter sky over the North Sea, cold and depthless and unreadable.

I hated him immediately.

"You'll find the dress code is strict," I said, settling back into my chair. I didn't offer him a seat. "No facial hair. No scuffed shoes. No visible tattoos, if you have them."

"I don't."

"Good. Your predecessor had a sleeve. Thought it made him edgy. It made him look like he'd wandered in from a motorcycle rally."

Colin's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Something close to a warning. "Noted."

I picked up a sketch pad, flipped it open, made a show of studying the lines I'd drawn the night before. The silence stretched. He didn't fill it. Most people can't stand silence. They rush to stuff it with words, with explanations, with apologies. Colin Harrison let it breathe. He stood there like a statue in that ridiculous suit, and he waited.

I looked up. "You can go. Be here at 7:10 tomorrow. I like my staff early."

"7:15," he said. "You said 7:15."

I felt my jaw tighten. "I said I required coffee at 7:15. I require you here at 7:10."

"Then you should have said that."

The room went very quiet. The radiators hissed. Somewhere in the studio, a sewing machine stuttered and stopped. I could feel the eyes of my design team through the glass wall of my office, all of them pretending not to watch, all of them holding their breath.

I smiled. It was not a kind smile. "Colin. Let me be clear. I don't need an assistant who corrects me. I need an assistant who anticipates me. Who knows what I want before I want it. Who reads my mind and makes it happen before I've finished thinking the thought. Can you do that?"

"I can try."

"Try isn't good enough."

"Try is all anyone can do." He held my gaze. "The rest is luck and timing."

I should have fired him then. I should have called HR and told them to send me someone else, someone with a softer spine and a weaker stare. Someone who would flinch when I raised my voice. Someone who would learn to be afraid.

But I didn't.

I told myself it was because I didn't have time to train another assistant. I told myself it was because his references were impeccable and his CV was a work of art. I told myself it was because the collection was due in twelve weeks and I couldn't afford the disruption.

I didn't tell myself the truth. The truth was a dark, pulsing thing I kept locked in a drawer I never opened. The truth was that I wanted someone who would fight back.

The truth was that I was tired of winning.

The first week was a bloodbath.

I tested him every way I knew how. I sent him to three different fabric suppliers in one morning and told him I needed swatches by noon. I gave him a list of twenty phone calls to make and changed the priority order three times. I spilled coffee on a sketch and made him watch while I threw it in the bin, then told him to retrieve it because I'd changed my mind.

He did it all. Without complaint. Without that tight little smile of martyrdom that men wear when they think they're being patient with a difficult woman. He just did the work, and he did it well.

And he never stopped looking at me.

Not in the way men usually looked at me. Not with that hungry, calculating gaze that tried to undress me while pretending to listen. Colin's gaze was different. It was analytical. Clinical. Like I was a problem he was trying to solve. Like he was taking notes on every move I made, every word I said, every flicker of expression that crossed my face.

It was unnerving. It was infuriating. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to me in years.

By Friday, I was exhausted. The collection was fighting me. The zippers on the autumn line kept puckering, and the silk I'd ordered from Milan was the wrong weight, and my lead pattern cutter had called in sick with a migraine that I suspected was actually a hangover. I'd been in the studio since six, and I'd eaten nothing but a stale croissant and three cups of coffee.

At seven, Colin appeared at my desk with a bowl of soup.

"You haven't eaten," he said.

"I'm not hungry."

"You're starving yourself. It's not a good look."

I stared at the soup. It was tomato. My favorite. I hadn't told him my favorite. "How did you know I like tomato?"

"The croissant you ate this morning was from the French bakery on Mercer Street. You threw away the first bite because it was too buttery, but you finished the rest. That means you like savory, not sweet. And you ordered the tomato soup at the staff lunch last Tuesday, even though the menu offered five other options."

I felt something cold slide down my spine. "You've been watching me."

"I've been paying attention. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

He set the soup down on my desk. The spoon clinked against the bowl. "Eat. I'll finish the call sheets."

I should have told him to take the soup away. I should have reminded him that I was the boss, that I didn't take orders from my assistant, that I didn't need to be managed or mothered or whatever the hell this was.

Instead, I picked up the spoon.

The soup was perfect. Warm and thick and just salty enough. I ate it standing at my desk, watching Colin work through the glass wall of my office. He moved through the studio like he owned it, calm and unhurried, answering questions, solving problems, smoothing over the little disasters that had been accumulating all week.

By the time I finished the soup, the tension in my shoulders had loosened. By the time I set the bowl down, I had made a decision.

I was going to sleep with him.

Not tonight. Not tomorrow. But soon. I was going to take that tall, composed, infuriating man and I was going to break him open. I was going to find the crack in his armor and I was going to slide inside it, and when I was done, he would be just like all the others. Begging. Broken. Disposable.

It was a terrible idea. It was the worst idea I'd had in months. It was the only idea that made me feel alive.

I pulled out my phone and texted my current lover, a banker named Marcus whose name I kept forgetting. *Not tonight. Busy.*

He replied with a sad face emoji. I didn't reply.

Colin looked up from across the studio. Our eyes met through the glass. He held my gaze for a long moment, and then he smiled.

It was not a submissive smile. It was not a grateful smile. It was the smile of a man who knew exactly what I was thinking, and who had already decided that he was going to win.

I smiled back.

Let him think that.

I had never lost a game I actually wanted to win. And I wanted to win this one so badly I could taste it, metallic and sweet, like blood on my tongue.